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\nBryan Byrdlong\u2019s Strange Flowers \r\nis a staggering debut that maps \r\nthe lines and links between the \r\nliving and undead, ritual and \r\nwhere the speaker belongs. \r\nByrdlong\u2019s exploration of the \r\nzombie, from the Caribbean to \r\ncocktails, marks what changes us, \r\ntakes us out of ourselves, and \r\nwhy we long to be transformed.\r\n\u2014Donika Kelly, author of \r\n\"The Renunciations and Bestiary\"<\/pre>\n<\/blockquote>\nBryan Byrdlong<\/a> is a Black poet from Chicago, Illinois. His debut poetry collection, Strange Flowers<\/em>, is out from YesYes Books in 2025.<\/a> He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the Helen Zell Writers Program and has been published in Guernica Magazine<\/em>, The Kenyon Review<\/em>, and Poetry Magazine<\/em>, among others. Bryan received a 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. He is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at USC in Los Angeles. Bryan is a Cave Canem Fellow.<\/p>\n
Bryan Byrdlong is a Black poet from Chicago, Illinois. His debut poetry collection, Strange Flowers, is out from YesYes Books in 2025. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the Helen Zell Writers Program and has been published in Guernica Magazine, The Kenyon Review, and Poetry Magazine, among others. Bryan received a 2021 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation. He is currently a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at USC in Los Angeles. Bryan is a Cave Canem Fellow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bryan Byrdlong\u2019s Strange Flowers is a staggering debut that maps the lines and links between the living and undead, ritual and where the speaker belongs. Byrdlong\u2019s exploration of the zombie, from the Caribbean to cocktails, marks what changes us, takes us out of ourselves, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":5908,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[16,14,17],"tags":[5],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/09\/16202051\/Screenshot-2025-09-16-152016.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5907"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5911,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5907\/revisions\/5911"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}