Responding to Tender Buttons
Three Poets Respond to Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons at the Café Muse Literary Salon
Our poetry community is gifted by having poet Karren Alenier as a sort of Gertrude Stein scholar in residence. With her three volume anthology From the Belly series, Alenier has created a community of poets responding to Stein’s seminal work, Tender Buttons.
Last Monday, I had the enormous pleasure of joining a small cadre of poets reading their poems from the third book in the series titled, Rooms. If you have not done so already, I urge your to checkout the complete program in YouTube.
To get a feel for Alenier’s usual procedure with From the Belly, I’ve taken three clips from the reading that demonstrate the process: 1) a recitation of passages assigned to the poet, 2) a reading of the poem inspired by the passages, and 3) a brief discussion of the process used in writing the inspired poem.
Karren Alenier: No Use in a Center & Silver and Sweet Crosswords
Alenier wrote two responses to the opening stanzas of Rooms, starting with the first sentence, “Act so that there is no use in a center.” as read by poet Majda Gama. From that first austere sounding imperative, get ready for a trip back to Virgil’s Aeneid.
A word of caution. As Karren is always keen to point out, one should not “go into the Steinian woods alone.”
M. Mack (they/he): The Granulation of Mass Cells and Other Things
M. Mack is a trans poet who brought the house down with the response poem, The Granulation of Mass Cells and Other Things. This is a great example of how the words of Stein can open up a deeply personal and moving landscape of poetry.
Henry Crawford: Gertrude & Albert
Having already written one of my favorite poems for From the Belly I, An Open Piano (here’s a video reading of that poem), I was a bit tentative approaching another Steinian adventure. That is until I saw the phrase “a wretched use of summer” in my assigned text and that reminded me that Stein published Tender Buttons during one of the most “wretched” summers of the 20th Century, that of 1914. And it’s hard not to think of that time without remembering Einstein putting the finishing touches on the General Theory of Relativity. So I created a dialog, imagining these two “Steins” as an old couple teasing each other about their accomplishments.
Both An Open Piano and Gertrude & Albert are reprinted in Screens.
Coming Up
January 5, , 2026, at 7:00 pm at the Writer’s Center, Cafe Muse will present poets Henry Crawford and Greg McBride. The Writer’s Center is at 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD or join online through Zoom. There will be a brief open mic for live participants at the Writer’s Center. Register at: https://sites.google.com/view/cafe-muse-events/home.
December 6, 2025, from 2-4pm. Poets in the Conversation Room featuring Majda Gama and Zeina Azzam Free and open to the public, ST Johns College of Annapolis Mellon Hall. Coffee, pastry, and poetry.
Have a reading or event coming up? Let me know and I’ll pass it along. And as always, feel free to email me with questions or comments at henrycrawfordpoetry@gmail.com. Use the subject “Coming Up” Stay creative!
If you’d like me to list an upcoming poetry event in Everyday Poet, please let me know by emailing me at henrycrawfordpoetry@gmail.com. Use the subject: “Coming Up”.