Do You Want to Start a Press with Us?
Plus, two poems by Nikki Fragala Barnes
The Poetry Salon is Starting a Press - You Come Too!
“Let the beauty you love be what you do.” - Rumi.
In difficult times people need poetry.
They need places where they can come together, express solidarity, make their voices heard, and feel empowered. One way poets can help build a better world is to offer each other our time, talent, and unity. Another way is to expand opportunities for people to hear each other and feel heard.
To that end, we are launching a new kind of poetry press that will act as a collective, where poets not only share their poetry, but also pool their talent, gaining skills for helping other poets to learn writing techniques, promote their work, inspire new writers, and bring more poetry into their communities. As always, I feel the best way for us to move forward is to collaborate, so as we work on this project, I want to hear from you how you want to be involved and what you most want from this endeavor.
If you are interested in joining us, please take a moment to fill out this survey and let me know what you would most like to learn from/ contribute to this project.
What do you want from a teaching press?
You can also help us launch this press by donating here.
Donate Here to Help The Poetry Salon Launch a Teaching Press
I want to say that, as I’ve been reaching out to the community, I’ve already been blown away by the number of talented folks who have told me they want to help start this press and make it grow. If you’re wondering why we would do this crazy thing, here are just a few reasons.
Working on a press can help you . . .
Elevate your reputation as a writer
Meet and develop relationships with new and established poets
Learn tools for publishing, promoting, event-planning, teaching, etc.
Help you feel empowered to build something beautiful
One poet who I’ve met through my initial steps to starting this press is the poet Nikki Fragala Barnes. She was our featured poet at Words with You last week, and I’ll be interviewing her on The Poetry Saloncast later today. Let me introduce you to her work through two of her poems, here.
A terminal poem after Susan Lilley’s “Fall” [https://burrowpress.com/fall-susan-lilley/] sometimes a poem or a life is ordinary, like a day when a car slowly backs into your driver side door and you hear good advice about insurances and turn radius and when you get home, dinner is waiting, with green bean(s) and several options for topping baked potatoes — flavors and seasons marry and merge like days and seasons combine, run together, ask me again if it’s still summer8 my favorite color has always been grey (or is it gray?) and I’ve loved the fall so much more than autumn maybe because my soul’s never needed spice the irrelevance of fabric softener or air freshener compared with the deeper aromatic(s) emanating from love exhausted and well worn, the confusing marquis moments in a day I think you might be the one after all, this our life’s work, to fold towels, doublecheck the locks, kiss your mouth in the middle of another season — they have their own hurricanes, fool us that a generator is what’s needed or someone to trim the tree limbs while we roll the dice and spin the wheel even an argument is a classroom (did Mary and Joseph fight about mangers?) I really am glad you hired someone to cut the trees I keep thinking about the coming weather and the temperature of our shared spaces, and how much I’m looking forward to wearing my old boots to walk to my classroom, which won’t see winter (the season or the song) until one more of us leaves I used to love that line about purple mountains and majesty until I learned there’s more than glory seeded in the hearts of people, contempt blooms in nations and families — so complex — everyone wants a cottage or a bungalow no one wants to talk about median income or raising minimum wage finally I can feel the squeeze and crunch as we each struggle through street(s) with only the small dreams left to follow as my hair has gone almost completely white still I never stopped feeling hungry which is really a kind of hope that needed to know its own satisfaction is a celebration not the wish to be happy but choosing something more nuanced and grateful leaning into each loss, one more here a chime on my phone, this grown child I’m sending forth9 into his own pain betting on his better angels (I never trusted rainbows) right now it’s golf not soccer a year with two olympics plus a protest since no one decides the convergence of athletics season(s) alongside waxing virus season(s) but I keep hearing you say to stay in you want to use the yellow bowls while I still can’t believe they cut so much of the trees and maybe I liked the denser shade, this new cleared driveway is shifting sight lines — I think I can see the forest I know I can see the sun flare and relent, glaring gold I feel the shedding, an inner fall the first teenager leaves — before bed, I still turn on the light an offering I’d make a space for them (them is me, is us, is we is many, is all) to encounter what is lost - traces, layers, a ritual, and invite them / us / you to welcome the material and the acts of making a way of engaging what does and does not make sense what dies, what continues, torn to experiment, to question to cut,to cull, to heal, to see, asking where do we locate consolation amid desolation what comes from creation, from our willingness to witness when the tropics spiral and the mountainsides slide to un/suture the land, the riverbanks, ourselves the legacies of our great losses - the call with all of history, a collaboration as we stitch and heat and attach and carve and write our way again what cries out to be witnessed? Heard? healed? questioned? what happens at the softening? accompanying this offering is my cup of loss running over it means yours living waters, spirit-filled, acts of presence we, the vessels of time and tenderness here drink
Here’s What’s Coming up Next at The Poetry Salon
Sunday, June 29th, 10 am, PST/ 1 pm, EST: How to Plan a Successful Book Tour (Rescheduled from June 22nd)
In this workshop, Tresha Faye Haefner will share with you her tips and tricks for planning a book tour that is affordable and even profitable. You will get materials you can use for deciding where to go and when to go, sample letters to venues to announce your new book and ask for collaboration on a reading, and even sample emails to help you get paid gigs at libraries and other locations. Plus, you’ll get moral support and access to a network of fellow poets and promoters who can help you arrange a tour.
To register, either PayPal $25 to TreshaFayeHaefner@Gmail.com
or become a Paid Subscriber to this Substack.
Register for This Reading for Free
