July Updates from the Guest Editor’s Desk

Thank you, poetry. 

I’m writing this last blog post while looking out the window at my dad’s summer garden, thinking about all the animals and insects and leafy things making things work outside. I’m thinking, too, about all the people who write, read, and perform poems, and how they are everywhere in the world, feeding and tilling and fertilizing and germinating and creating harvest with their words. I hope these three issues of Poetry have done one or all of those things for you, and I look forward to seeing the work of all other editors, guest and otherwise. 

The July/August issue is double wide, so there are more poems, features, and amazing poetry! The cover, designed by Jade Pilgrom, is the last in her Alabama triptych. The quilt-like lettering is inspired by the quilts made by Alabama’s Gee’s Bend Quilt Collective, women whose tradition stretches back across centuries. Inside this cover-quilt, there’s also the Quilt of Alabama Poets feature, a collection of eleven Alabama poets* writing in various modes and media. Check out Josh Alex Baker’s golden shovel after Pat Parker and its accompanying video, listen to Jacqueline Allen Trimble’s four audio recordings and her podcast episode (coming soon), hear Charlotte Pence read poetry with the trill of birdsong chiming in, and read Kwoya Fagin Maples’s poems which flutter with nature’s delicate beauty and the human harshness within—and this is just a small sampling of what the writers of my home state have to offer. Here’s to the ways in which Alabama will continue to show up in the world in poem and in spirit. 

The second feature includes poets laureate** from across the nation—laureates of states, cities, counties, regions—writing about what it means to represent and uplift poetry in their area and how the pandemic impacted the job. There are microessays, poems, and also several links and descriptions of projects happening in those areas below. Poets laureate are so important to the literary fabric of our nation, and my hope is that we continue to celebrate them and join them in the work of putting community first, always. 

This double issue also includes the visual poetry of Monica Ong and Jason Méndez, whose works, although different in style, bring a vibrant pulse to the issue that literally flows off the page. Ong’s foldouts are physically impressive in the print issue, and their digital counterparts are equally as stunning. Méndez blurs the lines between human development and the development of a dandelion all while invoking our nation’s poet laureate, Joy Harjo. 

It has been a joy to serve the community in this guest editor position for the last three issues. I’m grateful to each poet for giving their words, images, videos, audio files, and spirits during my tenure. Here’s to the work and the people, always. 

 

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*Complete list of Alabama poets: Laura Secord, Alina Stefanescu, Nabila Lovelace, Jason McCall, Charlotte Pence, Jacqueline Allen Trimble, Jennifer Horne, Kimberly Casey, Josh Alex Baker, Voice Porter, Kwoya Fagin Maples

**Complete list of poets laureate: Jennifer Horne, Aileen Cassinetto, JoAnn Balingit, Sofia M. Starnes, Luisa A. Igloria, Debora Kuan, Beth Ann Fennelly, Janice Lobo Sapigao, M. Bartley Siegel, TC Tolbert

In addition to pieces in the issue, check out these events and projects from some poets laureate, below. (Poetry welcomes the submission of prose pieces like those in the issue from poets laureate and other folks uplifting poets and poetry in their communities.)

JoAnn Balingit
This is my upcoming class description below, offered free and virtually by Delaware Libraries, Wednesday evenings this October. The link is not yet online, but will be here and at my website events page once the link is live.

“Harvest” class description: In this four-week poetry class October 6-27, 2021, we’ll read and write poems that ask, “What is a successful harvest? In a world disrupted by human existence, how do we give back more than we take?” All levels welcome.

Aileen Cassinetto
As part of my Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, I am working on a youth ecopoetry docufilm, and part of our pre-production activities are ecopoetry workshops by 2021 US Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh, 2020 US Youth Poet Laureate Meera Dasgupta and others as well as field trips and a crowd-sourced poem.

Some of my forthcoming (and past) projects are posted here.

Here is a short description of the docufilm project: “Youth Ecopoets Toward a More Sustainable Future” (working title)

Summary: How do we re-imagine a more sustainable future particularly in the Bay Area? Using the medium of film and poetry, this youth-oriented project will highlight creative and sustainable solutions to our environmental challenges.

Background: San Mateo County, one of the nine counties which make up Northern California’s Bay Area, is a peninsula surrounded by water and mountain habitats. It is also one of the most vulnerable to climate change given its “eroding coastline, rising bayshore ... and increasing risk of significant wildfires.” With a total area of 741 square miles, this unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone people is home to several endangered species native to the county, as well as to over 766,000 people. Demographically, nearly 270,000 of us are foreign-born (including this author); more than 150,000 are under the age of 18; 130,000 are elderly; nearly 7,000 are American Indians/Alaska Native, and over 45,000 are living in poverty—groups most impacted by climate change. Additionally, climate change poses a threat to San Mateo County’s food, floral and nursery crops, livestock and commercial fish catch, and the nearly 70,000 people working in the service and farm industry.

Goals: Use the power of film and poetry to tell a story about our ecological/environmental challenges from the point of view of young people.

Beth Ann Fennelly
My poet laureate project was a queer literary festival called The Glitterary Festival. Next year’s festival will be Friday, April 29, and the keynote will be Jericho Brown!

The Mississippi Book Festival is on August 21. The poetry panel will feature Ashley M. Jones. Catherine Pierce, and Sandra Beasley

Jennifer Horne
The main thing I’d point to is a project I began in April 2020 in an attempt to bring some attention to Alabama poets who had books coming out but couldn’t get out in the world for readings. Every day for all of National Poetry Month, I recorded a video of myself reading a poem by an Alabama poet and then posted it to my Twitter feed (the first official feed for an Alabama poet laureate) and my Facebook page as a public post.

This article tells more about that month.

When April ended, I decided to shift to a once-a-week poem, which I called the Mid-Week Poetry Break, again featuring almost all Alabama poets. More than a year later, I’m still doing it.

Luisa Igloria
I have just launched one of my key Poet Laureate Fellowship Projects—this one, in collaboration with the Poetry Society of Virginia.

And in April, I did a Virginia Poem-a-Day modeled on the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day features.

Debora Kuan
I was just invited to read at the Connecticut Historical Society on Saturday, October 16 as part of their MakeUsVisibleCT campaign to bring AAPI studies to K-12 CT public school curriculum. Details here.

Paisley Rekdal
Myself, I’m extremely fortunate because I have a university job and a fantastic grant from the Mellon Foundation/Academy of American Poets that made these recent community projects possible: Mapping Literary Utah and “West.” It’s also allowed me to fund two different writing conferences in Utah, including the Utah Poetry Festival, and also allowed me to give lots of mini-grants to poets and artists across my state. “West” is a book-length documentary poem about the cultural impact of the transcontinental railroad on America, seen specifically through a Chinese lens. It is a re-imagination of how Utah and the West have been made and impacted by Asian labor. Mapping Literary Utah is meant particularly to celebrate the writers who live or work in Utah.

Janice Sapigao
Here are links to the Santa Clara County Youth Poet Laureate Program, a piece on how young people have turned to poetry as a form of healing during the pandemic, and an announcement of the finalists for the youth poet laureate of Santa Clara County.

Sofia Starnes
I was invited to give a reading at the Williamsburg Regional Library on July 24, 2021.

TC Tolbert
I'm always updating the trans poetry resource so I'd love to know what trans and/or non-binary books or chapbooks I'm missing/should add to this link.

And I'm continuing to facilitate the free trans and nonbinary poetry zoom spaces on Wednesdays, starting again in the fall. Probably the best place to keep up with that is my website.

And I'm teaching this two-day workshop for The Home School (I'm so excited about this—been dreaming of this curriculum—using structures of plants as forms for poems!).