Archive November 2018

Christy Duprey is a graphic artist, and a staff writer and podcast producer for Pine Reads Review, an online publication for young adult literature showcasing new and established writers. She has also interned with Sonora Review and volunteered at the Champlain College Young Writers’ Conference. Currently a senior at the University of Arizona, Duprey created the podcast Pine Reads Pod Reviews, which invites their interns, and guest hosts, to review the best and latest young adult literature.

On September 27, author Dhonielle Clayton—cofounder of Cake Literary, a literary development company, and the chief operating officer of the nonprofit We Need Diverse Books—made quite the splash in the Sonoran Desert of Tucson, Arizona. Clayton, whose novel The Belles (Freeform, 2018) was recently recommended for the 2019 CILIP Carnegie Medal, came to Tucson at the invitation of Pine Reads Review and with the support of a grant from Poets & Writers’ Reading & Workshops program. She was able to organize two events at the University of Arizona, highlighting her accomplishments both as an author and an advocate for increasing diversity in children’s and young adult literature.

The evening event featured Clayton speaking about her journey into the literary world, focusing in particular on her mission to tell underrepresented stories. After an introduction from Pine Reads Review’s director Stephanie Pearmain, Clayton began by saying, “you can’t be what you can’t see,” pointing out that too few kids and teens see their own lives on the page. Not just lives centered around systemic struggles of race, sexuality, or disability, but lives that are about having fun. There are a great many stories out there of Black children facing down the horrors of slavery or civil rights abuses, she reminded the audience, but shockingly few about Black children discovering a magical land or going on a secret quest. When asked why her writing and the work published by her book developing company tend to skew more towards delightful adventure than inherited cultural pain, her answer was simple: “I want to create books that are just about kids doing fun stuff, and not dealing with drama.”

The evening talk attracted members of the community ranging from teenage fans to teachers and librarians, as well as local writers hoping for insight into the publishing industry.

In addition, Clayton held a workshop earlier in the day with the university’s publishing class to offer wisdom on the ins and outs of “the business” to juniors and seniors. In an environment where students are frequently pushed to—and often beyond—their breaking points, her advice was refreshing. She advocated for slowing down, for taking the time you need to get the writing right and take care of yourself. A round of chuckles followed her pronouncement: “There are days where you just have to be disgusting and watch Netflix, and then the next day you’re back to the grind.” It was a breath of fresh air to a room full of young writers hoping to enter an industry where burnout is common and stress levels are often high.

Clayton’s visit served as a reminder to aspiring writers that even when books are the focus, it’s the people who matter. She offered a vision of publishing that lifts others up. “As writers,” she said, “we have been given the great privilege to create something that gives people a space to explore who they are.”

Support for Readings & Workshops in Tucson is provided by an endowment established with generous contributions from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Aldrin Valdez is a Pinoy artist and the author of ESL or You Weren’t Here (Nightboat Books, 2018). Their poetry and visual art has appeared in the Felt, Femmescapes, Nat. Brut, Poor Claudia, and the Recluse. They have presented work at Dixon Place, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Poetry Project, and been awarded fellowships from Queer/Art/Mentorship and Poets House. Currently Valdez curates the Segue Reading Series with fellow poet Joël Díaz.

On October 27 I led a workshop at the Bureau of General Services–Queer Division (BGSQD), currently hosted by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City. The workshop was organized by Sarah Sala, founder of the Office Hours poetry workshop, with support from Poets & Writers’ Readings & Workshops program. I haven’t led many workshops before, so this was an experiment of sorts. I called the craft class “The Image Is _____” and its focus, of course, was the image. A series of questions motivated this workshop:

• What is an image?
• Where and how do we encounter images today?
• As prose writers, poets, and artists who use text, how do we each relate to images?
• Do images factor into our individual works?
• How can we use images to surprise our writing?
• Is there an image that haunts/grips/inspires you, will not leave you, or one that you invoke often?
• What does the image contain?
• Is the image a dam we choose to break? What language emerges if we do?
• Does the language trickle out? Or is it a torrent, flooding us/out of us into writing?
• Are we prepared to write through this flood?

To guide the workshop, I shared poems by Derrick Austin, Anne Carson, Rio Cortez, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Lara Mimosa Montes, and Justin Phillip Reed. I see their work as having complex, dynamic relationships with images. They’re aware of how we are surrounded by, and surround ourselves with, images and the tools with which to make them. And they acknowledge and question images as historical, political, and personal. What can we learn from their works in thinking about our own creative processes?

In a series of exercises I asked the class to interact with images—those around them (the BGSQD bookshop and the Center are filled with art) and those on their phones (if they had phones)—as catalysts for writing. One particular exercise, inspired by poems from Justin Phillip Reed’s Indecency (Coffee House Press, 2018) and Lara Mimosa Montes’s The Somnambulist (Horse Less Press, 2016), encouraged the class to think of the page—either as the screen of phones and computers or as a sheet of paper in their notebooks or a printed book—as constituting in itself a visual, physical, and material experience. Do we consider the white space, for instance, as blankness, silence, emptiness, a pause, or a held breath? Does a poem require that you move the book about in your hand? Is the poem concerned with legibility? What happens when a photograph precedes the text or a text precedes an image—how does that affect the experience of reading and our subjective ways of making meaning?

As a visual artist and writer, I enjoyed sharing these questions and activities with the class. It was thrilling to be writing together for a few hours, immersed in poetry—a collectivity I’ve been missing lately. I left the space feeling uplifted by the vulnerability and tenderness with which the group thoughtfully engaged and shared with each other.

Support for the Readings & Workshops Program in New York City is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with additional support from the Frances Abbey Endowment, the Cowles Charitable Trust, and the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Rich Soos is the editor of Cholla Needles, which publishes a monthly literary magazine and poetry collections by local authors of the Joshua Tree community in California’s San Bernardino County. The Cholla Needles Arts & Literary Library aims to keep people excited about poetry through writing workshops and a monthly reading series. Soos is the author of over twenty poetry collections and was the editor for Seven Stars Poetry from 1973 to 1998.

The name of the magazine, Cholla Needles, came from a poem I wrote after I fell on a cholla cactus and its needles stuck in my hand and foot. When I made the decision to start a new magazine, I used that poem to inspire my mission statement—asking writers to submit poems that would “stick with you” and make the magazine memorable.

Each monthly issue of Cholla Needles is celebrated with an open reading and a featured poet. The readings take place outdoors in the beautiful desert of Joshua Tree, California, on the second Sunday of each month.

The audience of forty to fifty neighbors is often joined by visitors from around the world, there to explore Joshua Tree National Park. Readers have come from many countries including Ireland, India, Britain, Italy, Germany, and Brazil. Hardcore locals arrive each month too, no matter what the heat (even at 110 degrees in summer), because it’s simply a joy to celebrate poetry together.

In October, our reading began with a dance performed by youngsters from the community to a new poem by Kim Martin. The party continued with twenty-one other readers, and then the featured reader Juan Delgado, who shared poems from each of his fine collections.

Juan traveled “up the hill” from his home several hours away to delight the audience with early poems that celebrate the joy of youthful discovery, and poems from his newer collections, which celebrate how the passing of old friends enhances our deep understanding of life.

Our featured readers are supported in part by a grant from Poets & Writers’ Readings & Workshops program. This support allows us to have poets visit from outside the area and keep our monthly parties fresh and exciting. There is tremendous appreciation from featured readers and audiences for Poets & Writers’ support. It provides a sense of pride knowing that someone from outside the area cares enough to help out in this way.

The time and location for our monthly readings are announced on our website. Visitors to the area are always welcome to bring their own work to share with us during the open reading portion of the party.

Support for Readings & Workshops in California is provided by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.