“It’s been astonishing to have entered each poem individually, and then to discover that they were interacting with each other. I love the dynamic process of discovering connections I didn’t realize were there. It’s as if the poems have a life of their own, and reach across the book to reflect on one another.” — Rebecca Kaiser Gibson
“i swear i could see the sun start to rise in paris, / creeping in on the tip of the eiffel tower and as my back falls onto sinking asphalt; / i dream of living with a lover in constant beloved.” — Anjalequa Birkett
“It took me a while to understand that a poet isn’t defined by complex metaphors or the way they present their work…a poet is only defined as and by the person whose name and essence stamp those stanzas and similes. So in short, don’t let what you think hold you back. Let what you know push you forward.” — Anjalequa Birkett
“People say (poets say) they write poems because they have to. It’s not a choice. Poetry is how they are able to move through the world. Poetry helps me get out from under the farce of the world. It helps me get out from under the weight of my existence, and my complicity in the cycle.” — AR Dugan
“A foot / of deep-caked snow / still on the driveway, / and February’s blank stare / through our darkening window. / Suddenly, a lone ladybug / flaunts her colors / on the pane.” — Ronald W. Pies
“My hope is that this project inspires other writers and artists, especially BIPOC folks, queer people, disabled people, and others who have been marginalized in the literary and art communities, to develop new ways of releasing work into the world. There is a myriad of ways we can dream up to engage with capitalism differently and to create and deepen community. That’s what I’m most excited about.”
“If landscape once was / sacramental, then / let me dig in mud / and dust, smear its mark / across my brow, wash / my feet in moving / waters when I step / into its river, / and let me never / find the other side.”
“You hold type in your hands, and that type is energy, captured. Energy that was input to make type can sit waiting in cases for decades, and be used over and over with no additional energy input needed.”
“my love explains / that they are rejects, deemed unworthy / of grocery stores & thrown into exile. / we gather our outcasts to make a meal.” — Mckendy Fils-Aimé
“now / I am the steaming lavender tea / I gift myself / when the bad news refuses to yield” — Marissa Carty
“I prefer clumsy preservation of everything to no preservation at all, and once I’m distant enough to gain perspective, I can see what I was trying to do in that clumsy mess.” — Jae Kim
“Imagine a map pinned with the locations of what you love–
people or places or animals.” — Melanie Braverman
“This book began with an intense desire to counter the witch kitsch narratives of Salem, MA, but as I wrote those poems my vision for the book evolved and became more complicated. I discovered that the book wanted/needed to connect that history with contemporary events that were both personal and political.”
“Full turnip moon backlighting the bar, / folks tripping across the lath of the dance floor, / not involved in the search for sequence / or god.” — Howie Faerstein
“I think prose poems are more approachable, more “democratic,” than much of lineated contemporary poetry because of their ease of reading. Even people who don’t like poetry can approach a prose poem, or micro fiction, because these look like almost everything else they read. I think the unassuming appearance of prose poems adds to their disruptive and startling moments.”