Allow me some nostalgia. Given that it’s poetry month, I feel such a sentiment is more than welcome, and so I am just going to go with it. The above picture of Tracy K. Smith and Philip Levine was taken by me at a poetry event I organized back in 2012 when I was working at Knopf. Having two Poet Laureates and Pulitzer Prize-winning poets share a stage and read their poems — that alone is a dream event. But with this particular event, we took it further.
The impetus for the event was to culminate a month-long celebration of poetry during National Poetry Month. As I mentioned in last week’s newsletter, the baseline program at Knopf was the Poem-A-Day enewsletter, which mails every day in the month of April. But wanting to do something new that would build upon this beloved program, I wanted to add a social media component, one that would engage and grow our audience. At the time, Tumblr was having its ascendant TikTok moment — so many writers and authors and publishers, as well as librarians, booksellers, not to mention readers — were doing fun things on that platform. (Credit to Rachel Fershleiser on that, who used to run the Tumblr book community and was a true partner in this overall poetry campaign). So Knopf partnered with Tumblr to establish a poetry-focused Tumblr where we not only shared our Poem-A-Day poems, but invited members of the community to submit poems (via tags), and then “reblogged” selected poems. So many poems were submitted, hearted, and shared. It was a glorious online community-focused celebration of poetry.
Of course we wanted to extrapolate some of that online enthusiasm to the IRL, so we decided to hold an in-person event at the end of April to culminate the months-long showcase of poetry. Knopf has no shortage of literary connections, with many truly amazing poets on its list, and so we were able to secure Tracy K. Smith and Philip Levine as headliners. But because of the poetry Tumblr and the involvment of the poetry community at large, we wanted to make sure to represent those voices as part of the event. To do this, we added a contest element to the Tumblr, in which two emerging poets who submitted a poem to the Tumblr would be selected to read poems alongside Smith and Levine. Those two poets were Karolina Manko and Saeed Jones.
It truly was a dream event. New and established voices were represented. And it was a totally packed house.
And one minor but significant thing about this event that I wanted to mention — we of course invited all participants in the online community to join in on the fun. But given that the event took place in NYC (at Housing Works Bookstore in SoHo), geographically many participants were not going to be able to attend. So with this in mind, we created slideshows of the contributed poems from the Tumblr, and projected them on the walls throughout the evening. So while not everyone was able to actually attend, their poetry was part of the event. I’ve always appreciated that element of the event — just an added layer to keep pushing things a bit further.
The main messages here: celebrating poetry is fun and can be a powerful engine for activating a community; and also, always look for creative ways to build upon your established, successful programs. It’s a way to keep things interesting for yourself, and also, keeps your existing audience engaged while also bringing in new people, which has its own positive network effect.
BOOK LINKS OF INTEREST
Jackie Corley has published a great story on Tobias Carroll, a prolific reviewer of books, and also an author in his own right. Great to reconnect with Jackie via this story — she founded and was the publisher of Word Riot, which was a groundbreaking literary journal and publisher back in the early days of the web. Jackie has an upcoming reading — her first in years — coming up on April 24 at KGB Bar. Details here.
This Miss Manners column made me love poetry even more. There is just no stopping the poetry, etiquette be damned.
Lisa Ko’s great playlist for her new novel Memory Piece, featured at books playlist central Largehearted Boy.
This fantastic Lithub interview with The Tree Doctor author Marie Mutsuki Mockett by Jane Ciabattari.
Sarah Kain Gutowski, author of The Familiar (a book-length narrative in poems) in conversation with Lindsay Hunter on the I'm a Writer But podcast.
OPEN FOR SUBMISSION
Split Lip Magazine is currently open for Tip Jar submissions, meaning you can submit during this open period, but for a small tip. Great opportunity to not only submit some of your work, but also support an excellent litmag operation. See all the open categories and guidelines here.
Also, Ghost Parachute is open for flash fiction submissions for your 1,000 words or less stories.
NEWSLETTER RECOMMENDATION: JUHU THUKRAL’S APSARA PROJECTS
Biased here because this is my wife’s newsletter, but it’s most definitely worth reading and subscribing to. The overall focus is social impact strategy, pop culture, and social justice, and in a recent issue
explored the legacy of the OJ Simpson trial, which was back in conversation because of OJ’s death. Her insights and reflections relate to how watching the trial impacted her early days legal career. And she also mentions a bit of sordid book publishing history — when HarperCollins announced and then cancelled the publication of If I Did It. I was working at HarperCollins at the time, and I remember the controversy well. I definitely recommend giving it a read. Note also that each issue includes a “Surf Synthesis” and a “Tarot Inspiration.”“WHY NOT?” BY HARRIET MONROE
Why not indeed showcase a wonderful poem addressing poets directly from Harriet Monroe, founder (in 1912) and longtime editor of Poetry magazine, which is still being published today. “Why Not?” was published in Monroe’s poetry collection You and I in 1914 (published by The Macmillan Company).
Thank you for reading and subscribing to the newsletter. I hope this month of poetry finds you well and that you’ve had time to read some of your old favorites, discover some new poets, and write some poetry of your own.
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ABOUT THE WRITER OF THIS NEWSLETTER
I’m a long-time publishing professional, and also a published poet. You can read some of my poems here, here, and here. Visit my website for more information and to learn how to work with me on your book project, whether that’s a book of poetry or something else (I’ve worked on books in pretty much every genre). I look forward to hearing from you — I’m very open to being a resource wherever you are on your book publishing journey.
The greens and blues and breeze swept waters of Spring, inspirations for countless poems, then and now.