Poets Reading the News: 2020 Year In Review
Mission
Poets Reading the News enacts poetry’s vital cultural function as a means to process and learn about current events.
Vision
Poets Reading the News nurtures poetic community dialogue, reflection and healing in response to the news through poetry publishing, live events, educational classes, and community building.
2020 — The Year That Was(n’t)
2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic presented novel challenges for Poets Reading the News, as it did for so many around the world. Starting in April, as the virus took its toll, we were forced to cancel our event at the New Orleans Poetry Festival and close down our submissions for the first time ever. Our focus for much of the summer was on rest and healing, which led to a renewed interest in sustainability and equity. During a year that made us review so many aspects of what we do and how we do them, we here at Poets Reading the News reached deep and were reminded at so many twists and turns the power of our (com)passionate community.
2020 Accomplishments
A major focus of 2020 was on Poets Reading the News’ long-term organizational stability. This took many forms, including switching fiscal sponsors to the more local and responsive Intersection for the Arts; getting awarded two grants from The Pollination Project and East Bay Community Foundation; building out our incredible network of donors; collaborating with organizational partners Emerging Arts (SF/BA), Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), and Aunt Lute Books; upping our digital presence with a greater focus on SEO; and fine-tuning our labor by integrating rest, communication, and a larger network of support into the organization.
Equity
In 2020, we formalized and made more transparent our long-term commitment to social justice and equity by publishing a framework for cultural equity, recommitting to best practices and taking a hard look at what we could do better. Equity is integrated into all aspects of the work at Poets Reading the News because it is fundamentally linked to our mission and vision. As part of that effort, and in recognition of our organization’s home on Chochenyo-Ohlone land, we are contributing to the Shuumi Land Tax in support of the Segorea Te’ Land Trust.
Publishing
We published over 75 stunning poems. Some major highlights were our coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. political election, and the climate crisis. (You can see our most popular poetry of 2020 here.)
Expanded Our Team
We couldn’t have made it through 2020 without the support of our incredible community or our rockstar team of editors, our generous donors who keep the lights on and keep us motivated on Flipcause and Patreon, our organizational partners, and the wisdom and direction of founders and editors Elle Aviv Newton and J Spagnolo and managing editor Michel Krug.
In 2020, we mentored our biggest-ever associate editor team, paving the way for a more robust organizational structure that will only continue in 2021. Shout outs to our unstoppably brilliant editors and volunteers of the past year: Dori Mondon, Catherine Strayhall, Rachel Nolan, Ariana Den Bleyker, Caitlin Cowan, Camilo Garzón, Rose Hennigan, Nikki Ikani, Len Lawson, Sophia Marina, Monaye, Brad Nolen, Kashiana Singh, RaJon Staunton, Grace Yannotta, Chezyrome David, Andrea Orta-Diaz, and grant advisor Steve Karamitros. Thank you to all who were involved!
Events
We were not able to do as much as we’d envisioned due to the pandemic. Elle Aviv Newton was excited for a panel talk and book reading at the New Orleans Poetry Festival, (Sur)Realpolitik: On Political Poetry in the Post-Truth Era with Yvonne Daley, Kim Harvey and Michel Krug. It was sadly cancelled by the COVID-19 shutdown. J Spagnolo did host an incredible Zoom reading at EMERGENCE, an annual conference out of San Francisco, with Angelique Zobitz, Sandra Fees, Caroline Cottom and Priyatam Mudivarti, reflecting on poetry as meditation.
Built the digital poetry community
People reached out and stayed engaged, despite the hardships of the year and the isolation of the pandemic. We leaned on and learned from each other! With this in mind, we look forward to 2021.
