As April winds down, I can’t help but be grateful that it’s been a month defined by lots & lots of poetry. I am still coming down from the high from attending The Collective event last Friday, hosted by the PVD’s poetry trifecta: Damont Combs (Mr. Orange Live) of Tell Your Truth, Simply Sara of Outspoken, and Vlad Jean of Afroverse.
The energy in the room was vibrational. And that wasn’t just cuz the music from the main bar was bumpin’! I was completely locked in on the poetry. I found myself hanging on every word that was spoken. I was moved to the point of tears more than once, which isn't abnormal for me since I’m an artist & sensitive about my shit (& everyone else’s), but the impact was real!
Enough about me, though. I want to know how you’ve been navigating poetry month.
What has been your favorite part of NaPoWriMo this year?
- The events: The plethora of local and virtual readings, open mics, and workshops.
- The output: The challenge helped me stay consistent with my own writing.
- The consumption: Making time to read or hear more poetry via books, audiobooks, or podcasts.
- Every month is poetry month to me: I live and breathe this poetry shit year round!
✍🏾 Little State Big Poet
At the start of 2026, I set a goal to be a guest on five podcasts. I recorded a guest spot with Molly on the Local Threads podcast back in the fall; that releases in May, so I’m counting it as #1 for this year. But as of last week, I officially checked #2 off the list!
These appearances have forced me to get comfortable with being seen & heard in new ways, which is exactly what I discussed last week with Shahidah & Tracey on their podcast, Little State Big Voices.
Instead of sharing a personal essay about how I’m embracing the intersections of my identity & leaning into my multipassionate nature, I figured I'd just offer you the options to watch or listen to me talk about it on the pod!
In the episode, we discussed the intersections of poetry, pole, & philanthropy, and the conversation helped me land on my latest mantra: "feel the fear and do it anyway" (a necessary reminder when you're building in public).
Watch or listen to the full episode on YouTube or find the episode available wherever you usually stream podcasts. If it resonates, leave a comment on the episode to let Tracey & Shahidah know TPP sent you!
🔖 Poured from the Pages
If you want to talk poetry in person with other poetry lovers, join us at Riffraff Bookstore & Bar from 4-5pm every last Sunday of the month for Poetry Book Club. No RSVP needed—just show up, grab a drink at the bar, & share your thoughts. Can't make it? Join the conversation anytime on Fable. And I co-host Silent Book Club every last Friday of the month if you ever need/want some dedicated time to dive into the poetry!)
This month, Poetry Book Club is reading The BreakBeat Poets: Volume 2 - Black Girl Magic. Today, I want to highlight the poem that opens the anthology: "My Beauty" by Justice Ameer:
Justice is a poet, facilitator, and political educator based right here in Providence, RI. In this piece, xe tells the story of xyr journey as a Black trans woman. Xe personify beauty as a being separate from themself to emphasize the distance they felt from that quality before living & presenting authentically in alignment with xyr identity.
The lines that stood out the most to me were:
“We kept looking past each other
in search of some boy
And ain't that being a Black woman
Being forced to destroy herself
To make a man more comfortable.”
In these lines, as well at many other points in the poem, Justice points out relatable aspects of the often difficult process one has to go through, especially with the impossible beauty standards of today's society, to find/decide they are beautiful. It's such a powerful piece to start the anthology, really establishing that the poetry in this book interrogates and explores many different perspectives on the intersection between Blackness & womanhood, and the discovery involved in finding the magic in both.
Justice’s work is a masterclass in interrogating identity with precision and personification, and it’s the perfect inspiration for our own writing this week…
〰️ Let It Flow
Whether you use Justice’s work as a starting point or not, here are some prompt options to help get your pen moving:
Personify a quality you have a complicated relationship with (like beauty, strength, or patience). Write a dialogue between yourself and that personified quality.
Reflect on a time you felt you had to "destroy" a part of yourself to make someone else comfortable. What does that part of you look like now that it’s been reclaimed? Is it reclaimed or does it remain a thing of the past?
Once you’ve got a draft, consider moving it from your notebook/notes app into a doc & sharing it with us ⬇
📤 Pour Your Heart Out
The Poetry Pour is built to be a platform for this community, and that means publishing your work. So don’t let your work sit in the drafts folder!
We are now accepting:
POEMS (from RI, MA, or CT based poets only)
1 poem. Any style. Any length. I want to feature voices from our local poetry scene in every one of these moving forward. Your poem will be shared with 100+ poetry lovers who are here because they care about this community & believe in the power of poetry (+promo on socials!).
PERSONAL ESSAYS or REFLECTIONS ON POETRY (Open to All, regardless of location)
500-1000 words on topics like: your writing process, poetry as healing, why you write, a poem that changed you, or anything related to the craft & community of poetry.
HOW TO SUBMIT:
Email your work to [email protected] as a Google Doc link (preferred for essays to be able to add comments/edits) or PDF (preferred for poems to retain formatting)
Deadline: End of each month (Next priority deadline: April 30th)
What you get: A byline/guest author spot on the website, a custom link to your work, promo on socials, & exposure to a growing community of poetry enthusiasts
To see what happens when you finally hit "send" on a submission, look no further than this month’s featured poem! ⬇
📝 Signature Sip
I’m thrilled to introduce our first-ever featured poet, Livvy Poulin. We’ve attended the same events & heard each other perform, but we hadn’t interacted directly until she replied to one of the polls in a previous newsletter.
Livvy noted how difficult it is to get your work on people’s radar if they aren't in the room when you have the mic. That is exactly why I opened this space. Her poem, "Naturescape," is uniquely powerful. She leans heavily into the power of sound—consonance and alliteration—without compromising the depth of the narrative.
Go read “Naturescape” on the site & share the link with a friend who needs more poetry in their life!
If you’ve read this far, you might want to subscribe so you get all the poetry goodness straight to your inbox along with 100+ other poetry lovers!
Snaps, claps, & heel clacks,
Salena JD ~ your resident pourtender
