Hey Poetry Pal,
June 2026 marks a pivotal point for The Poetry Pour. While the first half of the year was dedicated to building infrastructure, this month that work is being recognized and rewarded & turned into literal capital.
🎊The Poetry Pour has officially won the RI Awesome Foundation grant for June!🎊
That’s $1,000 set aside for one specific purpose: paying local poets.
In collaboration with Chris Collado of Aspirations Press, TPP is launching the inaugural #PVDPoetryCrawl this September.
The concept is simple: Commission short poems from 20 poets (+ Chris & I). 22 Providence cafes/bars turned into temporary galleries for the written word. "Poetry Shots" (free, pocket-sized mini-zines) are installed at each venue for the entire month of September. Customers grab a "shot" with their drink, scan the QR code to learn more about the poet, & sign up to participate in the crawl. The challenge? To visit as many partner locations as they can before the month is up to earn entries to win prizes. And if someone can’t participate by showing up in-person, they can also earn entries by referring friends to subscribe, signing up to get the free “pop-up” newsletter we’ll be sending each weekday in September so they can enjoy every poem from a Prov scene poet right in their inbox.
I’ve put a lot of thought into this idea (and there are a lot of moving parts 😵💫) but each aspect is super intentional & really important to help bring The Poetry Pour’s mission to life: making poetry more accessible (& approachable) in PVD & beyond!
Exciting stuff happening (& even more to come) here at The Poetry Pour!
But for now, let’s zoom out to see what else there is to engage with… 🌐
📤 Pour Your Heart Out
The Poetry Pour is a platform for this community, which can mean getting your work in front of more readers (if that’s what you desire).
I am actively seeking one poem & one essay to feature for each month for the rest of 2026.
How: Email the piece/essay proposal to
[email protected](PDF or Google Docs please).What you get: A byline, a guest author page on the site, & direct distribution via email to 100+ subscribers.
If you need some prompting before you open your notes app to start typing away, maybe this will help…
〰️ Let It Flow
You’re gonna want to see this live
On July 16th at 1PM ET, beehiiv is unveiling the next chapter for audience-led businesses.
For years, creators and brands have been forced to stitch together bloated stacks of tools just to publish content, grow an audience, and make money online.
Newsletters in one platform. Websites in another. Podcasts somewhere else. Analytics scattered everywhere.
beehiiv thinks there’s a better way. Now, they’re ready to show it off at their Summer Release Event.
🔖 Poured from the Pages
This month in Poetry Book Club, we read THE TRADITION by Jericho Brown. One poem that I always leaves me speechless (no matter how many times I’ve heard/read it) is titled “Bullet Points”; here’s a video of Jericho Brown reading it:
This poem sparked great conversations at both IRL Poetry Book Club meetings but I’m curious what you thought too. Leave a comment & tell me your reaction!
It was so great to have new faces at both Symposium & Riffraff show up to talk poetry this month. Reminder if you want to plan ahead to read along & chat with us: Poetry Book Club meets IRL on the last Friday (from 7-8pm at Symposium Books) & last Sunday (from 4-5pm at Riffraff Bookstore & Bar) of each month. No RSVP needed—just show up with your copy of the book (or buy one on your way in), & get ready to discuss. And don’t forget to join the conversation online through WhatsApp to find out what we’re reading next! 👀
🏘 Pour-trait of a Neighbor
🔁 Poems on Repeat
Great poetry deserves a longer shelf life than a single scroll or send. So I decided for this month’s poetry feature, to do a call back to the pieces we’ve featured recently that deserve a second (or third) look:
If you’ve read this far, you should probably subscribe so you can join over 100 locals receiving poems, opportunities, & inspiration straight from the PVD poetry scene each month. Just a friendly suggestion!😉
Snaps, claps, & heel clacks,
Salena JD ~ your resident pourtender
