Join me for an evening of community, poetry and social justice!
Let's dream a different world into being, together.
Hello dear reader!
Just a quick update this month to let you know that registration is now open for Seeds Bursting Open in Fire, an evening of poetry, collective writing, dreaming, and activation. It is the final event for the launch of my poetry collection, Last Days, through which I have sought to bring writers and organizers together in community.
This virtual event invites artists, writers, readers, and organizers of all kinds to collectively learn from each other and inspire each other to action. I’m looking forward to a beautiful evening of being in community.
As a reader of Starlight and Strategy, you are an important part of my community, so I hope you can join us on Wednesday, October 6th, from 7:00 to 8:30 PM (EST). It will include:
Readings from new works by me, New York Times best-seller Aimee Nezhukumatathil (World of Wonders), and performance artist and poet Gabrielle Civil (( ghost gestures )).
Presentations by activists working in abolition, racial, and climate justice: Jasmine Butler (Power Shift Network) and Lisa Doi (Tsuru for Solidarity).
Movement activities for healing and activation led by dancer Chanon Judson (Urban Bush Women).
Register for the event and find more information here. You can also find us on Facebook here.
ASL interpretation and closed captioning will be provided.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL is the New York Times best-selling author of WORLD OF WONDERS: IN PRAISE OF FIREFLIES, WHALE SHARKS, & OTHER ASTONISHMENTS, the Barnes and Noble Book of the Year. She is also the author of four books of poetry, and is poetry editor of SIERRA, the national magazine of the Sierra Club. She is professor of English and Creative Writing in the University of Mississippi’s MFA program.
TAMIKO BEYER is the author of Last Days (Alice James Books), We Come Elemental (Alice James Books), Dovetail (co-authored with Kimiko Hahn, Slapering Hol Press) and bough breaks (Meritage Press). Her poetry and articles have been published by Denver Quarterly, Idaho Review, Dusie, Black Warrior Review, Georgia Review, Lit Hub, and the Rumpus. She publishes Starlight & Strategy, a monthly newsletter for living life wide awake and shaping change. She has received awards, fellowships, and residencies from PEN America, Kundiman, Hedgebrook, VONA, and the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund. A social justice communications writer and strategist, she spends her days writing truth to power.
GABRIELLE CIVIL is a black feminist performance artist, poet, and writer, originally from Detroit, MI. Her performance memoirs include Swallow the Fish (2017), Experiments in Joy (2019), ( ghost gestures ) (2021), and the déjà vu (2022). Her writing has also appeared in Kitchen Table Translation, New Daughters of Africa, and Experiments in Joy: a Workbook. She recently performed Jupiter at Velocity Dance Center (2021) and Vigil at Northern Spark (2021). A 2019 Rema Hort Mann LA Emerging Artist, she teaches at the California Institute of the Arts. The aim of her work is to open up space.
JASMINE BUTLER (Pronouns: They/She) is an organizer from Power Shift Network, a network of young people, organizations run by young people, and campaigns that support youth organizing. Young people today face a world in crisis: a broken political system, deepening inequality, entrenched and emboldened racism, and a catastrophically changing climate. But they’re committed to action, mutual support, and solidarity -- they’re building a strong, intersectional, bottom-up movement to take on the climate crisis, shift the power, and change the system. Network members are working to combat climate and environmental injustice, stop dirty energy projects, divest from fossil fuels, fix democracy, and build the just, clean-energy powered future young people need.
LISA DOI is an organizer from Tsuru for Solidarity, a nonviolent, direct action project of Japanese American social justice advocates and allies working to end detention sites and support directly impacted immigrant and refugee communities that are being targeted by racist, inhumane immigration policies. Their mission is to: educate, advocate, and protest to close all U.S. concentration camps; build solidarity with other communities of color that have experienced forced removal, detention, deportation, separation of families, and other forms of racial and state violence; coordinate intergenerational, cross-community healing circles addressing the trauma of shared histories.
CHANON JUDSON's been growing with the acclaimed Urban Bush Women (UBW) since 2001, as performer and now Co-Artistic Director. UBW galvanizes artists, activists, audiences and communities through performances, artist development, education and community engagement. With the ground-breaking performance ensemble at its core, and ongoing programs including the Summer Leadership Institute (SLI), BOLD (Builders, Organizers & Leaders through Dance) and the Choreographic Center Initiative, UBW affects the overall ecology of the arts by promoting artistic legacies; projecting the voices of the under-heard and people of color; bringing attention to and addressing issues of equity in the dance field and throughout the United States; and by providing platforms and serving as a conduit for culturally and socially relevant experimental art makers.
Please share this event far and wide! We have an outreach toolkit if you’d like to use the materials we’ve created.
Looking forward to seeing you on October 6! And I’ll be back in your inbox for a regular Starlight and Strategy missive on the full moon on October 20!