Poem of the Week: Gretchen Primack

                               

The Absence of Unnecessary Hurting  

    

This is the press of the earth. One star hanging

there, honking like a goose. The lake

a smudge of black juice, the hill a draped

pancake. Frogs singing, sharp

and gutty.

Night! Clean air, clear water, five

baby mink in a pile, snoring.

Overwhelm can be dug from sludge

below dock, on either side fruits slung

over branches, glued to their seeds.

Here in the slurry live the things

I consider, here in the hills. What do people

think of? What do they think of me

in my carings?

Ripples lunch on each other, heavenly

Body lights flicker, too cool for moths.

I don't want to hurt things.

The fine brown eye of an animal,

the broad slick leaf of a wing.

I'd like to be gentle here.

I want to be worthy of you, lovely

ground, bury my face in your tired

broken bread.

-Gretchen Primack 

Used by permission.  

From Kind (Post Traumatic Press 2013)

Gretchen Primack's poems have appeared in The Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, FIELD, Antioch Review, Ploughshares, and other journals. She's the author of two poetry collections, Kind (Post-Traumatic Press 2013) and the forthcoming Doris' Red Spaces (Mayapple 2014), and a chapbook, The Slow Creaking of Planets (Finishing Line 2007).

Primack has worked as a union organizer, working women's advocate, and prison educator. Also an advocate for non-human animals, she co-wrote The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals (Penguin Avery 2012) with Jenny Brown.  She lives in Hurley, NY. 

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.   

Split This Rock is Hiring! Be Our New Managing Director!

We're sad to announce that our incredible Managing Director, Elli Nagai-Rothe, is moving back to the San Francisco Bay Area to be closer to family. We're so grateful for all she has done in the months she has been with Split This Rock and will miss her dearly. We wish Elli well on this next chapter in her life!

Below you will find the job description for the Managing Director position. Please have a look at it and forward it along to any and all you think might be interested. You can also find it online here. We're on a tight time-frame--our application deadline is August 16--so your help will be greatly appreciated. We're especially interested in seeing applications from people of color, LGBTQ folks, and people with disabilities, so that our staff will continue to reflect the diversity of Split This Rock's community. Please spread the word!

About Split This Rock

Split This Rock calls poets to the center of public life and fosters a national network of socially engaged poets. From our home in the nation's capital we celebrate poetic diversity and the transformative power of the imagination. All of Split This Rock's programs are designed to integrate poetry of provocation and witness into public life and to support the poets who write and perform this critical work.

Split This Rock's cornerstone program is a biennial national festival celebrating poetry and activism, held in Washington, DC. The next festival is scheduled for March, 2014. We also have a robust youth program, publish poetry online, organize social justice campaigns, present readings and workshops, and sponsor year-round local and national programming at the intersection of poetry and social change. For more information, please visit: www.splitthisrock.org.  

About the Position

The Managing Director's role is to provide organizational, operational, fundraising, and programmatic support to further Split This Rock's mission. The mix of duties varies based on the cycle of the organization; during festival years, the festival is the primary focus. In off years, the focus will be on operations and organizational development, fundraising, and Split This Rock's other programs. This is an exciting opportunity to work with a growing social justice literary arts organization that is unique in the field, providing leadership on the organization's management, operations, and infrastructural needs.

This position is full-time, including some evening and weekend hours. Split This Rock, though an independent non-profit organization, is housed within the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, located blocks from the White House. We are a small, mission-driven organization fueled by passion for social justice and a love of poetry and the arts.

Roles and Responsibilities

Programs:

• Lead festival planning and implementation
• Work closely with the Executive Director and the Festival Working Group to coordinate festival logistics and develop the festival schedule
• Maintain a festival work plan and calendar
• Serve as liaison to panel and workshop facilitators
• Manage featured poet travel, accommodations, and hospitality
• Serve as liaison to venues and vendors
• Administer registrations and scholarships
• Provide oversight for program book and festival materials
• Ensure festival accessibility
• Oversee volunteer recruitment and management
• Document processes and procedures
• Develop evaluation tools to measure the festival's impact
• Plan and implement Split This Rock programming and events
• Manage workshop planning, registration, and promotion
• Coordinate logistics and marketing for Split This Rock's monthly poetry series, Sunday Kind of Love
• Organize other programming in line with Split This Rock's strategic goals
• Foster and build collaborative external partnerships, both local and national

Communications:

• Manage website, including a comprehensive redesign process
• Coordinate Split This Rock's communications strategy
• Oversee the timely production of all print and electronic promotional materials
• Work to effectively integrate the organization's communications platforms, and further develop Split This Rock's social media presence
• Oversee festival marketing

Fundraising and Development:

• Support continued implementation of a new donor management system
• Work with the Executive Director to develop a fundraising calendar and set annual fundraising goals
• Secure sponsorship-in-kind and monetary-for Split This Rock programs
• Monitor foundation and government grant and reporting deadlines
• Oversee direct mail and email fundraising campaigns
• Assist the Executive Director with grant writing, as needed
• Work with the Fundraising Committee to organize and carry out fundraising events

Operations:

• Develop and update organizational and staff policies
• Participate in annual strategic planning, and oversee the successful implementation of strategic goals within the day-to-day operations of Split This Rock
• Recruit, train, and manage volunteers, interns, and fellows. Provide ongoing mentorship and professional development support for all staff
• Manage electronic and paper filing systems

Reporting: The Managing Director will report to the Executive Director and will work in partnership with staff, board members, interns and volunteers to assist in preparation, organization, implementation, and documentation of Split This Rock's programs.

   

Skills and Background: The ideal candidate will be driven, adaptable, and believe deeply in our organization's mission. Additionally, the successful candidate will possess the following:

• A commitment to social justice and the role that the arts can play in social change
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills
• Extremely organized with excellent attention to detail and follow through
• Outstanding interpersonal and teamwork skills
• Collaborative leadership style
• Strong intercultural understanding and comfort working in culturally diverse settings
• Proven fundraising experience
• A Bachelor's Degree and 5+ years related work experience or equivalent combination. An advanced degree is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated experience in strategic planning, program and organizational development
• Experience in managing and motivating staff, interns, and/or volunteers

The projected start date is mid September, 2013. Salary is in the 40s, plus benefits.

Split This Rock is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer and encourages applications from people of color, women, differently-abled, LGBTQ, and other groups that have historically been subject to discrimination. 

To apply:

Submit a résumé, prose writing sample (no more than 3 pages), 3 references, and thoughtful cover letter outlining your interest in this position to info@splitthisrock.org with

"Application for Managing Director" in the subject line.  

Deadline: August 16, 2013. No calls please.

Announcing the 2014 Festival Featured Poets!

Click here for full bios and for more information!

Click here to find out how poets are chosen to feature at
Split This Rock Poetry Festival

Poem of the Week: Joseph Ross

              

  
                         

Hammering on Rocks  

   for Nelson Mandela

Hammering  on rocks  

can  break  the  hammerer's  back

when  stooped

under  the  weight  of  identity

cards  the  color  of  scorn.

But  somehow  you  knew

that  the  earth's  breath

drew  in  and  out

with  the  same  rhythm

as  your  own.

Somehow  you  also  knew

the  rocks  you  cracked

into  two  decades'  dust

were  watering  the  country

who  sat  silently  in  your  cell,

more  a  prisoner  than  you.

-Joseph Ross 

Used by permission.

From Gospel of Dust (Main Street Rag, 2013) 

 

Photo by: Ted Schroll

Joseph Ross is the author of two collections of poetry, Meeting Bone Man (2012) and Gospel of Dust (2013). His poetry has earned multiple Pushcart Prize nominations and the 2012 Pratt Library - Little Patuxent Review Poetry Prize. His poems appear in many anthologies and journals including Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion and Spirituality, Tidal Basin Review, Drumvoices Revue, Poet Lore, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly. In 2007, he co-edited Cut Loose the Body: An Anthology of Poems on Torture and Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib. He teaches in the Department of English at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. and writes at JosephRoss.net.

 

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.   

Announcing the 2014 Split This Rock Poetry Contest

Announcing the 7th Annual 

Split This Rock  

Poetry Contest  

Judged by: Tim Seibles 

    

   

Benefits Split This Rock Poetry Festival
March 27-30, 2014

$1,000 Awarded for poems of provocation and witness

   

Submit Online! 

Prizes: First place $500; 2nd and 3rd place, $250 each.

Winning poems will be published on www.SplitThisRock.org, winners will receive free festival registration, and the 1st-place winner will be invited to read winning poem at Split This Rock Poetry Festival, 2014.

Deadline: November 1, 2013

Reading Fee: $20, which supports Split This Rock Poetry Festival, 2014. 

Details: Submissions should be in the spirit of Split This Rock: socially engaged poems, poems that reach beyond the self to connect with the larger community or world; poems of provocation and witness. This theme can be interpreted broadly and may include but is not limited to work addressing politics, economics, government, war, leadership; issues of identity (gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, disability, body image, immigration, heritage, etc.); community, civic engagement, education, activism; and poems about history, Americana, cultural icons.

Split This Rock subscribes to the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses Contest Code of Ethics. Read it online here.

Submission guidelines:

Submit up to 3 unpublished poems, no more than 6 pages total, in any style, in the spirit of Split This Rock (see above). Please do not put your name or contact information on the poems themselves, only your cover page.

 

Submit Online!

Simultaneous submissions OK, but please notify us immediately if the poem is accepted elsewhere.

Please contact us directly if you are unable to access Submittable at info@splitthisrock.org. 

For more information:   

info@splitthisrock.org 

http://splitthisrock.submittable.com/submit 

About the Judge 

Born in Philadelphia in 1955, Tim Seibles currently lives in Norfolk, Virginia. He is a member of the English Department and MFA in Writing faculty of Old Dominion University, and is a teaching board member of the Muse Writers Workshop. He teaches part time for the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA in Writing Program, and is a teacher at Cave Canem. A highly active ambassador for poetry, Seibles presents his work nationally and internationally at universities, high schools, cultural centers, and literary festivals.  

His honors include an Open Voice Award and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center.   

His poems have been published in literary journals and magazines including Callaloo, The Kenyon Review, Indiana Review, Ploughshares, Electronic Poetry Review, and Rattle, among others.   

Seibles is the author of five books of poetry, including Fast Animal (Etruscan Press 2012), 2012 National Book Award Finalist. He will be a featured poet at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness 2014.

Poem of the Week: Truth Thomas

                           

Sunday Kind of Love 

  

Shayna reads the Word and takes

the story of that first miracle as

serious as unpaid electric bills in

winter--takes apostle's reports

of water changed to fiesta as a

personal challenge--a test of

matrimonial faith--wonders if

the trick works away from food--

tries it in the evening, when the

good deacon comes home drunk

again. She prayerfully points

what she hopes will be a beverage-

changing finger in the direction

of her storm when "Why isn't

my dinner ready bitch" drowns

out Smokie Norful singing "Jesus

is Love" and CoCo Brother Live

in the kitchen. After a while (she

will be heard to tell paramedics),

the belt buckle that forever shut

her shades, nearly felt as soft as

pillow rain.

 

-Truth Thomas 

Used by permission.  

 

Photo by: Melanie Henderson

Truth Thomas is a singer-songwriter and award-winning poet, born in Knoxville, Tennessee and raised in Washington, DC. He studied creative writing at Howard University under Dr. Tony Medina and earned his MFA in poetry at New England College. His collections include Party of Black, A Day of Presence, Bottle of Life, finalist for the People's Book Prize in London and Speak Water, winner of the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. His poems have appeared in over 100 publications, including The 100 Best African American Poems (edited by Nikki Giovanni), and been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He serves on the editorial boards of Tidal Basin Review and Little Patuxent Review, guest-editing the Social Justice issue for the latter, and is the founder of Cherry Castle Publishing. A former writer-in-residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo), he currently serves on the HoCoPoLitSo board.

 

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.   

Poem of the Week: Lisa L. Moore

                         

Cowgirl Filibuster

  

Couplets for heroic Texas women

June 26, 2013

Word got out about the bad bill.

College students packed up their bikinis,

went back to Austin to tell those men why

women need abortions. Seven hundred

were already there. Story after story

for the record: citizen filibuster.

Three a.m. The Speaker tells the crowd

he's heard it all before. They roar.

The floor is cleared. Texas Democrats

never have the votes to win a thing.  

Their only hope is filibuster.

Another thirteen hours. Wendy Davis,

Senator from Fort Worth, once-teenage mom,

ties on her snappy pink Mizuno

running shoes beneath her power suit

and big Texas hair. Can't sit, can't lean,

no food nor water, bathroom break, no "comfort

and assistance." Wendy Davis reads

the ruled-out stories. Women with too many

mouths to feed already. One whose longed-

-for pregnancy became a fetus that

could not survive its birth. Middle schoolers.

Men remembering a sister's or

a girlfriend's botched pre-Roe abortion.

And many, many women pregnant

by someone who had raped them, hurt their kids.

I thought of Brittney, at fourteen, who begged

me not to tell her mom, said "Now seventeen,

that's different, old enough to have a kid."

Of Karen. When we both were seventeen

in 1981, you still needed,

in Canada, a parent's permission.

We told them we were going skiing,

drove to Montana, skis strapped to the car,

and ended Karen's pregnancy. Today

a teenage girl can't get that in Montana.

By now two thousand advocates swell

the Capitol, flow into the night.

At last, Republicans shut Wendy up.

They say she leans. Quarter to midnight

and Senator Leticia Van de Putte

fresh from her father's funeral, is ignored.

"When may a female senator raise

her hand and receive recognition

from her male colleagues?" The people ignore

order, warnings, holler, bang on chairs,

sing UT's football fight song, yell For shame.

Grannies are dragged out. Minutes go by.

Ten. Fifteen. Eighteen. The bill fails!

and Wendy Davis takes a drink and pees.

Madge kept our boys, the fruit of pregnancies

I loved, up late to watch the Capitol live feed.

Elated, they Minecrafted fireworks

that read "I Stand With Texas Women."

-Lisa L. Moore 

Used by permission.  

 

Lisa L. Moore's writing has been awarded the Lambda Literary Foundation Award and the Art/Lines Juried Poetry Prize.She is the author or editor of four scholarly books and her poems have appeared in journals and anthologies including Lavender Review, Sinister Wisdom, and Broadsided. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.   

July Sunday Kind of Love: Joseph Ross launches "Gospel of Dust" + Truth Thomas!

July
Sunday Kind of Love
Featuring

Joseph Ross & Truth Thomas

   

Sunday July 21, 2013

5-7pm

Busboys & Poets

2021 14th St. NW
Washington, DC 20009

Hosted by

Sarah Browning & Katy Richey
$5 online or at the door

As always, open mic follows!

Co-Sponsored by Busboys and Poets &
Split This Rock

Please join us for a very special Sunday Kind of Love this month as we celebrate the release of Joseph Ross' brand spankin' new book Gospel of Dust. Joe will be joined by Truth Thomas -- this is a reading & celebration you do not want to miss!

Joseph Ross is the author of two collections of poetry, Meeting Bone Man (2012) and Gospel of Dust (2013). His poetry has earned multiple Pushcart Prize nominations and the 2012 Pratt Library - Little Patuxent Review Poetry Prize. His poems appear in many anthologies and journals including Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion and Spirituality, Tidal Basin Review, Drumvoices Revue, Poet Lore, and Beltway Poetry Quarterly. In 2007, he co-edited Cut Loose the Body: An Anthology of Poems on Torture and Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib. He teaches in the Department of English at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. and writes at JosephRoss.net.

Truth Thomas is a singer-songwriter and award-winning poet, born in Knoxville, Tennessee and raised in Washington, DC. He studied creative writing at Howard University under Dr. Tony Medina and earned his MFA in poetry at New England College. His collections include Party of Black, A Day of Presence, Bottle of Life, finalist for the People's Book Prize in London and Speak Water, winner of the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. His poems have appeared in over 100 publications, including The 100 Best African American Poems (edited by Nikki Giovanni), and been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He serves on the editorial boards of Tidal Basin Review and Little Patuxent Review, guest-editing the Social Justice issue for the latter, and is the founder of Cherry Castle Publishing. A former writer-in-residence for the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society (HoCoPoLitSo), he currently serves on the HoCoPoLitSo board.   

Joe Ross photo credit: Ted Schroll

Truth Thomas photo credit: Melanie Henderson