A Letter From Kit Bonson, Split This Rock Board Member & Newly Reborn Poet!

Greetings Friend, 

As a Board member of Split This Rock, I spend time throughout the year helping my colleagues assess how well our events have gone and their impact on participants. Since this was a Festival year, it was damn easy to conclude at our Spring Board meeting that we had just put on a kickass gathering of some of the greatest socially-engaged poets in the world. 

If you were lucky enough to be with us in DC this March, you know exactly what I mean. Not only did the Festival run like clock-work, but the camaraderie between attendees was amazing.

When the Board went around the meeting table after the Festival, sharing what influenced us the most, many mentioned a particular session that moved them. Maybe it was a daring poem that was read, or an intense discussion that made an impression. 

When it came to my turn, though, I shared something a little different. I told my Board friends that over those four days, I'd found my poetic voice again.

Split This Rock staff & board celebrate after Sunday's final reading at the 2014 festival. Kit is second from the right, in the back row.

You see, I had put away my own writing for almost 20 years, not knowing how to incorporate a lyrical reality with my life as a scientist and an activist. But being among other politically-minded poets changed that. I saw that I could capture the poems in my head in a way that enhanced, not detracted from, everything else that went on in my life.

For me, this is the essence of why Split This Rock is so important. It brought me back to a place of community and artistic expression, in ways that are socially meaningful. I believe it brings all of us home to our commonalities, so that the poems we share help us overcome feeling separated from each other and perhaps even from ourselves.

Which is why I feel so comfortable asking you to donate to Split This Rock as we close out our fiscal year. You are already part of this tremendous community that we happily create and develop. Now I'd like to ask you to support us financially as well.

Please contribute today online. Or you can send a check made out to Split This Rock to: 

1112 16th Street, NW

Suite 600

Washington, DC 20036

With gratitude & solidarity,

  

Kit Bonson

Newly reborn poet

Split This Rock Board member