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Split This Rock cultivates, teaches, and celebrates poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes social change. |
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Everything in nature needs to rest. The Earth can not exist without deep pauses. Farmers allow the soil to rest before planting seeds. Our bodies deserve nothing less.
Sustainability: We learn to pace ourselves, individually and collectively, to be sustained long-term. We value the teachings of our bodies and experiences, and use them as a critical guide and reference point to help us move away from urgency and into a deep, slow, transformative, unstoppable wave of justice and liberation
Dear Community,
Split This Rock's first action for fallow season was prioritizing the body -- making space for staff members to rest and reset. It matters how Split This Rock’s work lives in the bodies of those who lead the organization. It’s no secret that non-profit work can be filled with the pressures of time urgency, under-resourced projects, and understaffing. As we move forward, we're carrying some important questions: Does the way Split This Rock does its work persistently live as knots of stress in the shoulders, the neck, the stomach? Does it tighten the chest, linger as exhaustion, disturb sleep, or worse?
Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry teaches rest is a vital part of liberation work, an act of resistance in itself. We're continuing to work diligently to shift Split This Rock culture away from harmful and unrealistic productivity demands. Honoring human needs must be the heart of how the organization does its work, even internally. With that in mind, in these first months of fallow season additional paid time off has been available to staff. We're paying attention to the pace of our work -- allowing things to unfold more slowly and making space for reflection before important decisions are made.
There has also been steady movement on critically important internal projects. A few fallow season accomplishments include:
- Securing new funding as general operating support to sustain the organization
- Submitting grant applications to increase financial stability
- Migrating financial records to a new platform
- Beginning research on alternative email platforms to better host Poem of the Week and other email communications
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Meeting with our accessibility consultant at LaVant Consulting on disability justice projects for this fiscal year
- Beginning monthly meetings with an organizational consultant who offered his expertise upon reading about fallow season
- Exploring options for contractors to cover accounting and other organizational support
- Launching a series of board and staff convenings
Additionally, we got to nominate 6 poems that make our hearts full for Best of the Net! Check them out below and, if they move you too, be sure to show the poets some love on social media.
We're excited about launching our virtual community gatherings next month and have reached out to everyone who's expressed interest in attending. If you'd like to be part of a session, your feedback and expertise would be invaluable to decisions we'll be making about Split This Rock's future. Be sure to fill out this online form to let us know you're interested.
With appreciation always,
Split This Rock
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Image Description: Black header text reads Greetings from Fallow Season July 1 2021 through April 1 2022. Words hover over and above an illustration of a yellow sun rising from green fields under a blue sky. Three yellow dots surround the illustration.
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Celebrating Split This Rock
2021 Best of the Net Nominees!
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We're thrilled for the opportunity to shine a spotlight on these 6 poems as Split This Rock's 2021 Best of the Net nominations:
By Hari Alluri
By María Fernanda
By Destiny Hemphill
By Naomi Ortiz
By Margo Tamez
By Lisbeth White
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Image Description: Split This Rock red logo with black text that reads 2021 Best of the Net Nominations is centered over a gold background with a starburst illustration. Around the words are images of the 6 poets nominated for Best of the Net in circular frames.
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Celebrations & Shout Outs! |
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Though Split This Rock's presence on social media during fallow season will be extremely limited and we will not have capacity for reposting information from others in our network as we would normally do, we couldn't resist taking a moment to celebrate big news we've noticed. Join us in cheering for the following:
Sonia Sanchez Awarded the 28th Annual Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize. Read more at the Gish Prize website.
Hanif Abdurraqib, Reginald Dwayne Betts, and Don Mee Choi Announced as MacArthur Fellows. Read more at the McArthur Fellowship website.
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Tell Us About Your New Books! |
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As much as we'd like to cheer for all the new books that arrive or get announced between now and April 1, 2022, we know our capacity to do so with much fairness is limited during fallow season. We are continuing to pay attention to new publications and poets that we might spotlight when we relaunch next year. To tell us about your new book or a new book you think we should know about, complete this short online form. We'll also start a thread on Twitter as an open invitation to alert us about new books -- please chime in!
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While Split This Rock is in its fallow season and the Poem of the Week Series is on pause, we hope you'll continue visiting The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database. There you'll find:
- a FREE online resource for educators, organizers, poets -- everyone!
- over 600 poems, searchable by social justice themes, poet identity, geography, format, and more
- a celebration of contemporary socially engaged poets
If you're moved to share the poems, we welcome you to do so with credit to the poet & The Quarry.
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Image Description: Text that reads "Split This Rock presents The Quarry A Social Justice Poetry Database" appears over a black background. The words "Split This Rock" are in white print and each word is within a slanted red box. All other text is white.
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Stay in Touch with Split This Rock |
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Follow Split This Rock on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube:
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