Note from Tucker

I generally like to get this newsletter off on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. But alas, managing job search, teaching a class, flying through other part-time work, podcast production, taking care of a one year old, will eat up time. So, here’s the Friday night edition of Books and Stuff:

Nothing beats building a community. It’s why we’re here. To build relationships. To come together and make something together — and solve problems together. For brooklyn bagget, one of the problems she saw was a lack of opportunity for trans and gender-expansive poets. It’s hard enough to be a published poet in this world, let alone a trans or gender-expansive poet. So, with her talents and privilege, she created a press and an engaging community for trans and expansive-gender poets.

She created new words {press} and told me about how and why she started the nonprofit on Book Stuff this past week. It was great to hear that if you have conviction in what you wish to exist, and you have the means, you can create something special.

That specialness lies in the permission the press allows poets. At new words {press}, poets can be themselves on the page. “There’s a lot less fear around breaking norms in regard to how the poem is visually seen on the page,” brooklyn told me. At new words, poets can fully queer their poems. Meaning, they can differ from the norm, change, break away from convention — find new forms and ways of being outside of cultural mainstream.

Of course, in today’s world, in today’s America, there are laws, policy, and cultural forces trying to destroy, punish, or hide trans individuals. After speaking with brooklyn, I wondered if this also happens to writing on some level.

It’s not nearly the same as existing as a person in public, but in writing we often shape ourselves to mainstream expectations. Cultural forces can change how you write on the page. Whether to a submission, an editor, the living public on the internet, or an algorithm on a platform, there are a set of standards that force writers to match a particular form. This can be especially true of trans and gender-expansive writers. What if we were allowed to be ourselves when we wrote? Or composed a poem?

I feel new words {press} is a space where writers can be themselves. They can break form, allow content, allow the trans and gender-expansive experience to be on the page, if they wish. The societal pressures dissipate, it seems, when poets write for this press.

For readers, we should celebrate such spaces that allow such freedom. A reader benefits from reading diverse forms. Writers, poets (people in general) are better off if they are allowed to live in the form they most wish to be — they just need allowance. In a small but mighty way, brooklyn has created that allowance in her press.

Bookmarked (episode-inspired reads)

• TROUBLING THE LINE: The first-ever collection of poetry by trans and genderqueer writers.

• DID YOU SEE MY EYES MUM by Jazzy Green

• See new words’s journal. I read journal no. 6. If you want a broad range and a diverse set of poems (journals and anthologies are always my favorite when it comes to poetry), I highly recommend no. 6, but you can’t go wrong with any of these editions.

• Poetry books brooklyn recommends:

  • Arya Burke’s REVENANT WALK.

  • samari zysk’s it answers to my name

  • Mythweaver by Birch Wiley

• What’s Happening in Kansas Should Alarm Us All by the talented Masha Gessen in NYT. A heartbreaking read about what happens if the government makes it nearly impossible to exist as a trans person.

• The Future of being trans on the internet by Talia Bhatt in THE VERGE. Excellent reporting and learning about this part of the internet.

• Erin in the morning to keep on the latest with trans life and legislation.

End Notes (more stuff I made)

• Chicago Review of Books article on this week’s podcast episode.

• My fav review in CHIRB this week: “Late Fame” and the Privileged Performance of Artistry”

• Interview: Photography Basics from Protests to Weddings: Q&A with a Photographer of Corey Ruiz protests. I interviewed one of the photographers who documented the protests and movement in the wake of Corey Ruiz’s death here in Madison, Wisconsin. I asked the photographer about that expeirecne and the basics behind practicing photography.

• On LinkedIn, I asked super reader Nicholas Thompson, the CEO of The Atlantic how he performs and preps for his famous LinkedIn videos “The most interesting thing in tech.” Screen shot:

Shelf photo