Dear ones,

Wishing you the beginnings of an enlivened new year! May 2012 be full of unconditional love, wellness, and transformation for us all.

Wanted to update you that I'll continue to gather and sow bundles of gratitude, love, and letterpress poetry this month to each of the 185 of you who's opted in to receive a "reward" offering. Many thanks to each who's helped in the big and small ways, and for your collective response to the work through this campaign and the surveys! I look forward to staying connected and following up with each of you about invitations to explore collaboration and more. If you haven't already responded to the survey I sent out in December, please do, so we can fulfill your "reward" and honor your support.

Some additional "reward" updates:

The 2012 series of letterpress poetry cards with snippets of four different poems which I first printed for 2011 are fresh off the press, in updated colors!

And as I've updated those of you who opted in to receive the $20 "reward," I'd soft-launched this Kickstarter before finalizing this season's letterpress run, and ended up deciding to print snippets of #OCCUPY CAPITALISM as a series of folded cards, not editioned broadsides. Sorry about this! To account for this, some of you have instead opted in to receive 1 or 2 #OCCUPY CAPITALISM folded cards, and others will wait for the broadside as described. I'll be designing editioned broadsides of #OCCUPY CAPITALISM later this month, and mailing them out soon thereafter!

with presence,

vanessa

PS. Please do stay in touch! I'd love to hear how the poetry travels with you and loved ones through 2012. You can follow me @quietofchorus on Twitter or "like" my Facebook page to stay connected.

And, as many have inquired, while this Kickstarter has closed, friends may still SUBSCRIBE NOW to letterpress poetry offerings online or by mail: PO Box 27204, Oakland, CA 94602.

Dear ones,

Thanks to your open-hearted commitment and support, we met and surpassed this season's community supported poetry goal, raising $5500+!

Your support has gifted me a solid chunk of time and resource in early 2012 for me to dedicate towards completing the manuscript in call and response with our movements. I thank you, and receive this blessing with humility, integrity, and power. I'm honored to be held by you, for whom I'm writing and gifting this work to, and I'm deeply grateful for each and all whose very aliveness and legacy has fed my practice and this work: each loving nudge to grow it fuller; each response to, reflection of the poetry on the page, computer screen, and in action; each comrade for blessing the manuscript with your heart and eye in previous and current rounds of feedback; each new connection in this here gathering of spirits. All this, and so much more.

What a joy to steward and witness this growing "yes!" to collective resilience, "yes!" to honoring the legacy of movement elders, "yes!" to deepening and sustaining the practice and possibility of community supported poetry, so so necessary now: as fellow poet comrade Alexis Pauline Gumbs has shared in the Revolutionary Poetics section she curated for Left Turn: "Anticapitalist Jamaican thinker Sylvia Wynter teaches that the poetic is the magic process of describing relationships between people and an environment that capitalism, as a relationship and as a language, makes impossible." I hope this season's campaign encourages us to continue cultivating abundant cultures of support of all kinds for loved ones, cultural workers, friends and strangers, in prison and out, all who labor of love, seen and unseen. I hope we continue to transform our relationships with each other, money, and "work" towards the liberated imaginations, lives, and communities we most need and want.

In the meanwhile, I continue to welcome our growing, renewed, new connections. If you'd like, you can send along your email for low-volume poetry offerings and tidings, follow me @quietofchorus on Twitter, and/or "like" my Facebook page.

with a full heart,

vanessa

PS. Some have asked whether friends can still donate to my practice and this project. The answer is yes! Several friends will be mailing donations in offline. I welcome additional support now, and ongoing. Folks can DONATE NOW online, or mail a check to me at PO Box 27204, Oakland, CA 94602.

Dear ones,

I have been so incredibly moved by your response and encouragement, spirit of generosity through pledges and outreach and pledge increases today, amidst a time of already stretched budgets and with so many of us and loved ones having lost access to housing and much-needed care and services. You have demonstrated that we can build a culture of community support for our poets, and nourish the poetry we need to sustain our lives and movements -- that poetry is not a luxury!

Thank you! Because of your dedicated support, we've surpassed $4,000! $800 to go. Your support has left me with a full, enlivened heart. I meet and carry the spirit teachings of each of you I've met and journeyed with as I receive your blessing to continue in this next phase of work. And I honor and hold with deep gratitude and integrity that of each of you I'm so humbled to meet in this space of widened connection and community support.

I've leave you with this update: I was blessed to be invited to dialogue with both Asian, Gay & Proud, and fellow artist and activist Martina Robinson today about my work and practice. Take a look-see and feel free to include as you share this campaign with friends! 

with humility and power,

vanessa

PS. We need your continued support to meet the goal. Any additional pledges can increase our goal to sustain more, most, or all the season's labor of call and response revision with our movements. Can you help by asking a friend who'd love to join us?

• Each additional $5-15 will cover gas and toll to another rally or movement gathering in the Bay Area; 
• Each additional $20 will cover another poetry mailing to activist readers in prison;
  
• Each additional $35 resupplies paper and printer toner;
  
• Each additional $100 helps birth new poetry to capture and feed critical movement moments, or covers a month of weekly access to community acupuncture to detox from chemical exposure in preparation for and recovery from rallies or prison visits;
• Each additional $250 helps cover the cost of a daylong visit with activist readers in prison;
  
• Each $1000 sustains a week focused on manuscript revision so poetry from quiet of chorus can make wider connection with and offering to all our work in book form.

Dear ones,

Abundant gratitude for your continued and new connection, support here as we widen the circle of stars connected to this sky of poetry and practice. Thanks to each of you who's pledged support, increased your level, reached out to loved ones and comrades these last couple days. Because of your love and labor, we've reached over 50% of the goal!

As Audre Lorde has reminded us, Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before. I know each of our budgets is stretched, and I'm so thankful you've prioritized movement poetry that practices this bridge-building in call and response with the work that feeds us.

We now have 28 hours left to make it happen. Please take a minute to tell your friends to join us today! I'm so encouraged and humbled by your response and support, and would be so honored by your continued support as we close this campaign. Whatever you can do today, within right effort, would mean so much to me and all of us who've been part of growing this work.

Thank you stars.

with love and gratitude,

vanessa

PS. Can you take a minute today to think of 2 people who'd love to give $15 to hear and grow this movement poetry, and ask them? (Or a few who'd love to give $5, 1 who'd love to give $50, $100, $200?) Can you (re)share this Kickstarter online on Facebook or Twitter, your email, with a personal note of encouragement during this final push?

Dear ones,

Deep bow of gratitude for each of you who's pledged and increased your support for quiet of chorus these past several days. Thanks to you, we're almost 40% of the way to making it happen! In this final 65 hour stretch, we need your continued support and encouragement to ensure quiet of chorus receives any of the pledged support!

A new offering to share as you extend the invitation to your loved ones: Sweet freedom fighter and decolonizing cultural worker Kagendo Murungi, friend and collaborator with this movement poetry, has made available a video excerpt of my closing poetry blessing to the film "Taking Freedom Home" in call and response with the Welfare Warriors. I'm humbled to share this "Manifesto" dance with Southerners on New Ground's Durham family reunion in this offering, at the tail end of so much movement legacy also celebrated in the film, from Stonewall to CR10. Take a look, and invite your friends to view and pledge their support!

Also, a "reward" offering reminder and update: alongside the snippets of poetry from #OCCUPY CAPITALISM, I still have limited sets and individual cards from last year's letterpress run available, featuring poetry in call and response with Assata Shakur, Marilyn Buck, comrades in prison, and more. As well, the same set of cards with updated colors will be fresh off the press this week!

with humility and power,

vanessa

PS. We're almost 40% of the way to the goal, and the clock is ticking. In the next 65 hours, I'll continue to call through my list, send updates online, and follow up with our friends who plan to pledge. If each of you could reach out to 5 friends who pledge $10, or 1 friend who pledges $50, or consider increasing your pledge amount, we can easily make the goal! Are there 5 people in your life who would care about this project, and who you could call or email in the next 24 hours, or who you'll see in person, to invite them to connect with this poetry and pledge their support?