Dear ones,

Welcome, welcome, in this momentous time.

Such gratitude for the encouragement and support of so many over the years! Because of you and our shared community, I'm now able to extend a wider invitation here for you to join us in completing my third wave of community-engaged revision for my first poetry collection, quiet of chorus, which was a finalist for Poets & Writers’ 2010 California Writers Exchange Award.

what is quiet of chorus?

My friend Morgan gifted me with this response: “quiet of chorus lifts up the often muffled legacies of resistance to genocide in contemporary life. These embodied life-worlds yearn for freedom and wholeness, and help enliven the path forward.”

The collection has germinated through our work together over the years to manifest our visions for prison abolition and social justice. It has engaged activists and organizers across the US in the work and practice of revolutionary poetics. Through this call and response, poetry from quiet of chorus has:

• Traveled in letters to activists in prison; stood and sat with California's recent prison hunger strike and the Free Shifa, Justice for Melissa Roxas, Somos Georgia, and Troy Davis campaigns, and the #Occupy at Home-Decolonize Oakland-#Occupy Together-Liberate Everywhere! movement moment; and appeared in activist media from the US Social Forum, Queers for Economic Justice, and more;

• Fed community building and grassroots fundraising around prison abolition, political prisoner support, collective healing, and transformative justice; community response to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile; and vigil honoring the lives of loved ones lost to transphobic violence; and

• Called on community organizers and cultural workers to invite and co-create gatherings healthy and accessible to beloved community members across dis/ability, so each and all of us can feed and be in our work of transformation.

how to harvest?

Donate now to sustain the practice feeding this love and labor! As with community supported agriculture, your renewed support of poetry each season ensures continued offering to the aliveness of our spirit and movements:

• $5-10* covers gas to offer poetry at a local rally such as Oakland's November 2 General Strike; $15* covers gas and toll to offer poetry at a rally in San Francisco

• $20* covers the cost of a poetry mailing to activists in prison; $35* resupplies paper and printer toner; $50* supports the continued evolution of a web resource supporting fragrance-free event planning, so all of us can access and gift community with our presence and offerings; $90* hosts this resource for a year;

• $100* helps birth new poetry to capture and feed critical movement moments and ongoing yearnings of our movement legacy, or covers a month of weekly access to community acupuncture to detox from chemical exposure in preparation for and recovery from poetry performance on the streets or a prison visit;

• $250* helps cover the cost of a daylong visit with activist readers in prison; $500* sustains a week focused on preparation to offer poetry at a fundraiser or gathering; $750* sustains a week focused on staging a multimedia performance bridging our movement yearnings with literary and cultural work and community; and

• $1000* sustains a week focused on manuscript revision so poetry from quiet of chorus can make wider connection with and offering to your work in book form.

Thank you for the gift of your attention,

Vanessa

PS. Please help harvest more support! We can raise the fundraising goal to sustain more, most, or all the season's labor by both pledging donations AND inviting loved ones to join us! As shared above, every $5-10* covers the gas needed to offer movement poetry at a local rally, and every $1000* sustains another week dedicated to manuscript revision. However, a minimum harvest of the Kickstarter goal is what we need to receive any of the pledged support.

*Estimate helps cover a 5% fee to Kickstarter and 3-5% credit card processing fee to Amazon

**Fulfillment of this "reward" might require stipend to cover travel-related costs, depending on location and scheduling