I won’t be posting family history for the month of September. That’s because throughout September, I will be “running” a poetry “marathon” for the Tupelo Press 30/30 project. By donating in recognition of my efforts, you will be supporting a fabulous independent, nonprofit press.
I have promised to write a poem a day for 30 days. Since it took me decades to cough up not even twice that for my first poetry collection Doll God, you can see what a feat I am trying to accomplish. SOMETIMES the poems will be have family history as a theme. I don’t know which ones as they haven’t been written yet!
To help preserve poetry as an art, it’s important to support the independent presses and literary magazines. These are the places that publish nearly all published poetry today. It hasn’t been a positive era for them. I’ve seen many lit magazines close up—and when the presses go out of business, we often don’t even hear about it.
Every dollar you donate will go toward the operation of the press, enabling it to continue publishing beautiful books that would not get picked up by large commercial publishers. You can read the daily poems, including today’s and yesterday’s, as well as the bios of this month’s poets, and donate here.
As incentives to donate, I am offering the following:
- For a donation of $10, you tell me what subject or image you want to see in a poem, and I’ll write that poem.
- For a donation of $20, I will dedicate a poem to you or someone of your choice.
- For a donation of $40, I will send you or someone of your choice, a signed and personally addressed copy of my book, Doll God.
- For a donation of $55, I will send you or someone of your choice, a signed and personally addressed copy of my book, Doll God, and I will dedicate a poem to you or someone of your choice.
- For a donation of $100, you get two copies of Doll God and two dedications!
- Remember that if you donate $129 for a Tupelo Press subscription, you will receive the 10 free books of their current series.
For any of the above donations, including the subscription of 10 books, please remember to click or write my name in the honor field. Then email me at luannecastle@gmail.com and let me know what dedication or subject you are interested in. If you “earned” a copy or two of Doll God, please give me your mailing address and to whom you would like the book(s) addressed.
Again, you can read the daily poems, as well as the bios of this month’s poets, and donate here.
If you decide to help keep Tupelo Press publishing its amazing variety of books, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!
If you can’t donate, please do read our poems for the month. They are all first drafts, written one per day. I’m pretty nervous about being able to keep up with this schedule!
In keeping with the theme of this blog, here is a photo of an old hat stretcher that belonged to my father.
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The Family Kalamazoo 