Event Report: Assaracus is BACK

I recently said I wanted Assaracus, my journal of gay and queer poetry, to feel like a dive bar—a hangout and safe space for LGBTQ+ poets across styles and identities to come together, to be in conversation with one another, to showcase the power of queer poetry in all its diversity, danger, love, and humanness.

In that spirit, the poets of Assaracus 26 recently gathered to do just that. And the good news for you? I recorded it, and you can watch it here.

So pour your favorite libation or refreshment, pull up a chair, and hang out with me and Seth; SRP editor Kate Leland; Chen Chen; Philip Clark; Anthony DiPietro; Jack Drago (his first publication!); Mattie Frye (her first publication!); Andrew Hahn; Baruch Porras Hernandez; Amir Rabiyah; and Megan Volpert.

We open with a tribute to the late Jubi Arriola-Headley, who was to be in this issue but who sadly passed away before that could happen.

We’ll do this for more issues of Assaracus, and I’ve named the hangout series “Marge’s Beauty Shop and Chainsaw Repair,” after an old, divey gay bar that existed for a while in Birmingham, Alabama.

I intentionally opted to record without an audience for a more intimate vibe. I didn’t want the poets feeling like they were performing so much as shooting the shit among friends.

Goddamn it’s good to be back.

Issue 27 is coming: Kevin Bertolero, Theresa Davis, David Trinidad. Plus new faces you’ve never seen and names you’ve never heard, because that’s my favorite thing—veteran writers next to newcomers, giving them the same stage.

“You were the first to publish me.”

Music to my queer publisher ears.

I’ve been asked about submissions, and I’ll figure that out soon. We’ve been gone so long that there’s a backlog of voices already in my mind, and I’m leaning on the SRP fam for recommendations and introductions. But I’m also aware of the need to open things up again. That’s coming, I promise.

With only ten spaces per issue, it’ll break my heart to fill them so fast, but that’s the life. I promise to maintain a balance of voices. If you think you don’t have a shot, think again. Make me feel electric.

That’s all I’m asking.