ELDERLY

Published on 4 Jul 2020

Hi Everyone,

It has been such an incredible joy to paw over all this amazing work.  And in that, we are super proud to announce the release of “End Capitalism Now”.

Thank you for being a part of this special issue! It’s super heartening to have an open call from our community at large and receive such a great outpouring.

We have been running Elderly for six years, holistic in approach and focusing on writers outside the main streams of poetic writing.  We have attempted to create a space for expression that is safe and caring.  We have and want to be purposeful in our goals.  

Over the course of the last few months, we have had time to reevaluate how we are working, both as people and as publishers. When it comes to poetry magazines, contests, the community writ large, white voices always seem to float to the forefront, men over women and people of color less than both.  

Hirstory will look at this, this reckoning where certain voices are magnified over others.  We don’t have to tell you that it’s time to decide where we want to be.

We have benefited from white privilege over others.  Raised the way that white people have been raised for generations.  It’s no great mystery, everybody knows.

With that in mind, we want to announce the first part of a larger conversation with the community; a special project.  We want to build an issue focusing on writers of color, giving over the means of production, taking our names off the masthead.

We want to open our mailing list, whatever name recognition we have and our technical acumen in putting a magazine together to amplify black voices. We would like to step back and provide support.

We want to listen more and talk less, to help decolonize the work we do, offer different perspectives, support voices that are not supported enough, to give our energy to that.

It’s time to step back and let other voices make the big calls. We’d love it if you would like to help drive the content and the conversation of this project with us. 

We will be working to figure out a point person.  We would love it if you would reach out to your communities with this call, to share widely. We cannot and will not dictate the conversation but we can help create the space where it can happen.  

Two white people cannot solely run a magazine in America anymore and we aren’t going to be persuaded otherwise. This is the moment where we deeply consider our whiteness in relation to the work we’re publishing. Actually, this is the moment when we shut the fuck up.

Love,

Nick and Jamie

Adam J Maynard, Adam Tedesco, Alanna Kinne, Amital Stern, Andrea Reynolds, Andrew Choate, Amie Zimmerman, Anselm Berrigan, Avery R Young, Ben Tripp, CAConrad, Caitlynn Liquigan, Carrie Hunter, Charlie Newman, Chris Ashby, Chris Hosea, Christina Chalmers, Christine Kanownik, Chuck Stebelton, Clare Follmann, Clay AD, Cris Cheek, Curtis Emery, Cy Ozgood, Dan Fisher, Dana Teen Lomax, Danna Lomax, Daniel Owen, David Greenspan, David Larsen, David Spataro, Denise Dooley, Denise Newman, Diana Humble, DM Jerman, Douglas Piccinnini, Edric Mesmer, Elizabeth Robinson, Elizabeth Young, Eve Prusa, Filip Marinovich, Fred Carter, Gabriel Wallace, Isabel Balee, Ivy Johnson, Jacob Kahn, James Yeary, Jamie Townsend, Jason Morris, Jeffrey Joe Nelson, Jennifer Karmin & Bernadette Mayer, Jesse Fleming, Joe Hall, Joel Lewis, Joseph Bradshaw, John Coletti, John Courie, Jonathan Lohr, Jonathan Skinner, Judah Rubin, Julian Brolaski, Julien Poirier, Kasper Klop, Kelsa Trom, Krystal Languell, Lara Durback, Laura Goldstein, Laura Moriarty, Laura Mullen, Lauren Hunter, Laynie Browne, Leland Courie & Amanda Courie, Lina Ramona Vitkauskas, Lindsey Boldt, Lourdes Figueroa, Madeleine Braun, Madison Davis, Marina Claveria, Marina Lazzara, Mary Burger, Masha Tupitsyn, MC Hyland, Meg Hurtado Bloom, Micah Ballard, Michael Nicoloff, Nicholas DeBoer, Nicholas James Whittington, Noah Fields, Noah Ross, Olga Mikolaivna, Olivia Dawson, Orchid Tierney, Paul Druecke, Paul Ebenkamp, Phaedra Kaanaana, Rachel Galperin, Rachel Guynn Wilson, Rae Armantrout, Roberto Harrison, Robin Tremblay-McGaw, Rod Roland, Ryan Eckes, Sara Larsen, Sara Wintz, Sarah Anne Cox, Sarah Lawson, Sarah Rosenthal, Sarah Tavis, Seth Michelson, Simon Crafts, Stacy Blint, Stacy Szymaszek, Stefania Gomez, Steve Benson, Steve Dickison, Steve Orth, Sunnylyn Thibodeaux, Sunyata Courie, Tenaya Nasser-Frederick, Tessa Micaela, Travis MacDonald, Una Lomax-Emrick, Vi Khi Nao, Will Alexander, Yarrow Yes Woods, Yosefa Raz, Zack Haber