NEWSLETTER TYPE SHIT: Notes on 2024 in review & upcoming in 2025
Finally, a phaentompoet newsletter! I tell you about my 2024 as brief as possible and share poetry updates for this year
(photo taken by Stone [IG @persephone_stone] )
(no audio this time, sorry!)
Type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete. And type. And delete–
Various newsletter drafts, poems, essays, texts, emails, pretty much anything written it’s just the same: type and delete.
I’ve lost a sense of who I’m talking to. I’ve lost a sense of time in all the repetitions of words and ideas and results and consequences.
Still, I have to say at least this: Times are dire, but the only way through dire times is through. We cannot keep living in a fog. We cannot keep relying on “convenience” or “escapism”. We have to continue coming together and fighting in any way we can against the war machine. Fuck empire. Fuck capitalism. Fuck genocide.
Upcoming 2025 events:
READING AND WORKSHOP AT MISSION VIEJO LIBRARY, FEBRUARY 6 at 4PM
Here is the [long] registration link, though the event is free and I feel like you can just show up. Part of the registration is that there will be free swag, specifically journals and writing utensils they will have for participants:
(at this moment in time, I am being told there are 9 spots left)
Here is the description of the event: “In this special poetry reading and workshop, Aerik Francis (they/he), a Queer Black and Latinx poet and teaching artist in Denver, Colorado, will feature their work with a Q&A session following the reading. Then, it will transition into a workshop to discuss diversity and the intersection of Blackness and Latinidad. Participants will then practice writing a poem with the knowledge they’ve received throughout the session.”
And here are more words about the event that I wrote as an IG caption:
✨ Upcoming free event ✨ I'll be reading poetry and hosting a generative writing workshop at the Mission Viejo Library in Aurora on Thursday, February 6 from 4-5pm
Registration link is in my link tree, which can be found in my bio. There are limited spaces available so please register in advance.
Thank you Aurora Public Library for this space!
In this case, what I have in mind for this generative workshop is actually more of a brief introduction to brilliant poets and writers in celebration of Black History Month. I wanted to highlight Black poets who have a connection to Latin America because we don't often talk about us with the nuance and complexity we deserve, and even here, just a limited amount of time. My main goal is that I want to share a bunch of names and books and poems from artists I admire.
I'm always thinking about the essay "The X In Latinx Is A Wound..." by Alan Pelaez Lopez, the wounds being of anti-blackness, anti-indigeneity, femicide, and colonialism. While I hope to invite these discussions, my goal more than anything is to introduce folks to these questions and people.
I'll have prompts to write about our own identities in their specificity, nuance, complexity, and in relation to power.
All of that sounds so deep but i promise it is as simple as reflecting on your favorite foods or a family tradition or a phrase you remember growing up.
Oh yeah and then I'm also sharing some of my own work 😅
If that sounds like something you'd like to try please register. All are welcome! Let it be an excuse to try something new. Let it be an excuse to write.”
CLOCKTOWER READING
I’ll be reading in a new burlesque show they are developing called Oral Fixation (perfect for poetry!) on Sunday February 23.
MARCH VIRTUAL READING
I won’t be attending AWP in LA this year, but I will be participating in an online event around the same time with ALOCASIA and Smoke&Mold lit mags. Keep an eye out for this reading in mid/late March.
OTHER READINGS
I may be reading in for a Black History Month show in the afternoon either Sat Feb 15 or Sat Feb 22 at TeaLee's Tea House & Bookstore in Denver, CO, basically just across the street from the Merc. But if I’m not there will certainly be super cool poets reading, so save the date.
OTHER UPDATES:
It seems like forever since the last time I shared a published poem. Later this month my poem “Fat4Fat” will be coming out with BeeStung mag. I also have a set of poems coming out in Mānoa Journals’s 37-1 Architectures of FuturoPasados Issue! (Dearest Jenn, if you are reading this, I’m gonna have some poems published at yr skool!). I also may or may not have a poem coming out in some future with Protean Mag (although, if I’m being so honest, I truly think they forgot… so like, maybe not?). Also I may be leading a session of a book club in the next few months, so keep an eye out for that.
In general, I’m always looking for performance or workshop opportunities, so if you know of anything, please feel free to send it my way. Thank you <3
Newsletter prose (I wanted to share upcoming events first and not have them at the bottom)
2024 began as it ended: in a fog of delusion.
Complicity and complacency are what have defined 2024. An openly publicized and daily filmed genocide in Palestine has continued for 366 days and still today. Even as Gaza is current under ceasefire, Israel has shifted to West Bank and is bombing Jenin. And that’s not even counting the continued genocidal conditions in Tigray, in Sudan, in Congo, in Haiti, and so many other places in the world– all fueled by Western greed. In addition to COVID19 continuing to propagate and mutate, in addition to the quiet spread of MPOX, there are increasing concerns about norovirus as well as avian flu variants. The food in the US is officially not safe, if it ever was, given the weekly recalls of various products for e coli or listeria or other kinds of bacterial infections.
We cannot simply accept these facts. We have to protect each other. Please consider masking more– every time counts, each time matters, if only briefly. Refuse compliance. Resist normalcy. Speak out. Protest. Read and research. Make art. Organize. Strike. In whatever ways we can fight back we need to do it.
Every time counts. Each time matters.
Newsletters I sent last year:
2023 in review on Jan 23
“returning” and an apology for various versions that could have been on May 4
Gemini season notes in cancer season on June 27
Countless schemes: a zuihitsu on grief, beauty, and numbers on Oct 2
So basically you only heard from me 4 times. And really, just in May and June.
Clearly I gotta do better– especially at this time where connecting via email makes a lot of sense compared to the situations of social media.
So, here we are. Type and delete, yes, but then I typed some more.
Okay so what even happened in my life in 2024???
Well, I got covid for the first time (that i know of) in august of 2024. It felt frustrating to know i let my guard down, that i had become complacent, and was paying the consequences for it, and helping to spread it to my family. I believe we got it at a funeral, but i was the first to show symptoms, and so there is certainly a kind of guilt also in occupying the canary in the mine role. I had been afraid of giving covid to my dad or my mom or my grandma in their ages, and of course it inevitably happened. I, like the rest of us in this country, am left to blame myself because the state has completely pardoned itself from any culpability.
This year I also watched my grandma go through a cancer diagnosis into remission after radiation therapy.
Simultaneously, I went through my own adventure of health problems, most tests showing symptoms more than anything that would lead to a diagnosis outside of the umbrella catchall of IBS. I’ve figured out a solution (digestive enzymes) for now that has (maybe?) reduced the pains and assists my GI system, but it also feels temporary, and it feels like things have not necessarily improved as much as calmed. This year is so uncertain. All we can do is move day by day. But I’m lucky to have the resources that I do.
I went to Chicago, IL for my 10 year reunion at UChicago and it was such a great time. So grateful for all of these strong bonds that easily pick up where we left off.
I went to Tempe, AZ as well for my first in-person Canto Mundo retreat. Frankly I don’t think I’ve made enough of a big deal about this. It was a wonderful weekend of making new friends, strengthening ties made online in person, being real honest vulnerable. I think I got a chance to talk to all the fellows– everyone is so brilliant and talented and kind in their own unique fashions, it was really amazing to be in that proximity to so many wonderful people and have it all feel so casual. I’m really so lucky to be in this community. Applications are open now until Feb 15 for any Latine identifying poets– please consider applying and reach out if you have questions.
I existed in the Denver poetry community. Again, not as much as I maybe could or should, whatever that means. But I did go to slams at the merc. This year was a kind of landmark year because I actually won slams (three to be exact, lmaoooo), after years of nothing. I do have to admit, recently the slam scene has felt demoralizing because I find I am a wild card for judges: I either get high scores or low scores and not much in between (and more often than not, it’s low scores). It’s always been this way and I feel like it always will be this way. As much as it hurts my feelings, it’s still an opportunity to share my poems and sell chapbooks, so alas, I must find thicker skin. And besides, the local scene has been working really hard this year and it shows!! There was a ~grand slam~ at the end of 2024 and it was cool seeing poets who were basically newbies last year really take ownership of their craft and style and presence in the scene in their own rites. The Merc has a slam team again and they’re doing their thing. I didn’t make it, but am excited for the folks who did and excited in general for the local scene. I’ve got to meet a bunch of poets this year and grow alongside each other. Poet Parlance, a space where us local poets practice together and provide both written and performance feedback. It was very helpful in my craft this year– to have folks hear and read my work and offer feedback was so refreshing after so long of not really having that. And then I always try my best to be helpful in ways that maintain choice/autonomy/dignity/vision for the artist. Open mics close and new ones open. Poets move/retire and others stay/start– the scene has so many new lovely folks now. I’m grateful.
I taught poetry workshops! I taught for Sundress Academy for the Arts (!!), for Arapahoe Community College (this one was co-taught with the luminous Jason Masino), for Lighthouse Writers Workshop Queer Creatives Festival, and for the first Colorado Creatives writing retreat hosted by Twenty Bellows and Behind the Veil Press. For Sundress I taught my [classic] Body Poetics workshop as well as a craft talk on the Poetics of Reference/Citation. I’d love to work my craft talk into an essay one day… For ArapahoeCC it was a co-taught w/s with Jason Masino called iPoetry on digital approaches to poetry (NOT AI! LMAO). For Lighthouse I taught Body Poetics as well. And for CCWR I taught a workshop on wordplay (it was fun! Would love to teach this one again). I also taught a bunch of youth workshops, as well as was a guest poet for an audience full of middle schoolers (it was lowkey harrowing and while it totally went fine, i’d very much like to not do that again tbh lol, but some of the kids were into it and that’s what matters). I usually teach kids about puns and homophones/homonyms cause I think they're fun and that’s one of my ~things~ in my poetry. But this year I also taught an editing and performance workshops for the kiddos and that was really fun too.
I was asked to guest host Shades of Honey, my favorite art org in CO. The future of Shades seems uncertain, so I am especially grateful and honored to have been in that community
I was a guest tour guide at the Denver Art Museum! Slam Nuba hosted a takeover of the museum and I got to perform in the museum space as well as offer tours of the contemporary art gallery. Someone said it was the best art tour they’d ever been on! I told DAM that if they are ever hiring for docent positions to consider me :)
I got to take over the Still Museum instagram for a few days. I had first been approached about this opportunity back in 2022 and it finally came to fruition October 2024. Not sure if I or the museum got any new followers as a result, to be so honest, but this opportunity opened something really crucial in my craft and was a portal to my current poetry manuscript. Very grateful for this partnership
I was a guest panelist at the Writing in Color retreat on the publishing world– and I got a rejection during the workshop, which became a fun teachable moment.
And a featured reader at the Jaipur Literary Festival in Boulder, CO
I got to read at a number of book releases: the Listen To Your Skin anthology (I find anthologies tricky to read, but I DEVOURED this one, definitely go buy a copy yourself and see what I mean!), Alejandro Lucero’s chapbook, Meg Kim’s chapbook, and Oliver Baez Bendorf’s book (LONGLISTED FOR A NBCC AWARD!!!). How wonderful that these poets trusted me in this way and allowed me into the celebration of their work.
I read at 4 events that were benefits, 3 of which were toward Palestine
I performed in 4 burlesque shows, one of which for pride featuring a stellar lineup of queer and trans performers
I had two performances where I was the main feature, one of which I performed my poetry accompanied by my produced music
BodyPolitic got semifinalist for the Wisconsin Poetry Series and finalist for the 2024 CAAPP prize. I’ve since retired that manuscript and restructured it into a zine, a chapbook (WHICH IS GOING TO BE PUBLISHED!), and a new manuscript with a new title.
OH AND I RELEASED ECTOPLASM (a collection of beats produced by yours truly)! LMAO
SO WHAT IS TO COME FOR NEXT YEAR???
Music. I said that last year and it wasn’t really true, and isn’t that exactly like a musician? I have been sitting on demos to THREE projects: a poetry album, a music EP, and a music LP. Each need recording and edits so bad, and yet, they are full songs and so so so so close to being public. I have them all memorized and can perform them, accompanied or a cappella (because, well, that’s my music roots after all). So I think they deserve proper production, a proper rollout, a proper moment in time. SO that means they can take as much time as they need.
AND ALSO I LITERALLY JUST SUBMITTED AN APPLICATION TO THE UNDERGROUND MUSIC SHOWCASE, SO I’M THAT SERIOUS ABOUT IT (hopefully I get chosen).
Music will also look like collaborations. I am really excited to be collaborating with Angie Rafaga for special MISEDUCATION performance. We don’t have a timetable, but we had our first rehearsals recently and I’M SO EXCITED, IT’S GONNA BE SO AWESOME!
I have also decided to let ALL of my manuscripts loose instead of one at a time. So I’m submitting BODYPOLITIC now as a chapbook (AND IT GOT PICKED UP BY ABODE PRESS! IT WILL BE COMING OUT IN 2026!!!), and then THREE poetry manuscripts: AMERICAN POLYTYCHS, UBIQUITES, and ASYMPTOTIC (toward a queer love poem).
I also really want to start my music and poetry podcast called PROSODY AND LYRIC: a poetry podcast about music. I dunno what’s holding me back at this point. I can buy a zoom pro account whenever…
I would also love to have a salon kind of event. And or something that combines art and food more directly.
Finally: I don’t think I've been a good friend last year. I don’t really reach out, don’t really check in. This reunion was a very sobering realization that a decade can slip through time in what feels like no time, and in that time, you might go without talking to someone who you used to talk to all the time. It’s hard to say I'll do better because I don't know if I will. But it also doesn’t feel good to look up and see how far away in time and space you are from people who you once thought of as near and here and now. Frankly, the worst part is knowing that we all feel this way, so tired from life that we retire from our lives, and then grow guilty and cold about it.
I’m just trying to survive & I want us all to survive!
THE STATS AND SUPERLATIVES OF 2024
In my 2023 recap I had stats, so here’s the stats section.
Poetry submissions
43 subs total
21 book subs
20 poetry
2 fellowships
26 rejections
3 acceptances
1 withdraw
11 pending
2 shortlisted
Poems out in 2024
“An Anti-Pastoral” (in ALOCASIA)
“Gramma Dolores Waters the Monstera” (in ALOCASIA)
“No More Masters” (in LTYS ANTHOLOGY)
“GenerationXXX” (in ATE MAIS LATINX FUTURISMS ANTHOLOGY)
“Aftermath”
“Frank Ocean”
“Haunted Future”
1 best of the net nom
2 pushcart noms
Reading in 2024
I read 34 books
2 prose
8 chapbooks
24 full length collections of poetry
17 library books
5 books (probably more) that i started and didn’t finish (sorry! Maybe this year!)
Favorite books of 2024
Judas Goat by Gabrielle Bates
Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes by Nicky Beer
Public Abstract by Jane Huffman
Civil Service by Claire Schwartz
Ward Toward by Cindy Juyoung Ok
Fav music of 2024
Fav 5 projects
Still – Erika de Casier
Empathogen – Willow
Club Shy – Shygirl
Girl With No Face – Allie X
Brat – Charli XCX
Fav songs of 2024 (no particular order, and some artists I *had* to choose more than one song)
Pilot & Days – Ravyn Lenae
Lorelei & Preciosa – Empress Of
Rare Baby – KUKII (please watch the music video! So cool !)
Image – Magdelena Bay
Affection – Kllo
Lucky & Test It & Ooh – Erika de Casier
Red Wine Supernova – Chappell Roan
Gambler’s Prayer – Caroline Polachek
Current Obsessions
the album Eusexua by FKA twigs (i mean, of course! Liiiike just look at the photo at the beginning again)
specifically the songs “Room of Fools” ; “Sticky” ; and “24hr Dog”:
and specifically the music video for “Striptease” : FKA twigs - Striptease
and the performance she did called “The Body is Art”: On and FKA twigs present THE BODY IS ART | featuring Eusexua (live)
Looking forward to
Kelela’s live album!
My album (hopefully! lol)
OKAY that’s all I got for now. Phew, cheers to finally hitting SEND. Luv y’all and thanks for being family/friends/community/support !