We founded Other Rooms Press a decade ago with the intention
of bringing more poetry into the world. We
had no delusions of fame and fortune, no desire to transform society, no intent
to do anything other than create a vehicle for ourselves and our peers to share
and promote the poetry we love. We never
considered what we were doing to be a political act, at least not
directly. And we succeeded: with the
help of many talented poets from around the world, through our website, print
publications, and reading series, ORP has become a community dedicated to a
broadly inclusive, linguistically innovative, playful and experimental
poetics.
But, with the election of an openly bigoted, sexist, racist,
xenophobic demagogue as President of the United States of America, a man whose
values and beliefs stand in complete opposition to our own as poets, as
American citizens, and as human beings, we can no longer continue to keep our
political beliefs entirely implicit. In
the face of this direct existential threat to our community, we want to make it
explicitly clear that from this moment until there is no more need to do so,
ORP is dedicated to using all of our knowledge and skills in the linguistic
arts to defend the rights of those now threatened by the current
president-elect and everything he represents.
ORP
Michael Whalen & Ed Go
November 11, 2016
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