Hey, how the hell is everyone doing? Its been a while since I’ve updated this substack and I’m happy to be back at it. To be honest, life has been absolutely crazy lately and I’ve been meaning to get back to this but what can I say? There’s a fantastic band that I’m obsessed with Rainbow Kitten Surprise and they have a lyric that goes “ain’t shit free but falling out and that shit’s easy let me show you how” and I think that sums up my life. But I’m getting better at it. Anyway before we get into the post I wanna thank you for reading and if you support the NJ Poetry Renaissance and what I do please consider donating we’re 100 percent community supported.
In 2022, the NJ Poetry Renaissance arose from the ashes of the pandemic and established itself as a real force in the Garden State. I had ended the year with hosting 10 poetry series and bringing in over a dozen touring poets from around the county through the state. By December, when I stopped updating this substack our attendance numbers were growing wildly and we ended the year with banger after banger of show.
On January 3rd, Scott Laudati, Nathan Stolte, and I embarked on The Shape of Poetry To Come World Tour spending the majority of the month hitting shows from Ohio to Texas. We thought it was significant because back in 2016, I met Stolte when he embarked on the Poetry Sucks Tour with the Cringeworthy Poets Collective from Buffalo and I set him a show up in Keyport NJ. That framework inspired how street poets would tour for the next seven years and I know I certainly followed that path. Jason Ryberg and Spartan Press would push the I-70 Corridor project an ambitious goal to blaze a trail from New York City to Dallas, Texas and be able to perform in a different city every night. We all blazed that trail during those subsequent years before the renaissance or before we thought any of this would work out. Just doing those weekend or week-long rips through the rustbelt and midwest trying to sell our chapbooks.
With this one, we wanted to reinterpret what a poetry tour could be. And I think we hit the mark. We performed in museums, bookstores, dive bars, a theatre at a college near Nashville, a punk house in Philadelphia. I tripped acid and bombed at a creperie in Houston. It was an amazing experience over all and we wanted to bring poetry to people who didn’t know they needed it. We did. And drank all their beer after the shows. Such is the trade off for art.
The documentary Voices in The Garden which you can watch here finally aired and what a whirlwind it has been since it did.
For a year, Steve Rogers and Alex Newman had been following the Nj Poetry Renaissance from its humble beginnings at a coffee shop in Matawan, a weed lounge in Red Bank, and a dive bar in Long branch and they created a brilliant film about this poetry movement we all somehow stumbled into. It has been nothing short of surreal for me to experience. I didn’t tell anyone except my core group about the documentary because I didn’t want anyone to act different or be weird. So when I had finally announced the documentary in the beginning of the fall, they had largely wrapped up filming. I just didn’t want anyone to put on a face. I wanted them to capture the real spirit of this thing.
Cord Moreski, Rebecca Weber, and myself are the focus and are interviewed heavily throughout but they managed to highlight many members of our community. If you haven’t seen it yet, I recommend you check it out.
On February 22nd, we had a streaming party at my favorite dive bar My Way Cafe in Long Branch. The place was packed to the walls and out the door as we watched it live together for the first time. It was an emotional night. A night of celebration and affirmations. A beautiful cry into whatever powers may govern the sky that we had done something. We were all outcasts. All shunned from the mainstream but we were here now and we had accomplished. When Cord and I first started, there were so few open doors to us. We weren’t welcomed in with the academic crowd and the slam kids didn’t want us either. We chose to forge our own path and make our own scene. A scene where anyone was welcomed. We took the punk rock ethos and diy culture we grew up with and added it to poetry.
We never expected any of this to happen. There was one moment where my poem And Even If I Did, So What? came on the screens and the audience that was packing the bar began to say it aloud. It brought me to tears.
“The loser now will be later to win, ‘cause the times are a changin’” - Bob Dylan
I wanted to keep this post short just to update y’all on what’s been happening over here. The shows are packed. More and more shows are popping up everywhere. Scenes from around the country are popping up based on what we’re doing here. I’ll be hitting the road again heavily in late spring and summer. Poetry is for the beggar and the king. It’s for everyone. It’s morning breath. It’s grabbing slices of the mundane and making them immortal. Capturing the subtle sound of a fleeting feeling. It’s manifestos of perseverance. It’s a proclamation of momentary existence. It’s anything and everything.
I just want to say that I love all of you for reading. For supporting. For all of this. There is no turning around now is there?
This is just a lil update post. Nothing fancy. Just needed to get something out and I’ve been meaning to write. New issues will be dropping Tuesdays and Thursdays. Donations to the Nj Poetry Renaissance are extremely appreciated. Follow me on instagram @damianrucci it’s where I’m most active.
So proud of you brother 💕 you're doing great