Elly Bookman

Elly Bookman's Fundraiser

A Daily Poem in Support of Tupelo Press image

A Daily Poem in Support of Tupelo Press

Your donation encourages my marathon month of poetry and goes directly to an important and distinguished small press.

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$535 towards $400

Elly Bookman’s poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review, The Florida Review, and elsewhere. She grew up in downtown Atlanta, and then earned an undergraduate degree from Colby College and an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Bookman worked as a lecturer at UNCG before beginning her career as a middle-grade educator. In 2016, she returned to her hometown where she currently teaches writing, literature, and humanities in the junior high at The Paideia School.

While teaching full-time, Bookman consistently writes and publishes her work in some of the most widely-read poetry markets in the country. Her work is guided by an honest, recognizable voice as it engages with questions of American identity. Her poems make the political personal by exploring the underlying emotional currents in everyday scenes. She is currently at work on her first collection.

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Tupelo Press provides a canvas where I will bring my words, accompanied by other fine poets, writing thirty poems in thirty days, all ours to edit and submit as we wish. 30/30 poems have been taken by over 90 journals and featured in over 40 published chapbooks, all so Tupelo Press can keep publishing exquisite and diverse voices that might never be heard otherwise.

This is a big challenge for me. Many of you know that I am fiercely protective of my work, and that I typically have a very slow and meticulous writing and revision process. With this project, I'm stepping out of my comfort zone in order to generate a significant amount of new work and to reveal my poems to fresh audiences more quickly, all while supporting Tupelo Press, an independent small press that does the invaluable and often profit-less work of getting the work of us poets into the hands and hearts of our readers.

That's where you come in. Along with reading and enjoying (and even critiquing!) my daily poems, I hope you'll consider supporting this project and Tupelo Press through a contribution. Just like a walk-a-thon or fun-run, you can sponsor me with a per-poem donation ($2 a poem=$60 for the month), with a one-time donation, or even by becoming a subscriber.

Lastly, if you want to request a particular poem from me (about a shared memory, occasion, or event) you can propose it to me directly and put your donation toward a special poem of your own!