The Great Good News of Your Own Voice

The Great Good News of Your Own Voice is an anthology of poems from the free, weekly drop-in workshop of the same name, led by poet Aracelis Girmay in the Spring of 2018.

30 pages
First edition run of 75.

In her introduction, Girmay writes, “For eight Saturdays from March to May, an ever-changing constellation of poets gathered in a light-filled room in Stuyvesant Mansion, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. Together we studied texts at one rectangular table, then two. Two white candles and a square, pink cloth at which we read the work of people whose words still move through us now, helping us to think and live and generate new poems.”

For me, these poems contain the echos of our conversations, the seeds of us. I wanted to make a book that held our softness, our tender, our wound and joy. Mostly, I wanted to cover it in gold, which resulted in a hand-carved linoleum block that I used to stamp each cover with gold ink. You’ll find that, if you handle the books long enough, some sparkle will stay on your hands.

Credits:
Book Designer/Editor: Tara Jayakar
Editor/Workshop Instructor: Aracelis Girmay
Authors: Aileen O’Connor
Annie Virginia
Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
Faizan Syed
heidi andrea restrepo rhodes
Juliany Taveras
Shai Phenix
Yessica Martinez
Xavier Vazquez

Funding for this book generously provided by the June Jordan Fellowship via the Center for Justice at Columbia College (centerforjustice.columbia.edu/)

Compilation & Art copyright for The Great Good News of Your Own Voice © Tara Jayakar | Raptor Editing, all rights reserved. Authors retain all rights to their own work.