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February 2026
a great poem, announcements, & a prompt
Jeremy Reed
February 02, 2026
Hello!It’s been a while! I hadn’t planned on taking a break from this newsletter in the fall, but I used the last few months of my sabbatical to get some real work done on my writing projects, editing projects, and more, all of which I’m looking forward to sharing with you when the time comes. For now, as I return to teaching, publishing, and more this spring, I want to start this correspondence with you again as well. Thanks for being here. |  |
A Poem on My Mind
So Much of This Life
flashes outside my periphery.
I believed for years that my mother
was the youngest of eight, not nine-
I’d forgotten the older brother
whose two sons left on a boat.
No one speaks of them, but
when my mother calls
my name I come alive.
We drag our chairs outside
to watch the lightning
bugs blaze, our memories
growing longer with the
shadows. There was a time
when I caught them daily,
then I let it go for years.
Now my mother’s face
follows their magic, and I ask
if they exist back home, assuming no,
but I’m wrong. It charms me
to learn their name: đom đóm.
My mother was afraid
of them, though she caught dragonflies
by the wings. Chuồn chuồn.
I want to dangle
our pasts from our ears:
all the times my name has flitted
into nothing, mangled
with and without protest.
When my teacher corrected
my spelling, when I asked
if I was saying it wrong.
My American syllables
I hang like jewels, dandelions
in the evening grass.
I step through life
as an approximation.
Several years back, when I was in my Ph.D., I was awarded, along with my friend Katie, a trip to Phoenix where Natalie Diaz was organizing a joint reading between friends and former classmates Sandra Cisneros, Rita Dove, and Joy Harjo. As you can imagine, it was an incredible, incredible long weekend of readings and conversations.
And it was made even more so by the hospitality of the Arizona State MFA students, including Susan Nguyen, who adopted us as fellow grad students for a few days, taking us to breweries, talking with us over big group meals, and laughing our way through arcade games.
It’s only been since that weekend’s experience though that I’ve gotten to see Nguyen’s incredible writing and literary citizenship in action from afar, through her fantastic award-winning book Dear Diaspora, her work as editor-in-chief of Hayden’s Ferry Review, her co-founding/co-organizing of the Growing From Our Roots showcase for debuts from Asian voices, and more.
So when I saw this poem published earlier this year, I knew it was going to be a good one. But once I read it, I immediately added it to my current poetry workshop’s packet on portrait poems. Every time I’ve come back to it in the weeks since first reading it, I find this poem so moving in the way it allows its speaker to put forward what they know and what they don’t, to revel in certain moments and to get things wrong, to recognize absences they can’t fill or sometimes even forget, to learn new information, and to change.
Announcement
accumulate/quiet & s w i f t s: a literary magazine
One of the themes for my sabbatical was taking several projects I’ve been thinking about over the last few years and getting them to a stage where I can make them happen, including editorial projects and ways to create resources for myself and fellow writers. I’ll keep you in the loop on any big developments, but if you want to know when a new issue or given resource is published you can sign up at this link:
 accumulate/quiet is a literary organization I’m founding as an umbrella for the editorial and writer resource projects I’m working on. Our name comes from the understanding that within every creative project and artistic life there are moments to accumulate, research, write, and gather, as well as moments to quiet, let a project sit, rest, and let yourself recharge. We aim to create space and support for both accumulation and quiet for writers, editors, and artists through a variety of projects, including the publication of new literary work. |  s w i f t s: a literary magazine is the first project I’m launching under the accumulate/quiet umbrella. Like its namesake, the journal prioritizes pieces that are adept in multiple ways at the same time: speed and strength, quick movements and longevity of flight, drag and thrust. For each issue, we aim to choose a select few pieces worth reading in their entirety. We published the first issue just recently, and couldn’t be prouder to highlight work from Molly Akin, Lindsey D. Alexander, Jack B. Bedell, Amorak Huey, Brynn Martin, & Donna Vorreyer. |
Updates
Tin House / McCormack Writing Center
This month I’m taking part in the Tin House Winter Workshop. This year, the workshop has changed its name to the McCormack Writing Center after Tin House’s book publishing arm went under new ownership last year, but the workshop is the same as it’s always been, run by the same great people, now with a new name. So far, it’s been a phenomenal experience, with weeks of panels, Zoom meet-ups, readings, agent one-on-ones, and more over the past month. Next week, we’ll hear the workshop leaders give craft talks, and then the week after I’ll be in Lydi Conklin’s fiction-writing workshop for a project I began in earnest this past fall. Can’t wait!
a poem of my own
I was asked last fall to be part of a series for the place where I teach, Westminster College, on what a liberal arts focus is really about. For me, they asked, why take a poetry class? This past week, they shared my attempt at a response that used a bit of video I took from a bench on campus during the last partial eclipse:
a prompt
Look through your phone for an image or video that exhibits partiality. You might think about what’s partial as a lack of fullness or completeness, but don’t forget it can also be its own good, too: to be partial can also mean not finished, open, not closed. If you’re looking for inspiration, look above at the eclipse seen through the leaves’ shadows, Susan Nguyen’s incredible poem, or the picture I caught of my daughter exploring her first major snow of the year. Once you have your own image or video, write a poem that uses it.
A Final Note
I really appreciate all of you, and I look forward to writing again soon. Please leave a comment, reply to this email, share it with people you think would enjoy it, or send me a note in some other way just to say hi (hi!)
Wishing you all the best things.
-Jeremy
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