I'm asking for money

Not for me though.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m one of the poetry editors at The Rumpus. Senior Poetry Editor, though that’s because I’ve been there the longest, not because I have any special authority. In fact, I’m the last remaining editor of the original core when the site went live in January of 2009.

Back then, I wrote a weekly link roundup, an occasional column, and wrote and hustled for and edited poetry book reviews, trying desperately to fill 2-3 review slots a week. In early April of that year, we decided at the last minute to start a poem-a-day project for National Poetry Month, which we have done every year since then. That program has been in the care of Cortney Lamar Charleston and Carolina Ebeid for a few years now and they’ve since expanded it to publishing poems year-round.

A little over a year later we started the Rumpus Poetry Book Club, which continues to this day. August’s selection will mark the beginning of our 14th year of reading and talking about new collections of poetry. The live interview we do with authors (and on occasion, translators and editors) is my favorite part of anything I’ve ever done with The Rumpus.

Of course, The Rumpus is much more than just the poetry section. I’m focusing on it because it’s been my home on the internet for over a decade now and I hope it continues being a special place for writing.

But like all online culture magazines/journals/whatever we are, money is a constant issue. We don’t have outside support from a big institution and our revenue streams have always been precarious, let’s say. Our publisher, Alyson Sinclair, has done a lot of work to try to make the site more sustainable and while we’re not quite there yet, we’re on a path to it.

That only keeps us going, though. It doesn’t cover things like site rebuilds, which is what we’re fundraising for right now. In the fourteen years the site has been live, I think it’s been through 3 rebuilds/refreshes, and if you know anything at all about how the web works, you know we’re well overdue for it. The site is outdated and clunky, searching for anything on it is near impossible and it’s not mobile-friendly. And to bring it back to the section most dear to me, it’s really glitchy when it comes to posting and formatting poetry.

So we need money for a redesign. Fortunately, we have applied for and received a $10,000 grant from CLMP which covers half the costs, but only half. We have a designer on board and contracts ready to sign once we’ve raised the other half. So that’s our goal, and we need to hit it by June 14 so we can relaunch the site this fall.

If you can donate anything at all, I’d appreciate it. If you can’t, I’d also appreciate it if you forward this along to people you think might be able to donate, and/or share it in your social media feeds. Thanks so much for reading and for whatever help you can give for this site rebuild.