Witches & Warriors: Support Poets and Organizers!

Support the poets and organizers who are imagining a better world into being by helping fund the inaugural Witches & Warriors Retreat!

 

Movement organizers need resources to help them recharge, zoom out, and envision more just worlds into being. Radical poets need the wisdom of folks working on the ground to understand how art can help shift power. After five years of running a successful movement-building book fair, Brew & Forge will bring together poets and organizers for the inaugural Witches & Warriors Retreat. And we need your help to make it happen!

 

 

ABOUT THE RETREAT

 

The Witches & Warriors Retreat will gather 6 poets and 6 activists from across the Northeast for three nights of dreaming, scheming, and skill-sharing in Western MA in summer 2022. Bringing together the radical creativity of poets with the audacity and expertise of activists, attendees will collaborate on envisioning more liberated futures through workshops, discussions, and writing sessions with faculty mentors. The retreat will culminate in the creation of new poems and a public reading/celebration in downtown Northampton.

 

Who: Twelve participants (6 poets, 6 organizers) from across the Northeast, prioritizing BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people. Two established artist/activists will serve as faculty mentors.

 

When: Three nights in summer 2022

 

Where: Hawley, MA (Nipmuc and Pocumtuc land)

 

What: Workshops, discussions, writing sessions, and community-building activities, plus time for rest and rejuvenation in the beautiful mountains of Western Mass.

 

Retreat Goals:

 

 

WHAT WE NEED

 

The total cost of the retreat is $15,750:

 

While we are applying to grants, our goal is to raise at least half of this through grassroots funding. Your support will help us offer this retreat as a safe, low-cost, accessible space for all participants, while also compensating faculty and staff for their time. If we exceed our goal, funds will go to operating costs and building up our sustainability as an organization for the long haul. (See below for info about making tax-deductible donations and other ways to support.)

 

 

WHY WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT

 

In the course of our five years working on the Brew & Forge Book Fair, we’ve seen how organizers everywhere are in dire need of restorative spaces to help them dream outside of the day-to-day grind of campaign work. Meanwhile, poets understand how our work can be transformative for communities, and yet often find ourselves siloed in academic spaces and/or struggling to create within an under-resourced field. We take heart in the way Pablo Neruda’s line “Podrán cortar todas las flores, pero no podrán detener la primavera” (“You can cut all the flowers, but you can’t stop spring from coming”) animated the Arab Spring and subsequent social movements. And yet, while several organizations exist to convene movement workers with artists in other genres, none exists that is—to our knowledge—specific to the transformative power of poetry. We believe writers, especially poets, can help make the fights for racial, economic, and gender justice more imaginative and more nourishing for the people in them. The Witches & Warriors Retreat will be a necessary catalyst, a meeting point, and a spark for future collaborations.

 

But, like all good things, we can’t do this without community! While we are in the process of applying to grants and seeking sponsors, community support helps us build long-term resilience while growing in right relationship with our people. As an emergent project led by three Asian American women artists and a devoted, majority-QTPOC volunteer committee, we really rely on grassroots funding to make this work happen. Please consider donating, and help us plant the seeds for a more vibrant, creative, nourishing movement!

 

 

HOW TO SUPPORT

 

Any amount that you can contribute (whether it's $5 or $500) makes a real impact! If you’re not able to give financial support at the moment, please consider sharing this campaign with your community networks. It can help us a lot!

 

Because Brew & Forge is not a 501(c)3, your donation to this GoFundMe campaign is unfortunately not tax-deductible. However, we are in the process of setting up fiscal sponsorship through the Peace Development Fund in order to accept such donations! If you are interested in making a tax-deductible donation, please drop your info here or click "contact" below! We would love to talk through options with you.

 

Please also contact Franny if you are interested in:

 

And be sure to keep an eye out for our annual Brew & Forge Book Fair, which will run in late November-early December of this year!

 

 

MORE ABOUT BREW & FORGE

 

Brew & Forge amplifies the collective power of writers and other artists to alchemize dreaming and build capacity in movements for liberation, justice, and survival. Through our annual book fair, retreat, and other events, we strive to foster mutual flourishing between writers and activists, leveraging the creative imagination to help build sustainable movements. More info at www.brewandforge.com.