Hi, I’m River!

I’m a poet looking to share my rejected pieces with the world, plus the occasional rough draft.

No one is an island. Though writing is a solitary act, there exists in every writer (every person, really) a craving for community. I sometimes confuse “a community” with “an audience” but I would, selfishly, love it if I could find both.

I’ve never been good at social media but I’ve often wished I had a place for more of my poems to live publicly, and I don’t want to let rejections from traditional publications keep them from seeing daylight. I believe in a lot of these poems, and I’ll keep workshopping the things I post here, submitting them to journals that don’t mind them having lived here first.

This page is not arising from any kind of bitterness with the publication process. It’s quite the opposite—an unshakeable excitement to put work out into the world. I am not seeking validation that these poems are “worth publishing.” The worth of art, to me, comes entirely from its existence. That said, I do believe rejection is redirection. And for whatever reason, I feel it directing me here.

I want to put forth honest, serious work. But I want to do it my way, which will be absolutely unserious. I hope you will be silly with me, and read, and be encouraged in your own pursuits, artistic or otherwise.

There’s no pressure to subscribe, but it would mean you’d get poems directly in your inbox. You won’t have to remember to check back. So that’s cool, I think.

Thanks for being here.

-River