Day #20: Apricity Press

Celebrating poetry by highlighting 30 days of literary publishers who produce poetry you can listen to, watch, or read, in 5 minutes or less.

April is National Poetry Month, true. And it’s now May. Yes. But I’m going to keep on keeping on until you get 30 days of poetry pairing.

Day #20 is for my beautiful granddaughter, Leah.

Leah is five years old. She makes up stories and wants to write them down, as naturally as she walks and breathes. She dances and paints, and is captivated by mud and bugs. For Leah, and for the entire generation of upcoming writers, thinkers, dancers, artists and curious dreamers, I recommend Apricity Press.

Apricity is the first journal I’ve encountered that includes dance alongside poetry, prose, fiction, and art. It’s a multi-genre feast.

From the Apricity Press “About” page:

            “Apricity Press is an annual online publication of poetry, prose, short fiction, visual art, and dance works. Embodying the obsolete word it was named after, Apricity aims to manifest the feeling of the warmth of the sun in the winter in all that it publishes. 

Established in 2015, Apricity Press was created to fill an immense void in the publishing world. While there are a myriad of presses, literary journals and magazines, many lack the ability to publish multi-genre works, especially dance works. Because of this, Apricity constructed a space where incredible literary, art, and dance works could be published side by side, showcasing the tremendous inherent connections between the forms.”

Issue #6 features more than 30 pieces of art, literature, and performance. It was hard to pick a specific piece for Leah, but I had to go with Poem Diary, a two-poem animated art video, subtitled with English, while read aloud in the original Bengali by the creator, Adwaita Das. It’s truly a magical experience to listen and watch.

The first poem begins like this:

fireflies live in water as well

have you thought of it?

how the sea sparkles at night

or how dreams surge like stars

FROM POEM DIARY BY ADWAITA DAS

May you put things together in new ways today. May you stay in touch with all your dreams.

Thank you for all the kind responses to this series and for asking me to pick a personal poem just for you.