Woodland Pattern

Welcome to our 🔎 More About 🔎 series and celebrate with us the small presses, authors, and books from our Small Press Subscription Program!

Presenting our third small press, author, and book from the July Bundle, which you can sign up for by June 15th [link in profile]:

📚 Noemi Press 📚 strives to introduce voices that might otherwise be marginalized by mainstream presses to a broader audience. Noemi provides writers with support and guidance through extensive editorial collaboration. We have been a historically brown and q***r press since our founding in 2002.

✨ Said Shaiye✨ is an Autistic + ADHD (AuHD) Somali Writer & Photographer in Minneapolis. His debut book, Are You Borg Now?, was a 2022 Minnesota Book Award Finalist in Creative Nonfiction & Memoir.

⛔ Are You Borg Now? (2nd Edition, 2025) ⛔ A brilliant, experimental poetry memoir, this snippet from Douglas Kearney’s “Introduction” (reproduced on the back cover) offers a glimpse into the book’s vibe: “Are You Borg Now? is a memoir that freely, defiantly refuses memory. It blocks invasive trauma, turns away from it. And then, more often than not, Said will cipher with himself, rhyming to fill the whitespace with black. After all, “barring out” means to rap and to refuse entry … A poetics of refusal.”

Check out our full micro-interview with Said in the comments below!

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@ noemipressbooks


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Our incentive for starting this program was to offer assistance to publishers affected by Small Press Distribution's abrupt closure in spring 2024. Now in 2026, with the sudden termination of NEA awards for literary presses and magazines, the crisis for small poetry publishers in the US has increased manifold, as has our motivation to continue providing this service. You can learn more about these twin crises and get updates on how to help small presses from CLMP (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses). Thank you for helping us support the small-press ecosystem from which new voices in American poetry most frequently emerge!

Woodland Pattern, a founding member of the Poetry Coalition, is accepting applications for a paid Poetry Coalition Fellowship position. This position is 20 hours per week from September 2, 2026, to June 30, 2027. The total stipend is $20,000 plus $1,100 toward health care.

The Poetry Coalition is a national alliance of nearly thirty organizations dedicated to working together to promote the value poets bring to our culture and the important contribution poetry makes in the lives of people of all ages and backgrounds.

Founded in Milwaukee in 1979 as a forum and resource center for poets and other artists in the Great Lakes region, Woodland Pattern is dedicated to the discovery, cultivation, and presentation of poetry and the arts. Home to a nationally recognized collection of small-press poetry and offering annually more than 400 activities and events, Woodland Pattern promotes a lifetime practice of reading and writing through programs that encourage exchange across the visual, performing, and literary arts.

For more information and/or to apply, please visit woodlandpattern.org/opportunities or find 🌟 the link in our bio 🌟

Applications are due by July 15 ❕❕❕

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