Stories From Inside

The most beautiful zine we’ve seen in a while, in both content and visually. This zine features antidotes from many incarcerated muslims, on their experience and their struggles. We respect Believers Bail Out and their work tremendously, and hope many learn from Stories From Inside. Please consider donating, and sharing the word!

Believers Bail Out is a national community-led effort to bail Muslims from pretrial & immigration incarceration. Pay your zakat to bail & help us free our people!

Books

The poets are starting to get their copies! Our hearts are so full 💞

 
 
 
 

Fest!

Soo fun to table a zine fest again! Thanks to the organizers (/ICA SF) and everyone who came through! Also just such a wholesome group of people, a great way to jump back into the festival scene.

featured art by Chris Martin

Poetic Hype (THE LAST ONE)

As you may have heard we made a poetry book. Well, it’s about to come out.

There are over 40 different authors featured, from literally around the world!

Here is a our last preview before the book is released.

If you’re interested, grab your copy HERE

This poem is by Elena Orlando, from Seattle WA, called hips.

hips

I saw a bumper sticker that said 

lose the father / ram the daughter 

and a man at a stop sign jacked off 

looking at me


i don’t feel like a woman 

& i don’t not


in losing tenderness i make angry missteps, giving 

ephemeral inattention to my body 


then 

i look back once and can’t  

stop


i want my hips 

to make indifferent rhythm 

just  

moving around 

Poetic Hype (week 3)

With the book release fast-approaching, here is the second to last peek of a poem from Relevant Poetry.

This poem is called BHASA by Leena Joshi

BHASA

the rhododendrons are blooming

they are known to me now as familiars

like the small rough licks of cats on the block

and the buzz of unavoidably gmo pollens


i am here completely on accident

kinless with no real language to lay out in


when i stretch my hips in one tongue

it is haunted sing song     lewd and childish


i try another and am burned

by absolute presence   the news cycle   wifi radiation

i understand the colonialty of each minute

but please   it cannot be constantly sensed


that is asking too much of a body praying

to understand that it is not made of grievance 

2021

A year in film photography! by Marley Jeranko.

This zine made great use of its 40 pages, with 5 chapters: ride, climb, home, with you and self.

“having grown up in the digital world, my relationship to social media & these devices my mind is deeply attached to & hands ever wrapped around is always in flux.

on one side, i love the connection it offers me. i regularly feel inspired by the wealth of creativity & progressive thinking. i learn constantly & am encouraged to expand & heal myself in ways i didn’t know was even possible.

& on the other, i resent it. even those seemingly “good” things come without rest. & the connections, at a certain point, they feel hollow. i’m angry when i don’t hear from friends organically.

ultimately, what keeps me coming back is wanting a place to share the images i produce. my dedication to film photography is amplifying with every roll i develop & has become a precious way for me to show the people i cross paths with that you are seen & so beautiful. for me, it’s an energy exchange, similar to that of sharing a home-cooked meal or hearing the words “i love you, too” roll off a tongue in your direction.

that exchange would remain incomplete without my final gift to you. because no matter what, it starts & ends with you.

& yet…

doing so in a digital space no longer fulfills that circuit. i’m dissatisfied watching these photos that mean so much to me live & die quicker than it takes to press the shutter & pull the lever. you all deserve more than that.

& so, that brings me here.

i’ve been wanting to make something in print for a long, long time now. my perfectionism getting in the way, mostly.

let this be my starting place. no, it’s not perfect, (far from it) but it’s just for you. & that means more to me than the illusion of perfect our digitized lives beg of us to uphold.

thank you for receiving it. i don’t take it lightly: you, sitting wherever you are, reabsorbing the light i saw in you. that’s all photos are anyway—light. & you, are the brightest.

with love,

marley”

Poetic Hype (week 2)

As we mentioned before, we’re going to try to share poems from Relevant Poetry these weeks leading up to its release. Below is José Vadi’s Moon Poem:

Moon Poem

good mornings say Leave while night stays open / beyond calls last made to glowing orbs pondering / its reflection in a sky that envelopes the 210 / a rose bowl’s parade prepared like a letter I won’t receive upon departure / the ground rises to a reflective kiss and we are eye level: the moon and me and pyramid lake glistening below / finches showered in shaded wonder / celestial glaciers versus windshield forensics / known signs of possible life / a beyond murmuring / You were right to only visit / with feet the weight of lead