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The Watering Hole invests in pursuing the craft of poetry. We are a home where poets of color in the South can learn and grow at each others’ feet.
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The Watering Hole invests in pursuing the craft of poetry. We are a home where poets of color in the South can learn and grow at each others’ feet.
LET'S BECOME TRIBE
Our Tribe
The Watering Hole invests in pursuing the craft of poetry. We are a home where poets of color in the South can learn and grow at each others’ feet.
As a multiethnic, intergenerational, intersectional Tribe, we meet poets at every level from Slam to Ph.D to beginner, from Gwendolyn Brooks scholar to Kendrick Lama afficionado, from retiree to grade school student.
We uphold the value of both spoke and written poetic traditions, and bring together poets working in a myriad of forms and styles.
Our porgram spaces provide a unique opportunity for financially accessible, high-caliber poetry instruction for populations historically under-supported and under-represented in the literary field.
WE SEE YOU TRIBE
Our Tribe
The Watering Hole Poetry Fellowship is a deep roster of brilliant poets of color who create in real time.
We are TWH Tribe-a communion of poets reach for a goal together, who accept, support, and encourage each other, who open safe spaces for trust, honesty, and risk, who love, love, love each other freely and forgive each other without hesitation, who uplife and hold accountable, who bring peace and stand in solidarity, who celebrate and mourn together, who adher to the belief that when one of us wins, we all win, family beyond blood.
~ Coined & Collaborated on by 2014 Reteat Fellows
WHAT THE POETS ARE SAYING
I love the feeling of truly seeing each other. We see you tribe! A call and response that truly means something.
It is a gift meet strangers who feel like home.
this is the place to get free!
I absolutely loved the crafts talks, the depth of information, the resource sharing, and the support and encouragement. I learned so many technical aspects of poetic form and close readings that weren’t even covered in my MFA.
Being someone who doesn’t have any education background in poetry… I felt intimidated coming into this retreat. But becoming a part of tribe really helped me grow as a poet AND a person. The Watering Hole gives you more than just opportunity to create more work… It gives a community that lasts… It gives love and life…
There’s a point in a sonnet called a volta, it’s a point of transformation on which the whole poem turns. It can be a pivot both to roar, and to stillness; into joy, into hope, into a kind of peace. From love deeper still into love, from the moment I stepped into this space; The Watering Hole has been my volta. This is the space upon which my life has turned and bloomed into more than I ever could have imagined alone.
I feel foundationally changed by my experience with TWH. I may sound naive but I did not know there was a space for BIPOC poets in this world; I thought I had to cobble it together one person at a time like I had in the past, or worse, make myself submit to predominantly white spaces just for a chance at community. Now I know I can bring my whole self to a group of people that will do the same in return; a group of people that loves poetry in all its myriad forms; a group of people that believe in honesty as a way to get free. I loved witnessing this reality at TWH, and all of that was on Zoom. I can’t imagine what its like in person 🙂
TWH is warm succotash over cornbread. Since attending TWH in 2020, I was able to secure my first publication, and 6 more publications in one year — including an Honorable Mention for the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize judged by Jericho Brown for Southern Humanities Review. I have built a poetry community, started an MFA, and attended several fellowships and workshops. All within 12 months!! All because TWH took a chance on me, informing my work and advancing my future. Thank you TWH for seeing me and giving me a sacred home.