Get Ready for a Grassroots Poetry Slam

You may be thinking right now: “Hold up, a GEO Poetry Slam?!?”

Yes. A GEO Poetry Slam. Let me explain.

One of our traditions in GEO is the semi-annual retreat, where we get together for a weekend to give us time to (among other things) talk in depth about everything we don’t have time for in our monthly meetings. We always start the retreats with a Friday night of socializing and doing something fun together. This time, we asked everyone to bring a (relatively) short poem about resistance to share with the group.

We’d received this idea from our distinguished member Matt, who’s farm labor club in Colorado has made it a habit to recite poetry to each other while weeding carrots and harvesting peas. It sounded like a fine idea to the rest of the planning circle and so everyone was asked to bring a poem to share, either written by someone else, or of their own creation.

And boy are we happy we did! Moving away from our normal mode of heady discussions of the cooperative movement and current events was something I think we all needed in this especially stressful time. We are bombarded by the bad and the ugly with every morning’s headlines; sometimes you need to force your gaze onto the beautiful, the sublime, the poetic. Not to distract yourself from the horrors of the human condition, but to remind yourself of the radiance of the human soul and why it is worth struggling to empower.

Ajowa read from Langston Hughes, I read some of my own stanzas, and David poeticized selections from a book he’s reading, Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments, while others shared poems from Margaret Atwood and Amanda Gorman. It made for an altogether delightful evening and wonderful way to kick off a weekend of heavy business.

We enjoyed it so much, in fact, that we’ve decided this practice needs to be shared with more people in the worker co-op and solidarity economy movements. To that end, we’re hosting a Solidarity Economy Poetry Slam, AND YOU’RE INVITED! It’s been far too long since we hosted an event – and it’s time we did a little fundraising too. We have lots of things we want to accomplish this year: more print issues (we ran a test issue a few months ago, and our next issue comes out very soon), paying more writers and artists, and generally keeping the lights on.

Now this is not going to be your typical poetry slam, with judges and scoring and multiple rounds. Not at all. To be honest we’re just calling it a “slam” because “slam” sounds way cooler than “recital.” This is just a bunch of people getting together to share poetry with each other.

So find a (relatively) short poem to share and bring it to our May 4^th virtual Solidarity Economy Poetry Slam! And as in any cooperative endeavor, the more people who pitch in with something to share, the better it will be for everyone. We promise this will be one of the most enjoyable online events you’ll attend all year. You may not leave with any bookkeeping tips, or marketing strategies, but you will be sure to remember this one for a long time to come.1

Get your tickets here.

As always we’re running this event on a sliding scale to make sure everyone is able to participate. If you can pitch in a few bucks (or more than a few) we greatly appreciate it; but if things are tight for you , please grab yourself a free ticket – it’s the poetry that we’re really after.

So grab a ticket, find some poetry that moves you, and join us for the GEO Solidarity Economy Poetry Slam! May 4, 2026 online from 6-8PM Eastern.

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  And if you are now asking yourself, “Why May 4th? Is this a Star Wars thing?” the answer is no, it’s not a Star Wars thing, it’s a Hay Market thing. Don’t be embarrassed though, I thought is was a Star Wars thing too until Matt enlightened me.