Dear friends, I hope this letter finds you well. It’s hard to believe we’re all still suffering through a pandemic. Where do you find sanctuary? In what do you find solace and a chance to get away from it all? Let me share with you one of the things I do. Someone once advised me to write a poem a day, no matter how good, how bad. “Just write,” he said. After many decades of starts and stops, I began on March 28, 2020 to post a poem a day on my Facebook page, a page I started that very day. I called that entry: “How I’m dealing with the pandemic.” That’s what writing has helped me do: deal with the pandemic and all the rest of the turmoil happening in our world. I’ve posted something almost every day since then. Some came out good, others not so. Here’s one I kind of like: I have also returned to old issues of Bamboo Ridge. One I recently looked through was The Best of Bamboo Ridge (1986.) I really just wanted to see my poem about eating fish heads. I also re-read Eric Chock’s essay “On Local Literature.” We sometimes forget how Hawai‘i writers were dismissed back then, how Bamboo Ridge Press challenged the notion that there was no such thing as local literature. Find your old issues or visit our digital archive; then pick up one of our recent issues. See what BRP has done for nearly 45 years creating space for writers like myself and all the emerging ones excited for their frst publication. Even after all this time BRP stays alive from grant to grant and through the efforts of volunteers possessed of dogged determination. But we can’t do it alone. Won’t you help to keep Hawai‘i voices thriving? Your donation is very important and will help BRP continue to give Hawaiʻi writers a place to share their work. You will also be giving readers a place to shelter and return to over and over again to experience Hawaiʻi writing. Mahalo for your generosity and support. Sincerely, Jean Yamasaki Toyama
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