By Priyanka Ray | In 2021, Beacon expanded our poetry program, adding both new and established poets to sit alongside the classic masters—including James Baldwin, Mary Oliver, and Sonia Sanchez—who have long been an essential part of our catalog. The series, Raised Voices, serves the overarching goals of raising marginalized voices and perspectives, publishing poems that affirm progressive values and are accessible to a wide readership, and celebrating poetry’s ability to access truth in a way no other form can. Read more →

Talk about an affront to human life. In a bait-and-switch tactic to push the Right’s anti-immigrant message, FL Governor Ron DeSantis paid to send 50 migrants like cattle on an airplane from San Antonio, TX, to Martha’s Vineyard, MA. The migrants were told they’d land in Boston, where they could get expedited work papers. On top of that, hundreds of thousands of people across Puerto Rico are waiting for water and power to be restored after Hurricane Fiona knocked out power lines and collapsed infrastructure with massive flooding. A rough way for Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month to start. Read more →

It’s raining men, and not the ones The Weather Girls sang about. They’re raining on Pride parades with violent intent. A U-Haul truckful of members from the white supremacist group, Patriot Front, was arrested before they could disrupt a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Proud Boys stormed a Drag Queen story hour at a library in San Lorenzo, CA. Baptist ministers in Idaho and Texas went viral for calling on the government to execute gay people. Cancel all the hallelujahs for them. Read more →

A Q&A with Raquel Salas Rivera | Not all my work is meant to be translated, but when I do self-translate, the flipbook is perfect for a bilingual edition. It doesn’t give priority to either language, and that feels truer to both my process and my readership. In many ways, my readers in Spanish and those who read me in English don’t always overlap but they do correspond, to borrow a term from Jack Spicer. Read more →

Beacon Press is proud to announce the expansion of its poetry program, adding new voices to those of the press’s renowned poets—including James Baldwin, Mary Oliver, Sonia Sanchez, and Richard Blanco—who have been an essential part of the press’s catalog. The new series is called RAISED VOICES and will serve the overarching goal of representing marginalized voices and perspectives in poetry. The series authors will offer books that affirm progressive values, give voice to many identities, are accessible to a wide readership, and celebrate poetry’s ability to access truth in a way no other form can. Beacon plans to acquire about three new titles for the series each year. Read more →