Southampton Writers Conference

Miguel M. Perez is organizing this fundraiser.

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Hi everyone,

My name's Miguel Martin Perez, a soon-to-be graduate from Stony Brook with a Bachelor's in Psychology and a minor in Creative Writing. I've been writing poetry for little over a decade now, as a hobby and creative outlet. I went into psychology with aspirations of becoming a therapist for children. As my interest in these studies ebbed and flowed, my passion for poetry persisted. It's grown immensely, actually. I've realized that there's nothing that would make me happier and more fulfilled than to write poems for the rest of my life. After I graduate, I intend on applying for a Masters in Fine Arts, with a concentration in poetry. Later, perhaps, I'll strive for a Ph.D in English, so I can impart appreciation for the written arts as a university professor.

I recently received some fantastic news about a step I've been hoping to take on this journey to become a full-fledged writer: my application has been accepted by the Selection Committee of the Southampton Writers Conference. I was offered a spot in a 12-day workshop with Billy Collins, Poet Laureate of the United States (2001-2003) and of New York State (2004-2006). It would be an honor to work with a literary great, considered one of the most influential modern poets.

Of course, the conference isn't cheap, and I was given three weeks to pay for it all. It's very steep for me and my family's budget. The estimated cost is:
$1545 for the program
$ 660 for food
$ 550 for housing
$ 42 for travel to/from
---------
$2797 TOTAL

That's $2800 by May 1st, which is impossible for my family and I to scrounge up, but I cannot pass up such an amazing opportunity. [Correction: turns out the program fees alone are due May 1st, and the housing/food costs are due sometime in June. That means $1545 due May 1st and $1252 due in June.] A friend of mine recommended I try GoFundMe; said this site is teeming with generosity, so here I am. Anything you can do to help would be immensely appreciated. Thank you so much for hearing me out and for helping me reach this formidable goal!

Best wishes,
Miguel

P.S. I'll leave you all with a couple of my pieces. The first was in my application to the conference; the second is one of my proudest.

Third: Bargaining

Say the words are rearranged;
Say I recreate the syntax, make it prose;
Say I translate it to Latin;
Say I superglue stray stanzas;
Say I lay low, lighten, loosen all alliteration;
Say the pronouns are defined, concrete as my feet;
Say you rip apart the adjectives and nouns from their umbilical-hyphens;
Say the spaces burn down so our letters merge;
Say all the images are doused and dyed in rose;
Say I blast the ellipses into periods like BB guns, like fiery shrapnel;
Say we sculpt similes into metaphors so nothing would be like, just be;

Say it drowned a million hearts in morning dew and misty tears;
Say it made all your favorite indie frontmen blush;
Say it plagued the planet with viral orgasmic ecstasy;
Say it lit every flickering streetlamp and led each vagabond back home;
Say it echoed exponential through the wind tunnels and traffic radios and off the rooftops;
Say it conquered and soaked up the Atlantic, found the old world;
Say it pillaged London ‘til it found you:
Say the last line sways you.

  Wouldn’t this have it all?—
  Would this all have been worth it?
Let this poem whisk you here. Perfect these words for me.

Why'd I Not Sleep?
for Kristian Kriete

        I've forced the flat side of a sharp blade on my chest,
        endlessly imagining instantaneous Shakespearian tragedy;

        I've swallowed (suc/ex)cessive leftover feel-good chalk chunks and dual-colored dust drops
        to unlock the fateful gilded gateways to highs downstream;

        I've drunk Cabernet from the glass on my own in the clouds of the storm
        to recall our dorm-corner (f/t)uck-head lightning-strike suspension – I’m coroner of that civil dereliction cabaret;

        I've hidden from the quieted dark under quilts
        to explore my skin and wits and find what gives;

        I've cried for the sake of Dad, and Mom, and dozens of closest others,
        hundreds of hypothetical strangers, thousand leaking drips of pupils, mastered mourning a million outcomes;

        I've stared into space to avoid distraction while I thought,
        then when thoughts pain, I’ve stared into space for distraction;

        I've – stone-faced – gazed at glossy multiplexes
        instead of rolling in bed, rocked by subliminal funks of salient pop-medial retina-monopolies;

        I've imagined eminence and penury, lionization and estrangement,
        juvenility and senescence, but none are me for sure;

        I've recited valley-brow arguments to the sight of my face I should've made that one time
        five years (ago/from now) – what wasteful self-reflection;

        I've looked at myself – for some ridiculous reason, for hours sometimes,
        somehow – some days in awe or disgust or desire to pick or to shame or to pout;

        I've danced to earbuds sprouting flowers –
        nectars melting, pinnae trickling rhythmically – in rapid electric revival of neurotic virility;

        I've revised and reworked poems in rage upon realization
        that after intensive grammatical correction, they say nothing;

        I've organized papers, toiletries, TV angles, and dot-light wires,
        unsteady single-story vertigo of my earthquake hands leaving all but sturdy desk in teardrop shambles;

        I've devised/enacted plans for stealthy late-night smoking, standing (half/fully) (naked and/or mast)
        at open upper panes for evening owls to watch or yawn or perch or roost at will;

        I've stayed awake enough to watch the sun rise, change sky
        from violet night plum dusk to periwinkle dawn apricot clouds;

        all this, on and on
        until I dream relief of familiar, UV-freckled, cerulean-day irises beaming across the mattress horizon.