- Bi-Monthly By Ryan
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- Bi-Monthly By Ryan #20
Bi-Monthly By Ryan #20
A twice-monthly newsletter by Ryan Jafar Artes
Ryan Artes
May 29, 2025
Check out my poem, “Not Equal to Family (Reduced Down to Me),” on The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database curated by Split This Rock. I am so humbled and honored to have my work featured here, and also in the Poem of the Week series sent via email on May 23, 2025. Thank you to the curation team at Split This Rock for believing in my work, with a special shout out to Gowri Koneswaran!
Dear Friends,
The next gathering of The Adoptee Open Mic is Monday, June 2, 2025 at 7pm EST. Please take note of the new day and time. My newsletter is the main place I will be announcing events moving forward as I uncomplicate and move away from my relationship with Instagram.
I have decided not to take my usual summer break from hosting The Adoptee Open Mic. For this reason, I will be announcing events each month (in case I need to take a break). Please sign up here to access the link to join June’s event, which I will email to everyone who signs up on the day of the event.
Here is a reminder that The Adoptee Open Mic is for Black and Brown adoptees only. Since community is the answer to fascism, I plan to continue hosting my event through the summer. I am also debating whether or not I will take a break this winter.
By the mid-1800’s, segments of the laboring class had demonstrated in a most convincing fashion their ability to upend whole sectors of the economy and wrench concessions from mighty captains of industry. Working together, railroad workers, in particular, could disrupt interstate trade, mail delivery, and passenger travel, and in the process threaten a range of businesses, from banks and large manufacturers to farmers and other small producers.
Spending time with/in community is one of the ways in which I prevent seasonal depression. I truly cannot imagine taking a break from hosting The Adoptee Open Mic for the foreseeable future. Moving forward, I will send the link to sign up for each open mic session the week before each gathering in my newsletter.
Please consider this as a call to more actively be a part of this community. We have built such an incredible container of care, support, and understanding for us Black and Brown adoptees who continue to show up for ourselves and each other at The Adoptee Open Mic. I want to make sure the event is as sustainable as possible moving forward, for me and everyone who attends.
I am debating whether or not to host a refreshed version of Let’s Thrive Together this summer, an experimental, free, generative poetry writing workshop for Black and Brown adoptees only. I will send out my decision in my next email. Make sure you are subscribed to Bi-Monthly By Ryan, and stay tuned!
They’ll never allow us to thrive.
We will always be afraid.
Our only hope is to fight.
I am currently enrolling for the third course run of Letters to Our Homes, a generative letter writing workshop for Black and Brown adoptees only. Letters to Our Homes meets for 8 classes starting on September 28, 2025, with no class on November 2, 2025. I will send out more information about Letters to Our Homes in my next newsletter, including reviews and what to expect during our time together.
There are still spots available! I am asking for contributions of $300-600 to support my activism and art. I am very open to bartering, swapping services, and trading!
Please reach out to me directly to sign up. I am a team of one. Thank you for your attention.
Love, Ryan <3
Power compounds by making the already powerful even more powerful, and it justifies itself as people in power find ways of making arguments to sustain and legitimize their power. Those two factors alone could create a doom-loop of power becoming increasingly concentrated, but what saves us is that power is also infinite. Power is something that any one of us can create. And civic power is not zero-sum.
Here is my updated flyer for Letters to Our Homes, a generative letter writing workshop for Black and Brown adoptees only. I will include more information about my class in my next newsletter. If you are not a Black or Brown adoptee yourself, please consider sharing this with someone you know and love.