Bi-Monthly By Ryan #32

A twice-monthly newsletter by Ryan Jafar Artes

Author

Ryan Artes
December 01, 2025

I wrote “A Cut Flower as an Adoptee” after attending Ghosted World: An Uncancelled Asian American Literature Festival in August 2023. Read more about the story behind this poem and the full piece here. Thank you to Brenna Ebner and her team at Twisted Tongue Press for giving such a nicely presented home to my work. <3

Dear Comrades,

Capitalism is exhausting. Our families are exhausting. The holidays are exhausting.

I offer spaces to meaningfully reclaim ourselves and our time from forces outside of ourselves, while deeply connecting with ourselves and each other by way of creative practice and process. Due to a last-minute glitch, my prior newsletter wasn’t titled. I want to make sure all of you see my upcoming course offerings.

Please be sure to check out my prior newsletter, Bi-Monthly By Ryan #31. It includes the most up-to-date descriptions and schedules of my signature letter writing courses. I have also included some information about my courses in this newsletter.

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Community Building

In a larger sense, community building is an umbrella term that refers to making connections with others in a shared space. For the purposes of this discussion, I mean: making connections with poets in the poetry world… Just showing up as a poet in the world has a lot of benefits for both you as a human and you as a poet because putting yourself out there as a poet is an extraordinary opportunity to grow and learn.

This is the first of three quotes from Bridget Kriner’s article, “Ask Not What Poetry Can Do For You: Becoming a Good Literary Citizen,” written for The Poetry Lab and published on October 28, 2025. This article articulates lessons we will embody, learn, and practice in my classes. Community building is at the core of the spaces I curate and facilitate, a collective we build together with the durable foundation of storytelling.

Please reach out to me directly to sign up for any of my classes. I am asking for contributions of $300-600, and am open to bartering and trading. Different from what I have announced in the past, my next two classes are now open to everyone.

Holiday Letter Writing as a Spiritual Practice starts next Sunday, December 7, 2025 at 3pm EST and runs for six weeks. We will spend the first half of our time together writing year-in-review letters for ourselves (or to share with others, if we care to do so). Then, we will write a personal mantra/prayer/ritual inspired by an exploration of the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord’s Prayer, and Octavia Butler’s concept of Earthseed.

Letter Writing as a Spiritual Practice starts on February 1, 2026 at 3pm EST and runs for eight Sundays, with no class on Sunday, March 8, 2026. We will focus on creating personal archives for the sake of inspiring our future generations, and will be much different from the first offering. We will be inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, and Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl as we create our own archives.

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Service Learning

…[S]ervice learning is an educational term referring to the practice of “combining learning goals and community service in ways that can enhance both student growth and the common good.” Like community building, supporting poetry through your actions is not just a nice thing to do, but a way to grow your writing practice and craft as a poet. Besides just showing up for poetry, you can take an active role in supporting poetry in many tangible ways—by becoming a good literary citizen.

This is the second of three quotes from Bridget Kriner’s article, “Ask Not What Poetry Can Do For You: Becoming a Good Literary Citizen” (The Poetry Lab, October 28, 2025). I approach my writing much like I approach my life, as a spiritual practice rooted in collective liberation. I would rather serve my community than capitalism any and every day, and my class offerings are one way I have figured out how to do so.

Letters to Our Homes is for Black and Brown adoptees only. We will write to various understandings of home in a space I have created and designed to be exclusively for us. The next run starts at 3pm EST on Sunday, September 27, 2026 and runs for eight weeks (with no class on Sunday, November 1, 2026). 

The holidays are so fucking hard. This year was no exception. Though it felt easier than it has in the past, it was still difficult as fuck.

This newsletter is an expression of my commitment to myself. I gave myself last month off from writing my second newsletter, for the sake of rest and to recover from my time in NYC (I will share more details about my trip in my next email, but for now I want to keep the memories for myself!). I aim to send three newsletters this month, after which I will take my regularly scheduled winter break, which I do for the sake of sustainability.

Love, Ryan <3

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Literary Citizenship

Literary Citizenship [is] an idea that encompasses both community building and service learning. …[B]eing a good literary citizen has the potential to be very valuable to the practice of poetry writing practice... Enrolling in a workshop or a class is clearly a way to learn something new (like a form or craft technique) and to get direct feedback on your work; it is also a way to serve poetry in the larger sense, as you what you bring to a formal learning experience like this can be just as important as what you take away.

This is the third of three quotes from Bridget Kriner’s article, “Ask Not What Poetry Can Do For You: Becoming a Good Literary Citizen” (The Poetry Lab, October 28, 2025). I aim to create robust communities of writers and poets by way of writing together and sharing our work with each other. I facilitate my classes with safety and consent at the forefront of our practice and process of writing together.

Upcoming Courses:

  • Holiday Letter Writing as a Spiritual Practice #2 starts on Sunday, December 7, 2025 at 3pm EST and runs for six (6) weeks on Sundays. This is the first time I am publicly offering this class, which you can read more about in my Bi-Monthly By Ryan #31. Different from prior announcements, this class is now open to everyone! <3

  • Letter Writing as a Spiritual Practice #2 starts on Sunday, February 1, 2026 and runs for eight (8) weeks (with no class on Sunday, March 8, 2026). We will focus on creating written archives, inspired by Anne Frank, Rainer Maria Rilke, and my own personal archival letter writing practices and processes. This class is open to everyone, and the curriculum will be much different than the first time I offered it! <3

  • Letters to Our Homes #4 starts on Sunday, September 27 at 3pm EST and runs for eight (8) weeks (with no class on Sunday, November 1, 2025). This class is for Black and Brown adoptees only. I created and designed this course to be just for us! <3

I wrote “How to Fall Asleep” in Yona Harvey’s “The Art of Bending Time” workshop at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, which I attended virtually in January 2022. Read more about the story behind this poem and the full piece here. Thank you to Brenna Ebner and the team at Twisted Tongue Press for believing in me and my work. <3