What is the Substation?
The Substation is a private online forum for diVERSES
for poets to share work and develop professionally. ​
​​​​​Private Peer Review | Free Community Prompts | Poetry Craft Workshops | Business Talk
The goal: transform writing into writing that transforms.
Substation Services
New
Referral
Program!
In addition to peer review, several poetry editors also review work:
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Geoff Anderson
Geoff created diVERSES to promote the writing of multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and under-represented poets in building writing that supports creative and financial independence. His poems can be found in journals like Cimarron, Tar River, Ninth Letter, Indiana Review, and Hobart. He's a Callaloo fellow, Cave Canem fellow, Frost Place finalist, BOAAT chapbook prize finalist, Driftwood finalist, poetry retreat organizer, event curator, and dad. He founded Columbus's first poetry Conference (the Poet Assembly), the first non-print and non-online poetry journal (Brick & Mortar) and Columbus's first poetry-dedicated venue (the Stanza).
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Violeta Orozco
Ajanaé Dawkins
Violeta Orozco is a bilingual poet, fiction writer and essayist from Mexico City, author of three poetry collections: The Broken Woman Diaries (Andante Books 2021) Stillness in the Land of Speed (Jacar Presss 2022) and Atlas of an Ancient World (Black Lawrence Press 2024). Her first book of essays in Spanish was published by UNAM in Mexico City in 2023. She completed her Ph.D. with a concentration in Creative Writing and Chicanx Literature at University of Cincinnati. She is also a translator of Chicano Literature, and has translated Dreaming with Mariposas into Spanish. Her editorial work includes being a reader for Cincinnati Review. She is currently working on a book of parodic ghost stories taking place in Mexico City.
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Ajanaé Dawkins is a poet, conceptual artist and theologian raised between Metro Detroit and New Rochelle, NY. She works through poetry, visual art, performance, and audio to explore the politics of faith, grief, and intimate relationships between Black women. As a theologian, she blends cultural criticism, memoir, and theology as autotheory to consider the relationship between Black church history, spirituality, and creation. Her work has appeared in Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, The Rumpus, Prairie Schooner, and more. Her exhibition, No One Teaches Us How To Be Daughters, debuted at Urban Arts Space in 2024. Her chapbook, BLOOD-FLEX, won the New Delta Review prize. Ajanaé is an Elizabeth George Grant Recipient and Writing Freedom Fellow. She was the Taft Museum’s 2022 Duncanson Artist in Residence and Ohio State University’s 2024 UAS Community Artist in Residence. She is a fellow of Torch Literary, The Watering Hole, and Pink Door. She cohosts the VS Podcast with Brittany Rogers at the Poetry Foundation. Ajanaé lives in Columbus, Ohio and is writing a manuscript and developing a theology space for artists on the margins of their faith to explore spirituality and creation.
Craft Write Poetry Workshops
In addition to accessing peer review and getting feedback from our poetry editors, Substation members get access to attend Craft Write Poetry Workshops and watch previous sessions.
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These workshops are led by outside facilitators to cover different writing elements and techniques to elevate your technical knowledge.
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Links to the latest workshop and previous sessions can be accessed in the Craft Write section of the forum here. Please note each new session is limited to 10 on-screen participants, though all Substation members are able to watch live via a private Youtube link.
Upcoming Craft Write Sessions
Feb 22nd IN-PERSON
Every Word Must Conjure
w/ Denise R. Ervin
Every Word Must Conjure is a 2-hour generative writing workshop that dives into the differences between denotation and connotation in poetry. Specifically, the importance of word choice in conveying not only meaning, but ideas and images in an intentional way. Participants will have the chance to explore contemporary writing by poets of color, discussing and dissecting the syntax of each, and have time to generate new work in response to a prompt along with the opportunity to share it with the group.
More On Denise R. Ervin
Denise R. Ervin is a creative writer hewn from the streets, classrooms, and boardrooms of Detroit. She has spent more than two decades as a teaching artist, performing poetry around the country, and leading workshops for the likes of Literary Cleveland and the University of Michigan. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Vagabond City Lit, Harbinger Asylum, Third Wednesday Magazine, and others. She is a TWH (The Watering Hole) Graduate Fellow, an Obsidian Foundation Fellow, and a semifinalist for America’s Next Great Author. When she's not serving as a Program Manager for a local youth writing organization, Denise is working on several novel projects and her first full-length poetry manuscript, tentatively titled Palimpsest.
Past Craft Write Sessions
Write Well Through Improv
Facilitator: Penda Smith
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Silence your inner critic through mindfulness and improvisation. We’ll begin with playful improv exercises to warm up the body and mind, then dive into generative writing that may make you laugh, cry—or even pee a little. Readings may include Thich Nhat Hanh, Lucille Clifton, and June Jordan. No improv experience needed—just a willingness to say yes, and.
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More On Penda Smith
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Penda Mbaye Z. Smith is a Cave Canem Fellow, educator, and mindfulness practitioner with a background in improvisational performance and poetry. Her workshops center joy, embodiment, and liberation through language. Drawing from traditions of Black poetics, somatic awareness, and play, she creates spaces where participants can write, reflect, and imagine freely.
I Would Eternal Sunshine
The Hell Outta You
w/ Kush Thompson
In dreams, memory wanders in fragments down a lane on which time is obsolete. Portaling back into our core memories through a hall of trap doors, this workshop invites you to remember weirdly as you write your own plot-twisting erasure poetry.
Join us as we time travel across the surrealist imagery of lucid dreams, memory reconstruction, and the visceral process of forgetting.
More On Kush Thompson
Author of A Church Beneath the Bulldozer (2014) and creator of the pink-haired Blk Hottie portraiture series, Kush Thompson is a Chicago-born poet, painter, educator, and fellow of Luminarts, Pink Door, and Cave Canem. She creates archival art; centering often on black girlhood and the mechanics of memory.
Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, Chicago Reader, The Washington Post, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015)
Creative Companionship
A Book Club To Live On Poetry
Thursdays 5PM-6PM The Stanza
The Substation is also the place where notes for previous and upcoming sessions of the Creative Companionship book club will be posted. That way, whether or not you have access to the session's book, you'll be able to make the most of our discussion. The Creative Companionship book club, and its section of the Substation forum, are completely free. No registration is required to attend; walk on in Thursdays at 5PM New York.
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