Why subscribe?

We live in an age where independent artists (including poets!) can thrive without mainstream assistance or influence. Dispatches From the Basement is how I — an independent poet — connect directly with readers. It’s a joy and a pleasure to share my work in such an immediate fashion, and if there’s an art form that is most suited to immediacy, it’s poetry.

As my old mentor Cid Corman wrote:

Poetry is that
conversation we could not
otherwise have had.

When you subscribe to Dispatches From the Basement, you not only make that conversation possible through your subscription, but you also become an active participant.

Join me.

About me:

Joseph Massey is the author of Rosary Made of Air (The Exile Press), A New Silence (Shearsman Books, 2019), Illocality (Wave Books, 2015), and a trilogy grounded in the landscape of coastal Humboldt County, California: Areas of Fog (Shearsman Books, 2009), At the Point (Shearsman Books, 2011), and To Keep Time (Omnidawn, 2014).

"A Massey poem is a revelation of place."
The New York Times

“Massey is among the most topographically responsive of modern American poets."
Times Literary Supplement

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I offer poetry that seeks out the sacred in the ordinary, accompanied by original photography. No politics, not hot takes, just poetry.

People

Joseph Massey

@josephmassey

My name is Joseph Massey. I'm a poet. My most recent book is Rosary Made of Air (The Exile Press, 2022). My subscribers receive a poem a week, sometimes more, as a reprieve from the usual online noise.