The Sharpener Five Year Anniversary!

The Sharpener turned five years old yesterday! It now enjoys singing, dancing, and acting, eats with a fork and spoon, does somersaults, and can use scissors with supervision.

I started publishing The Sharpener November 21, 2020. My plan for the newsletter, as I discussed in this interview with Tupelo Quarterly, was to create a third space (apart from social/print media or the university) to encourage thinking through poetry. Since then, The Sharpener has gathered over 4,000 engaged subscribers, and via The Sharpener I’ve published 1,400 themed mini-anthologies and 230 weekly essays and deep-dives into overlooked or under-celebrated authors, topics, and primary documents.

Mini-Anthologies / “Sharpener Sets”: I have a so-called “photographic memory” and can instantly recall many of the tens of thousands of poems I’ve read (a trait that proves useful to me as an editor of poems and poetry manuscripts). Three times a week, I assemble a small cache of poems sharing a common theme, designed to show the broadest possible range of styles, voices, and approaches that poetry can hold. The themed posts present photos of poems from my own collection of books to recreate the sensation of searching through a bookstore or library.

A tiny sample of the themed mini-anthologies:

• Emergencies

• Hurt

• Weeds

• Insomnia

• Plums

Weekly Essays:The weekly essays consist of “Craft” (discussions of poets I feel deserve a wider readership), “Writing Problems” (discussions of the psychological or technical part of making poems) and, most recently, “Paging” (discussion of obscure or out-of-print books that can provide unique poetic insights).

A tiny sample of some of the “Craft” essays:

• Wanda Coleman

• Carol Conroy

• Tory Dent

• Julia Hartwig

• Laura Jensen

A tiny sample of the weekly “Writing Problems” essays:

• AI and the Disorientation of Reality

• Attachment

• Failure

• Is my manuscript good enough?

• Multiple Self States

Reading The Sharpener offers a methodical and painstaking exploration of poetry of all kinds, and an annual subscription costs 1,428 times less than the average MFA program. It is also a labor of love supported by readers, and I’m grateful for the many of you who have purchased paid subscriptions (which provides access to those 230 weekly essays and many more to come). If you are interested in poets and topics in poetry, please consider supporting my work by subscribing. There is a discount for group subscriptions (e.g. MFA workshops or book clubs) and you can also give gift subscriptions for the holidays. The Sharpener is delivered to your email inbox, and can also be read in Substack’s app. All the previous posts can be searched in the Archive.

A reminder also that The Sharpener is part of a continuum of services I offer for poets, academic writers, literary institutions, and poetry appreciators that includes process-oriented editorial support, craft courses, and guided poetry reading groups. Thank you to the many of you who have joined me, and each other, in discussing, sharing, and engaging more deeply with poetry.

The Sharpener reflects my lifetime living, reading, and writing poetry. Carl Sandburg said: “Poetry is a synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits.” In The Sharpener I endeavor to bring this synthesis, blossoming and devourable, in an insight-building, non-competitive, and joyful presentation.

Thank you again for your support. Stay sharp!

Sean Singer