New publication showcases The Contributor’s poets
The Nashville Street Poetry Project (NSPP) has released its first standalone poetry chapbook, Ignite Nashville, marking a significant milestone for The Contributor’s poetry community. The chapbook debuts alongside this poetry annual edition of our newspaper, fulfilling a longtime vision of the paper’s editorial team. The Nashville Street Poetry Project debuted in the fall of 2023, and the journey to the project’s first poetry collection all started on a billboard in downtown Nashville.
I’m the founder of the NSPP, and I’ve been collaborating with The Contributor’s poets since winning a Metro Arts Thrive Award in 2022. That prize funded my first workshop with the newspaper’s poets and resulted in a collaborative poem displayed on the iconic Nashville Sign during National Poetry Month in April 2023. The installation counted more than a million impressions and charmed Southern audiophiles when The Contributor’s former executive director Cathy Jennings shared the project’s poem and story at David Byrne’s (Talking Heads) Reasons to Be Cheerful event at the 2023 Big Ears Festival in Knoxville.
Following the success of the billboard display, the Nashville Street Poetry Project developed when the newspaper’s poets inquired about more workshops focused solely on developing their verses. The program operates as a collaboration between The Contributor’s poets and myself. We hold one-hour poetry workshops twice monthly following the newspaper vendors’ breakfast meetings at Downtown Presbyterian Church.
The workshops provide essential writing materials — journals, paper, pens, pencils, and markers — for poets to have and use during writing sessions and in their ongoing writing practice. There is no writing without writing supplies, and the NSPP ensures these foundational tools remain accessible to The Contributor’s poets.
Another Metro Arts Thrive grant, awarded in March 2025, expanded the program’s reach, inviting local editors, poets, and artists to be guest workshop facilitators this spring. Local artist and creator of the Unbannable Library, Paul Collins; founder of the Free Nashville Poetry Library, Matthew Johnstone; Third Man Books editor-in-chief Chet Weise; and Third Man Books author and poet-preneur Ciona Rouse all joined our meet-ups in May and June.
Rouse was one of The Contributor’s first volunteers. Weise issued a limited edition collection of the newspaper’s poetry through Third Man in 2015. Collins’ Unzine project has created a series of lo-res publications that pair the paper’s poets with local artists, and Matt Johnstone regularly includes The Contributor and the NSPP at his small press events at The Packing Plant.
The spring series felt like both a reunion of old friends and an occasion for making new ones. This kind of programming connects NSPP with the city’s broader writing community, helping to integrate The Contributor’s poets into Nashville’s literary scene.
The Metro Arts grant also enabled NSPP and The Contributor co-editor Linda Bailey to produce Ignite Nashville, featuring recent work from workshop participants. The collection spans multiple styles, from personal confessions and anecdotal narratives to formalist experiments, traditional poetry and mythic song lyrics. The poetry book spotlights the creative achievements of the newspaper’s poets while also adding a new revenue stream for all of The Contributor’s vendors, who will be offering the poetry booklet alongside their newspapers.
By expanding The Contributor’s commitment to its longtime poetry pages, the Nashville Street Poetry Project serves as another megaphone for the voices of these poets, providing a dependable creative community, expert guidance, publishing opportunities, and compensation for their creative work. The initiative addresses barriers that can prevent people experiencing homelessness from fully participating in Nashville’s literary spaces. Ignite Nashville embodies NSPP’s mission to empower people experiencing homelessness by building sustainable pathways for creative expression.
Readers can purchase Ignite Nashville from The Contributor vendors throughout the city, and support for the Nashville Street Poetry Project can be made through contributions at www.thecontributor.org