PROJECT NEWS
S. Erin Batiste to Guest Edit a Future Issue of PoetryXCollage
S. Erin Batiste (Brooklyn, New York, USA) has been invited to guest edit a special issue of PoetryXCollage that focuses on the work of Radical Black Feminist writers and artists at the intersection of poetry and collage. Batiste’s practice is rooted in accumulation and maximalism, and she is influenced by beauty, otherworlds, waymaking and migration, divination and astrology, Americana, archives, and what remains. Her work examines themes of freedom, the complexity of memory, what we consider history, and the ways we all inherit and collect possessions and stories. Providence (handmade art zine, four editions, 2024 and 2025), along with And The Glory Will Be Revealed (University of New Orleans Press, forthcoming, 2026) reclaim early 1900’s century mugshot photographs of Black women and girls from the New Orleans Public Library. The book itself is an intervention. Batiste is a 2026 Corsicana Writer in Residence and a 2025-2028 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow in Literature. Batiste runs Revival Archival Cards, Collage & Salvage—a mobile arts studio in Brooklyn.
Batiste took part in Kolaj Institute’s New Orleans Collage Artist Lab: City as Archive in 2022; the Collage Magic Artist Residency in 2023; and was a presenter in the symposium, COLLAGE::BOOKS at VolumeMTL in October 2025. In March 2026, Interdisciplinary Poet Batiste will be a guest speaker at The Elusive X: Virtual PoetryXCollage Residency where she will present her own work and what those working in the tradition of Radical Black Feminists are doing at the intersection of poetry and collage, why now and why it matters. Selections from her “Paper Bag Belle” series will be on view as part of the exhibition, “The Fragment as Verse” at Kolaj Institute Gallery, 18 April to 16 May 2026. Reclaiming the history of Brown Paper Bag Tests, the series uses found poetry fragments, collage, letterpress prints, and brown paper grocery bags to tell stories of Black women living in the Jim Crow South and Reconstruction Era. (In the 1800s-1900s Creole and Free Black societies functioned within Louisiana. Rumor is, The Paper Bag Test originated from the infamous Creole balls where a brown paper bag was placed outside the door, denying any person darker admittance and privileges into events, and consequently their world. The Paper Bag Belle series is a reclamation of these “tests.”). Learn more about the artist HERE.
To be considered for this issue, writers and artists who identify as Radical Black Feminists are invited to follow the regular submission process for PoetryXCollage to express their interest and how their practice and submission explores and reflects Radical Black Feminist theory. Please be mindful of your relationality and points of intersection and intervention when putting together your submissions. Alternatively, they may send an email to S. Erin Batiste at radicalblackfempoetry@kolajinstitute.org
To be included in the first round of reviews, please submit your work by Sunday, 26 April 2026.
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ABOUT POETRYXCOLLAGE
PoetryXCollage is a printed journal of artwork and writing that operates at the intersection of poetry and collage. We are interested in found poetry, blackout poetry, collage poems, haikus, centos, response collages, response poems, word scrambles, concrete poetry, scatter collage poems, and other poems and artwork that inhabit this world.
Each issue presents six movements of work by artists and curators. Page spreads are meant to be free zones of thinking where the contributor has chosen all elements of the layout: font, image place, composition, etc.