Hello poetry people,

This April I have been putting together a tiny chapbook!

Mistletoe Dart is a collection of nine poems that I wrote in Scotland, Iceland, and the Pacific Northwest over the past year.

I selected the number nine for two reasons:

1) Nine is an important number in Norse mythology, a central motif of this collection.

2) This April marks nine years since losing my sibling Jam, a prolific poet themself.

I want to honor the memory of Jam with this release of nine poems, and I also want to honor the Norse mythos and related pagan traditions that have preoccupied my brain for the last year and a half.

Mistletoe Dart does not feel done — I have other poems and many more ideas for a longer collection revolving around these same ideas — but I want to share this chunk with you in zine format, for now.

To keep the whole project affordable, I made this 12-page zine by folding and binding four pieces of regular printer paper together. I have been using my local library as a printshop and stitching them together by hand with embroidery thread scraps.

This is what the initial distribution looked like, below. I gave a copy to each of my new friends/coworkers/housemates whom I could deliver to by hand, then put a few leftovers in the library free basket last night with a copy of Invite Cats.

Today I am back at the library writing this post and thinking about printing more, and pleased to report that all my free offerings have all been taken.

To send a copy of Mistletoe Dart to you, it costs me $0.35 to print and $0.78 to put in an envelope and mail it. I would absolutely love to make a copy for everyone I know and send them out, but I am the kind of broke right now where $1.13 multiplied by anything over nine is a serious expense.

Thus, I am asking for $3/copy to cover my expenses if you would like me to mail you some poems.

Send me an email (ruthehale@proton.me), text (541-272-7071), or Instagram message (@airanddarkness) to grab one. I have PayPal, Apple Cash, or an address for cash in the mail if I know you.

As it happens, this is my last three-day weekend before I start full-time work, so get those orders in quickly and I’ll send the first/(only?) lot out on Monday, April 27!

Many thanks.