Proost lent posts…

We assume that many of you who come here have an interested in poetry and spirituality- which after all are the stuff of seatree as much as anything. If we are right, you might also be interested in a project that Chris has been working on along with a couple of friends…

This involves work to revive an organisation called Proost.

Proost was a publishing platform that formed back in the 1990’s through the work of an entrepeurial group of individuals gathering creative materials being produced in and beyond the edges of the then Christian religious landscape. It was unique in many ways, not least because it was deliberately looking for those people who did not fit in, but who still might have important things to say about social justice or how faith might become a journey towards goodness. It was through Proost that Chris’s poetry was first published and reached wider audiences, so it holds a special place in our hearts.

Inevitably for such an innovative activist organisation, Proost burned brightly, grew, then declined as the innovators moved on to other things. Then, a couple of years ago, Rob Hewlett, who had been a redular user of Proost materials, sent some messages to previous Proost artists, wondering if anyone was interested in being part of a revival effort. In the end, it was Rob and Chris that became the leaders of this effort, later joined by Cameron with a load of essential technical skills.

But what would a new Proost look like? Would it be like the old one, or do our new circumstances and context require something diffferent? Who are the creatives who might need such an organisation now? Who would be interested in what they might produce?

So began a rather unique – and we think very interesting- process of trying to grapple with these questions out in the open, via a facebook group and a podcast.

It is probably obvious to most of you that if we talk about ‘in and around the edges of church’, then this is not the same as it was in the 1990’s. Organised religion has continued to shrink and the diaspora of ‘people who used to go to Church’ has grown. Meanwhile the activists within the remnant of religious institutions may well be doing many brilliant things – food banks, toddler groups, climate action and so on – but they are often exhausted, with little room for anything else.

Meanwhile, there is a sense that many of us have that ‘something has gone wrong’ within our culture just now. We know the headlines – climate change, growning inequality at home and internationally, wars of genocide in the middle east etc. etc., but most of us feel powerless and disempowered in the face of it all.

After all, our politics, our economics, our religion – none of this seemed to offer a story or a pathway towards better. They seem caught in the same place of powerlessness.

How much we need our artists and our poets to shake the tree, to test boundaries, explore new/old ideas!

What we came to was the need to bring together some of the diaspora, along with the creative energy left within the institution. We want totry to build connections, collaboration and creative conspiracy.

This led to a new website proost.community. This site does what it says on the tin- offers community functionality to those who sign up to it- a kind of traditional chat/forum patform that hopefuly allows all sorts of important conversations away from the toxicity of other social media platforms.

Proost feels raw and ephemeral. It probably always will. At present, they are focussing on small projects, such as the current lent collaboration via the Proost blog

There will be a meet-up weekend, and the chance to be part of a creative response to some research. Slowly some of the old Proost archive will be back online too!

If any of this is of interest, feel free to chat to us more about it all, or just head to the Proost site and get involved!