Dial Tone Poetry

Every threshold marks both an ending and a beginning.

The first season of Dial Tone invites a group of artists to consider these moments of transition. Those quiet shifts that reshape our lives before we fully understand them.

Rather than asking what comes before or after change, this season lingers within change itself. It is an invitation to notice the threshold as a place of movement, discovery and possibility.

Dial Tone Poetry is an ongoing project exploring alternative ways for poetry to be published, distributed and encountered.

Rather than reading a poem on a page, people call a dedicated phone number and are randomly connected to a recording by its author. There are no menus, playlists or algorithms shaping what comes next. Every call is an encounter determined by chance.

The project treats voice as a form of publishing. A recorded poem carries rhythm, hesitation and silence in ways that written language cannot, while the familiar act of making a phone call creates a slower, more intimate way of encountering a poem.

Each season brings together a small group of poets responding to a shared theme. Over time, these recordings form a growing living archive of contemporary poetic voices.