About
In 1794, poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, along with others, developed a plan for a utopian society along the banks of the Susquehanna River. They envisioned a “Pantisocracy” where all would rule equally, free from the servitude, slavery, and oppression embedded in contemporary society. Rejecting the concepts of personal property and hierarchies, they hoped to create a community founded on shared labor and governance, retreating to the untamed Susquehanna wilderness. Minimal regulations would prevent any individual from holding power over another.
Disillusionment with society’s failings—and the stubbornly entrenched political dynamics that persist to this day—fed Coleridge's dream. This vision offered not only a sense of freedom but also an artistic and spiritual escape. However, the journey, the utopian experiment along the Susquehanna, and the art it might have inspired, remained unrealized. Despite this, the spirit of nature, truth, creativity, and the vision of Coleridge and other artists lives on, inspiring those seeking solace in creativity and resilience.
The Susquehannic Collective is dedicated to keeping this spirit alive. All our clothing embodies the poetry, art, and passion that echo those of the past and future.
Hayley Hammerstrom
Hayley Hammerstrom is a poet, philosopher, legal scholar, and advocate in recovery. Each word she writes speaks from the heart: honest, beautiful, surreal, and compelling—a driving force that explores the frontiers of the psyche and the physics of the heart.
This collection of poetry is a record of the greatest injuries and joys of the heart that I have experienced in my short life. The past year has mimicked a molting. Patient, necessary, and evolving.
Integrating this work has been a bittersweet rupture of the chrysalis and its completion an exoneration from these growing pains of loss, addiction, recovery, and a renewed sense of life.
Each poem was written between March 2022 and February 2023. They proceed chronologically."
- A Blue Pink Cloud by Hayley Hammerstrom
Jax Rinaldi
Jax Rinaldi, sometimes known simply as Jax, is a 25-year-old photographer and writer from Cleveland, Ohio. Photography has been a central thread in his life for over eight years. In addition to his artistic pursuits, he is deeply involved in the world of recovery and is a passionate advocate for mental health (not the construct of the institution) and healing from trauma.
Jax is currently working on his first novel, The Color of Butterflies, and has self-published a photography book titled About Life and Death in the Midwest. His partner, writer Hayley Hammerstrom, and he collaborated on their first book together, A Blue Pink Cloud, which is a collection of Hayley's poetry and Brian's photography.