Marcus Wicker

Graphic featuring a portion of Ama Codjoe's poem "Lotioning My Mother's Back"

Headshot of poet Ama Codjoe

"Today’s poem speaks to the ways we can care for one another, and of how profound and meaningful even the smallest gestures are,” shares host @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social in today’s episode.

Read “Lotioning My Mother’s Back” by Ama Codjoe: bit.ly/3KCwVKR

📖: @milkweededitions.bsky.social

Just got to email zero. It may never happen again this year, & that’ll have to do.

Fit check for the first day, year 9 in Memphis

Today’s poem is selected by Emily Skaja (@emilyskaja.bsky.social‬) as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry.

It appeared in The Master Letters by Lucie Brock-Broido, published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. Shared here with deep gratitude.

My favorite poet showing out, showing her whole heart❤️ @emilyskaja.bsky.social

Still got the DVD. The DVD player, however…

Go with the Inkwell! It’s fly, and the sun is beaming too damn hard to wear a black hat everyday

I’ve worn my Blowout Comb shirt in NYC, Detroit, & Chicago. But in the last 10 minutes 4 people have stopped me to say “Digable Planets changed my life.” Which is to say, Memphis is a real ass music town & people forget to say that part. When I say people I mean media. & people who don’t go outside.

Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing (Fiction)

Late Season Creative Writing VAP opportunity at the University of Memphis MFA program. Wonderful students and faculty in a great food and music town with a relatively low cost of living. The position begins THIS Fall (25). Please share!

workforum.memphis.edu/postings/44725

if i should to clark kent enter the darkest room in my house and speak with my own voice, at last, about its awful furniture, pulling apart the covering over the dusty bodies; the randy father, the husband holding ice in his hand like a blessing, the mother bleeding into herself and the small imploding girl, i say if i should walk into that web, who will come flying after me, leaping tall buildings? you? (By Lucille Clifton)

Only just now discovering this Lucille Clifton poem dedicated to Clark Kent.

Oh, it’s cooking!

Apparently I can only be a morning writer on Fridays, camped out in front of the living room windows at 6 am with a draft & Gatorade bribes for the garbage men who forget our bins whenever I sleep in. Which is honestly some 40-year-old shit I never imagined for myself. #writers

September 30!

Altitude Icarus, he advised, heed the warning: don’t fly

This poem by @aireadee.bsky.social lifted me this morning on its Icarus wings.

"Light refracts my name in
dialect only moths comprehend."

i see myself thrown heart first into this ruin not for any crime but being

Wanda Coleman

Three Poems by Ellen Bass - Terrain.org Three striking new poems by Ellen Bass: “Call,” “Oh honey, oh baby,” and “Homage to the Dead Man,” with audio.

Three striking new poems by Ellen Bass: "Call," "Oh honey, oh baby," and "Homage to the Dead Man," with audio.

https://www.terrain.org/2025/poetry/ellen-bass-2/

#poetry #poems #poet #fear #despair #praise #heart #death #family

FLORIDA WATER by aja monet – Book Release Burbank Public Library proudly presents an evening with celebrated poet and activist aja monet, discussing her new collection Florida Water!

LA/BURBANK! I could not be more excited to talk to aja monet about her latest poetry book, FLORIDA WATER! Come chat with us at Buena Vista Library on July 1, 7pm! burbank.libnet.info/event/13500932

Elements: Searching For MF DOOM Podcast Episode · Breaking Atoms: The Hip Hop Podcast · 05/29/2025 · 54m

I'm a contributor to Breaking Atoms' "Elements: Searching For DOOM" episode. You can listen to it here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

Poetry Daily is trying to add 1000 subscribers to their poem-a-day newsletter this month—it’s free, it’s a diverse reading experience, it’s an email you’ll actually be happy to see. 💫 @poetrydaily.bsky.social

Sign up here:

The Size of the Horizon, or, I Explained Everything to the Trees by Mitchell Nobis | Books | Match Factory Editions The Size of the Horizon explores parenting, uncertainty, and injustice, weaving nature, gun violence, and joy into poetry that embraces life’s chaos.

My debut poetry collection is now available for pre-order from @matchfactoryeds.bsky.social, a great new press. I'm thrilled to be in their first round of releases! Check out all their books, and here's the link to mine if you're interested:

🤣See, now that’s an Icarus poem with an angle I could get behind

Thank you! I appreciate it!

Thanks for the shout!

Appreciate it!🙏🏾

I’ve got news! My third poetry collection, DEAR MOTHERSHIP, is forthcoming from Ecco in 2026. I wrote this book through grief, lapses in faith, career highs, bouts of disillusionment with the world, & a hard-fought rediscovery of joy. I’m so excited to share it with you!

I'm elated to share the cover for my next poetry collection, It's Important I Remember, due out 2/15/2026 from Northwestern University Press and now available to pre-order. I pray that these words move you; may they be part of a movement toward one another and away from tyranny.

After the Rooster Crows: Dispatch from a Poet in Exile There is no other way to say this: I write you now from exile, having (if you are reading this) fled political persecution in my home country, the United (for now) States of America. I say this pla…

My essay “After the Rooster Crows” is out today at @literaryhub.bsky.social.
It’s about exile, poetry, and what I’ve brought with me.
Thank you for reading.

lithub.com/after-the-ro...

How moved to find my sad spontaneous overflow at home in the wonderful Georgia Review, alongside work from writers I admire. Here's my girl, whew, here she is, friends, be gentle, snapped w/ a few other poems that caught my eye. What an issue! 🌾 Grateful for poetry. #nationalpoetrymonth

She doesn’t miss @emilyskaja.bsky.social

I’ve decided to think of April as National Write Some Shit Month. Worked on an essay today. Might mess around and write a prose poem tomorrow and a grant narrative Thursday. Get real noncommittal with my dailyness this year.