Derrick Austin

"Lessening" Linda Gregg Without even looking in the album I realized suddenly, two months later, you had stolen the picture of me, The one in color in the Greek waves. After you had hurt me so much, how could you also take the picture from me of a time before I knew you? When I was with Jack. Steal the small proof that once Tlived well, was loved and beautiful.

Lessening by Linda Gregg

a troupe of bodybuilder drag queens called the dumb belles

Galleys for This Elegance will be available in the next few weeks. Let me know if you're interested in reviewing or teaching the book and I'll get one sent your way 💜

Today’s poem is selected by Derrick Austin (@Paradiselaust) as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry.

“Raising a Humid Flag” appeared in At Redbones by Thylias Moss, published by Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1990. Shared here with deep gratitude.

Glad to be back in APR: this time with an essay about Robert Hayden's ekphrastic poems.

Thanks 🙏🏿 for sharing!

#poetrycommunity #poetry #booksky

Gothika
The Naked Kiss
Night of the Living Dead
Enemy

In case you missed this week's good news ✨

Donate to Support Evie’s Urgent Spinal Surgery & Recovery, organized by Megan Atkinson Evie broke her neck in Croatia! Help her navigate her spinal fracture c… Megan Atkinson needs your support for Support Evie’s Urgent Spinal Surgery & Recovery

I fell down the stairs + broke my neck in Croatia!

I need spinal surgery asap!

My sister organized a GoFundMe!

#ProtectTheDolls from not being able to pay for spinal surgery!

If you don't have $ to spare, sharing widely would be just as appreciated <3

www.gofundme.com/f/support-ev...

With millions at risk of losing SNAP in the coming days, a reminder: hunger doesn't happen in isolation. When food assistance disappears, families use rent money to eat. Then come evictions and homelessness.

Housing, food, healthcare—it's all connected. Cut one thread and the whole thing unravels.

Stack of six copies of 'The Furies' poetry book by Moira Egan with a vintage-style cover featuring classical illustrations.

"Egan understands received forms’ emotional and psychological layers: sonnet sequences as community gathering or anagrams as sensuous, private conversation."—Derrick Austin

Happy #pubday to Moira Egan's transformative new collection, "The Furies." https://bit.ly/thefuriespoem

'Functionally extinct': After 10,000 years on the Florida coast, two key corals are dead In a grim study, a team of nearly 50 researchers concludes that extreme ocean heat killed off two crucial coral species that had been building reefs in Florida since the Ice Age.

Two #Florida coral species declared functionally extinct. www.nbcnews.com/science/clim... via @nbcnews.com

Thanks so much!

This Elegance Interweaving the sacred and the erotic, This Elegance engages with visual arts through the concept of sacra conversazione (“sacred conversation”), a style of Renaissance painting that imagines divine ...

You can preorder This Elegance directly from @boa-editions.bsky.social or from your favorite bookseller!

www.boaeditions.org/collections/...

The book cover for Derrick Austin's third book of poetry, This Elegance. A detail from a weaving by Diedrick Brackens. A kneeling silhouette poses against a yellow moon. The silhouette holds a long red candle in one hand and balances one small red candle on his head and two small candles on his other arm and one yellow candle on the heel of his foot.

My third book, This Elegance, is out from @boa-editions.bsky.social in May 2026.

Cover design by Sandy Knight with art by Diedrick Brackens.

Available to preorder now 🙏🏿

Sharing one more time since I’ll have a new pinned post later today 👀

Amsterdam yesterday, shutting it down for Palestine!

The movie poster for Gothika (2003) starring Halle Berry

Justice for Gothika. This movie is INCREDIBLE

ICE Agents Rappel from Helicopter in Overnight Chicago Raid, Dragging Kids from Beds to U-Hauls Overnight on Tuesday, Sept. 30, federal agents from different agencies raided an apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, pulling men, women and children — some of them allegedly naked — from ...

I always pay attention to what stories People Magazine and other consumer media outlets cover. That's how you can tell that something has broken through the usual political and news bubbles. This horrific Chicago story has broken through. people.com/ice-agents-o...

Certified Copy
Close-Up
When Marnie Was There

a man says i want a steak in a black and white scene ALT: a man says i want a steak in a black and white scene

Rewatched The Lighthouse for the first time and my god that movie is as incredible as it is beautiful! Even better than I remember.

good evening, I wrote about one of my favourite movies of all-time:

I could watch a film based off this poem

💜💜💜

“My neighbor listens patiently, amused by my young life.
We’re the only Black gay men in our building,
so he has me over for Sunday tea. I fill our cups.
For the heart, he says, adding whiskey to his.”

- Derrick Austin (@paradiselaust.bsky.social)

voicemailpoems.org/2025/08/14/s...

Thanks so much!

Thank you!

A poem that’ll be in my forthcoming book, This Elegance, in the summer issue of @voicemailpoems.bsky.social ☕️

"I just want to say, go birds, fuck ICE and free Palestine," "Hacks" star Hannah Einbinder at the #Emmys