JJ

JJ

@jjpena.bsky.social

I'm a second rate writer 🚮 from outer-space 🚀 a burrito lover 🌯 queer 🌈and a human disaster| jjpena.com

157 Followers 131 Following 46 Posts Joined Sep 2023
2 months ago

More people are going to be murdered by ICE. It’s clear. The tactics ensure it, ICE is getting more furious and being disagreed with or resisted in any way, the verminous administration supports them and has shown they will tell any lie to support ICE murdering people.
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2 months ago

losing my mind at the "she should have followed directions" people

really? really? you're cool with "if you don't follow directions, they get to kill you"? that seems like a good state of affairs to you? that seems like how law enforcement ought to work: instant obeisance or death?

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2 months ago

congrats!

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2 months ago

happy birthday

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2 months ago

"There are things that are easier to say in the dark. Things that bubble and ferment inside until we’re drunk with distended stomachs" ✨✨✨✨✨

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4 months ago
Love Can't Feed You, a novel by Cherry Lou Sy.

"What is the responsibility of a 'feminist' when the power swings their way?"

Nicole Zhao chats with author @cherrylousy.bsky.social about immigration, feminism, and gender roles. Read it all here! buff.ly/vA6BRk5

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4 months ago
A variety of LGBTQ+ flag pins on a table.

Celebrating the work of our trans and queer contributors today and every day! Check out a few pieces from our archive we hope stay with you beyond the blog. buff.ly/554vznz

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10 months ago

New Melissa piece!!!!!! " and I want to tell you stop, but it’s not my place to say anything because I know what hurting yourself means and how it feels as I dig my nails into my legs, my arms, in hidden places to shut out the you are never going to be anything from my father"

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10 months ago

"The snow is a soft comfort, a cocoon. He feels a surge of heat, a pilot light about to ignite. And whoosh, he burns into life, limbs hot as blood returns. Music strums through him, the tapping foot of the banjo player like his glorious heart."

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11 months ago

"Maybe it was all that beauty, open and exposed. The land flat on each side until you stumble upon this secret so massive in scale it seems unreal. But it’s real. It was there before us and it would be there after"

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11 months ago

"I pray for her to say it was boring, that it was over fast, that it felt like nothing and shouldn’t it feel like something, like everything? Shouldn’t it? But before Bernice can answer, Gladys rolls back her eyes, slaps the ground with her free hand, and, I swear, all three of us shudder."

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11 months ago
How to Live
by Todd Dillard

Depravity begins with thinking of love
as a radical act. I quit loving 
with difficulty. I love 
easy now. Two parakeets on my shoulders.
They'll fly away if I move. So I move.
I love flight. I love cages 
left wide open. I am not a window.
I could be a window. Open me,
you'll find a dense wood,
children wandering inside it.
Not lost children. They know the way.
They live the way horses run.
If they each had a bird in hand
they would open their hands.

here's an excerpt from my chapbook, which you should buy so I can afford childcare while I go into the fields and harvest fresh fruits and vegetables for my children to eat

asterismbooks.com/product/ragn...

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11 months ago

CALLS ARE WORKING - it has bought us precious time, but we NEED to keep the pressure up.

Tomorrow is the cloture vote.

KEEP CALLING: (202) 224-3121 ☎️☎️☎️

Tell your Dem Senator to vote NO on Cloture and NO on the Republican spending bill.

Do NOT assume your Senator will be good on this. Trust me.

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11 months ago
Free offsite reading at AWP: Fri March 28 5:30 PM at First Draft Taproom and Kitchen. 1230 Olive Street. Reading: M Aliberto, J Bassett, M Czyzniejewski, ML Brownlee, C Monpere, JJ Pena, and PQ Bidar!

Announcing the lineup for Smokelong's #AWP25 #AWP Offsite Reading on Friday March 28, 5.30pm, First Draft Taproom & Kitchen (10 mins walk from convention center). Say hi at Booth 656 (take part in our famous Bookfair Micro Contest!)

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1 year ago

thanks for reading!

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1 year ago

Congratulations! So cool!

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1 year ago

"We’ve said our goodnight moons and goodnight rooms, started the white-noise machine so he’ll drift off in sweet, sanguine sleep while halfway across the world a distant cousin nestled in his mother’s lap startles from slumber as the buzz of drones enters the room..."

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1 year ago

the breathlessness in the ending ✨✨✨"...you and Julie running, running, then leaning against the school wall, all those bricks between him and you, gasping for breath, and then Julie saying it wasn’t so bad because at least when you start middle school next year you can say you’re experienced."

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1 year ago

"what if you, without glancing behind you to see if anyone was looking, had sashayed right up to him and put your hands into his long, curly, presumably permed, Poison-inspired rocker hair and run your fingers through it until you reached his chest"

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1 year ago

thank you for reading 🙏

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1 year ago

thank you for reading and for your words 🥹

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1 year ago

gah! thank you for reading 🙏

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1 year ago

congrats!!!!

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1 year ago

thanks for reading!

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1 year ago

thanks for reading!

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1 year ago
Preview
Smoke & Mirrors with jj peña - SmokeLong Quarterly Wow—what a gorgeous piece. Take me through the process of creating a work so perfectly compressed. I think about Ezra Pound who famously carved away at “In a Station of the Metro” until he had those g...

This week's interview is the first of two with @jjpena.bsky.social, who was both a finalist and first prize winner in the SmokeLong Grand Micro Contest 2024. Here jj talks about "strangers breathe air into you", finalist in the competition:
www.smokelong.com/interviews/s...

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1 year ago

Reposting with alt text.

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1 year ago

CONGRATS!!! so cool

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1 year ago
Preview
Etymology - Exposition Review by Dare Williams   |    Poetry   it starts in phoenix growing in the dark moves its way to you then leaves me breathless in hollywood where we laid our heads there was a break & I said ok let you driv...

Inspired to listen to @dare-williams.bsky.social read his poem ETYMOLOGY (bit.ly/ExpoEtymology) in #Transposition, our podcast, born out of COVID & the need to celebrate our 2020 annual issue writers in a bigger way than sheltering in place allowed. Listen here: expositionreview.com/issues/vol-v....

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