Derek Pollard, PhD

The cover art for 'The Hungriest Stars' by Carey Salerno. A woman's manicured hand is centered, adorned with numerous oversized, ornate rings, including a turquoise stone, a gold flower, and a ring shaped like an eye. The hand is set against a large, detailed full moon, with a dark, starry sky surrounding the central image.

@careysalerno.bsky.social's reading at the book launch for THE HUNGRIEST STARS made it clear:

This is a must-read collection.

Copies are available direct from the publisher at: www.perseabooks.com/hungriest-st...

You can also order online at @bookshop.org: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Summer in Biddle City, 2001 Our family talked all the time about the end of the world. Our father would say, During the Three Days of Darkness, if you hear your mother outside, don't open the door, okay? It isn't your mother, ok...

Today’s Featured Poem:

“Summer in Biddle City, 2001” by Marianne Chan from Leaving Biddle City published by Sarabande Books

Read here:
poems.com/poem/summer-...

Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House.

Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity.

They are not the same.

Book cover for ‘The Imaginary Present: Essays in Quantum Poetics’ by Amy Catanzano, published in the Poets on Poetry Series by the University of Michigan Press. The cover features a pixelated, glitch-art style background in shades of pink, purple, rose, and teal. The title and author name appear in bright pink text on white rectangular l blocks that seem to float over the abstract digital pattern. The subtitle appears in white text on a rose-colored banner.

Physicists at CERN told Amy Catanzano they can use quantum theory but find it "counterintuitive.” She recognized immediately: quantum logic IS poetic logic.

THE IMAGINARY PRESENT explores how poetry can reshape scientific understanding.

@uofmpress.bsky.social

press.umich.edu/Books/T/The-...

Often in heavy rotation around here, @motherslug.bsky.social. 🎶

Book cover for ‘Your Historical Loveliness Knows No Bounds’ by Wendy Xu. The book is part of the Poets on Poetry Series, published by the University of Michigan Press and edited by Derek Pollard. The cover image is a striking, full-frame close-up photograph of a bronze sculpture of a man's head, angled to fill most of the page. The sculpture is highly dramatic: the man's face is contorted with intense emotion, and his mouth is wide open, as if shouting or screaming. The metal has a dark, mottled verdigris patina. All text is positioned across the lower third of the cover. The title, ‘YOUR HISTORICAL LOVELINESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS,’ and the author's name, WENDY XU, are printed in light gray/off-white text. The subtitle, "FORM, FUTURITY, AND DOCUMENTARY DESIRE," is centered beneath the title and printed in a distinctive pale yellow text.

Can you inherit someone else's loneliness? Wendy Xu's parents gave her a poem about feeling foreign, words she'd need before she knew why. YOUR HISTORICAL LOVELINESS asks what poetry carries across generations, and why certain words find us exactly when we need them.

press.umich.edu/Books/Y/Your...

Poem for Friends How beautiful to lie down not to be the dead ones there their eye sockets filled with dirt nothing is theirs anymore

Today’s Feature:

What Sparks Poetry: Matthew Rohrer on "Poem for Friends” published by Poetry Magazine

Read here:
poems.com/poem/poem-fo...

Learn more about @philipmetres.bsky.social’s book and order your copy here:

press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...

Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.

Can you document trauma without exploiting it?

@utopiaminus.bsky.social warns that the “representation of violence can produce its own kind of violence.”

In @philipmetres.bsky.social’s DISPATCHES, poets debate what documentary poetry can and can’t do for justice – and whether writing is enough.

Especially, @warren.senate.gov, when we’re dedicated to staying informed and exercising our right to vote.

I also want to thank you and your colleagues for holding strong on healthcare. As you’ve said before, that’s a bipartisan issue, not one that should precipitate a government shutdown.

Book cover for NOTHINGISM by Jason Schneiderman. The background is deep purple. The title, NOTHINGISM, appears as large, light purple text running vertically down the left side of the cover. On the right side, in gold text that contrasts with the purple background, is the subtitle POETRY AT THE END OF PRINT CULTURE. The author's name, JASON SCHNEIDERMAN, appears in white text below the subtitle. In the bottom right corner is a simple illustration of a tan cardboard box. The overall design is minimal and contemporary, using typographic elements as the main visual focus.

In NOTHINGISM (@uofmpress.bsky.social),
Jason Schneiderman explores the poetic friendship between James Merrill and Agha Shahid Ali.

Though "the loved one may always leave," their correspondence reveals how poetry sustains intimacy across cultures and loss.

press.umich.edu/Books/N/Noth...

graphic featuring a portion of Gabrielle Calvocoressi's poem

a photograph of poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi

“The future is full of possibility. Some of life’s surprises are heartbreaking, yes—but some are heart-repairing," shares host @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social in today’s episode.

Read "At Last the New Arriving" by @gabbat.bsky.social and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/4mShV9s

📖: Persea Books

#ClipOfTheDay: In this video, George Takei, honorary chair of Banned Books Week 2025, talks about how “access to books and knowledge is essential to democracy” and how reading provides a way to see ourselves reflected in stories and to discover the stories of others. at.pw.org/TakeiBannedBooks

Can’t decide what to buy on Prime Day?

Try: absolutely nothing, and then go support indie bookstores instead 📚

Front cover of the book ‘Radical Poetics’ by Khadijah Queen. The cover features a Black woman sitting barefoot in a dimly lit, eclectic space surrounded by books and fabric drapes. The atmosphere is reminiscent of steampunk with a Southern gothic twist. The woman is wearing a pink dress and sitting on a floral patterned surface. The subtitle reads ‘Essays on Literature & Culture.’

“Let’s make room for many modes of survival.”

@khadijahqueen.com’s RADICAL POETICS asks: what would our literary spaces look like if we actually meant this?

Her book challenges us to expand what we consider possible – in our teaching, our writing, our communities.

press.umich.edu/Books/R/Radi...

Fantastic news, @rebelmom13.bsky.social ! 📚

Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.

When Israeli forces captured Jaffa in 1948, the municipal archives vanished, erasing Palestinians' legal proof of land ownership.

@philipmetres.bsky.social's DISPATCHES FROM THE LAND OF ERASURE shows how Arab poets have sought to preserve this disappeared history.

press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...

Millions of Americans from all walks of life are counting on the party to hold firm to protect access to affordable healthcare.

I trust that you and your colleagues will do just that, @petebuttigieg.bsky.social , showing the integrity and leadership at the heart of this country’s abiding promise.

I hear *someone* is having a sale next week.

I guess they have to try and recoup some of that $2.5 billion they’re forking over for *checks notes* being deceptive? Who would’ve thought?

Feels like Oct 7 & 8 will be prime days to support independent bookstores. 😌

Such an extraordinary conversation in such an intimate, inviting space, @pw.org !

Book cover for ‘Joy (Or Something Darker, but Like It)’ by Nathaniel Perry, published in the Poets on Poetry Series by the University of Michigan Press. Dark blue background with black organic shapes. "Joy" in colorful letters (yellow, coral, blue), subtitle in white. "POETRY & PARENTING" in yellow, and author's name in white at bottom.

@longrules.bsky.social reads Scarbrough's line about loneliness arriving "like a bouquet out of the evening," then watches his kids reach toward fleeing guinea fowl, finding poetry and parenting in the same impossible gesture.

Joy (Or Something Darker, but Like It)

press.umich.edu/Books/J/Joy-...

What the Mirror Said When did you feel the pull of poetry? For Ashley M. Jones, the moment she knew she would be a poet was at seven years old—reciting “Harriet Tubman” by Eloise Greenfield. That moment, that poem, showed...

Hear, hear, @andersedwards.bsky.social!

It’s been nothing short of amazing to with her on ‘What the Mirror Said.’

press.umich.edu/Books/W/What...

@uofmpress.bsky.social author Ashley M. Jones in conversation with @pw.org about her latest collection of poems, published by @hubcitypress.bsky.social:

www.hubcity.org/books/poetry...

#Booksky #Poetry #Books

Book cover for NOTHINGISM by Jason Schneiderman. The background is deep purple. The title, NOTHINGISM, appears as large, light purple text running vertically down the left side of the cover. On the right side, in gold text that contrasts with the purple background, is the subtitle POETRY AT THE END OF PRINT CULTURE. The author's name, JASON SCHNEIDERMAN, appears in white text below the subtitle. In the bottom right corner is a simple illustration of a tan cardboard box. The overall design is minimal and contemporary, using typographic elements as the main visual focus.

Kodak invented "the Kodak moment" to teach people they needed cameras to remember their lives.

Jason Schneiderman sees poems heading down the same commercial track – and he's having none of it!

Read more in NOTHINGISM, out now from @uofmpress.bsky.social:

press.umich.edu/Books/N/Noth...

Just got our tickets a few days ago, @pw.org ! Looking forward to another evening at the Greene Space!

Book cover of ‘Ghosts and the Overplus: Reading Poetry in the Twenty-First Century’ by Christina Pugh. The cover features a minimalist design with the title and author name in elegant typography. The visual element shows a mixed-media collage with watercolor elements in blue and purple tones on the left side, juxtaposed with a black and white seascape showing rough waters and what appears to be partially submerged wooden posts. The overall aesthetic combines abstract and representational elements in a contemplative, artistic composition.

In one of her essays, Christina Pugh observes that students copying out Frost's "Birches" and Brooks's sonnets learned meter faster than when they wrote original poems

It's a provocative question: What if imitation teaches craft better than invention?

press.umich.edu/Books/G/Ghos...

This was such an extraordinary event, @pw.org !

What an extraordinary opportunity, @leahumansky.bsky.social !

From “I speak with gravity.,” by Jane Hirshfield. Read the full poem: nyer.cm/HiFNZyu

We’re in the business of keeping independent bookstores in business 🤍📚