Alex Tretbar

I'm admittedly a little divorced from the fact that I process data about divorces all day. There are at least 955 streets named after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States. I am learning that people are changing their names every day. I am learning a lot of arcane things about the law, according to the plat thereof, by a depth eastwardly of 121 feet, 10 ½ inches, more or less to an alley... The city has seemed less magical, lately. I'm admittedly a little divorced from my childhood, young personhood, popular culture. A man who thought I was working followed me home one night, not knowing I didn't have a home, and it was awkward when I paused at a railroad crossing on MIK, the yellow Pacific Union roaring by. He caught up with me. People are changing their names every day.

Binding Alex Tretbar’s ACCORDING TO THE PLAT THEREOF @alextretbar.bsky.social

www.ethelzine.com/shop/accordi...

In lieu of purchasing Alex Tretbar’s ACCORDING TO THE PLAT THEREOF you can also donate $12 or more dollars to Ahmad Kassab’s gofundme and send the receipt to ethelzinesubmit@gmail.com. @alextretbar.bsky.social

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

And perhaps there is a bedroom in my bed, a pillowcase in my pillow: No pictures exist of me from that time. Watch your head, this is a graveyard. The way the chocolatier regards their dripping medium in the television advertisement. Are you sure that isn't you singing in the background. Are you sure you're still reading. Watch your headnotes, they're beginning to summarize your major contributions to hermeneutics, the sound of the frozen pond complaining beneath the geese who have the advantage of being able to fly when the structure sleepwalks. I walk into my bed and close the door. What door. Are you sure that isn't you signing the document. The sonnets are merely markers serving to indicate that you are still in a graveyard. This is NPR.

from According to the Plat Thereof unbodied palinode in which the speaker is unable to articulate how they have changed their mind

Alex Tretbar’s ACCORDING TO THE PLAT THEREOF is now available to pre-order www.ethelzine.com/shop/accordi... @alextretbar.bsky.social

Pre-order one of these lovelies ❤️

www.ethelzine.com/shop

@nlriversss.bsky.social @ghoststructural.bsky.social @tommywyattblake.bsky.social @alextretbar.bsky.social

Reviewed @serxaphym.bsky.social's debut BATTALION SHAPED GIRL (Discount Guillotine) for @fullstopmag.bsky.social. These lambent, crystalline poems think and vision and language their way through Wittgenstein, state-sponsored violence, transness, and being.

www.full-stop.net/2025/09/19/r...

Reviewed @serxaphym.bsky.social's debut BATTALION SHAPED GIRL (Discount Guillotine) for @fullstopmag.bsky.social. These lambent, crystalline poems think and vision and language their way through Wittgenstein, state-sponsored violence, transness, and being.

www.full-stop.net/2025/09/19/r...

one of two sonnets in bethh (www.readbethh.org)

I recently published an article in Callaloo comparing artificial intelligence (by way of Lillian-Yvonne Bertram) with the racist and reductive editorial practices of the white people who published the narrative of Mary Prince, a formerly enslaved woman.

Link in bio. DM for PDF.

"The address of my house has changed..."

Mahmoud Darwish, "Prison"

"&" by @elise-tran.bsky.social, in @miznaarabart.bsky.social

"Collage of found text taken from individual, sponsored, and suggested posts, stories, news headlines, and advertisements while scrolling through Instagram and X"

One of three new poems in @memezine.bsky.social's KAKISTOCRACY issue (kakistocracy = "a government that is ruled by the least suitable, able, or experienced people in a state or country").

Down with American empire and its cruel and heartless idiots.

Help incarcerated writer Sara Kielly with her legal fees! We are trying to raise $400 to help her fight back against the department of corrections. Please read details below. If sending funds, please note "For Sara."

Friendly reminder that PEN America is little more than a soft power appendage of American imperialism (from Juliana Spahr's DU BOIS'S TELEGRAM)

Alice Notley, from THE DESCENT OF ALETTE

Writer Derek Trumbo is now free and he needs our help It’s been two years since Derek Trumbo was first introduced to Prism readers as the author of “Never Eat the Candy on your Pillow.” The now bi-weekly column has a simple premise: to serve as a commons...

The writer Derek Trumbo was recently released from prison after nearly two decades inside, but the home where he is staying was flooded last month and he is now in need of support. Please donate what you can to help him get back on his feet.

chuffed.org/project/1317...

Writer Derek Trumbo is now free and he needs our help It’s been two years since Derek Trumbo was first introduced to Prism readers as the author of “Never Eat the Candy on your Pillow.” The now bi-weekly column has a simple premise: to serve as a commons...

The writer Derek Trumbo was recently released from prison after nearly two decades inside, but the home where he is staying was flooded last month and he is now in need of support. Please donate what you can to help him get back on his feet.

chuffed.org/project/1317...

Writer Derek Trumbo is now free and he needs our help It’s been two years since Derek Trumbo was first introduced to Prism readers as the author of “Never Eat the Candy on your Pillow.” The now bi-weekly column has a simple premise: to serve as a commons...

Today a fundraiser was launched for Derek, to help him purchase a used car to get to and from work and parole meetings, and to help him recover after a horrendous storm flooded the home where he lives. If you can donate, every little bit helps! If you can't, please consider sharing his fundraiser:

@prismreports.org is really a leader here: prismreports.org/category/cri...

a sonnet from PUBLIC HAUNTS in the new @senecareview.bsky.social

NEW POEMS || Blue Bag Press Issue 01: STATE(D) VIOLENCE. It's a furious, not f-ing around issue refusing po' biz as usual. w/works by several ppl I've been growing to respect more & more, alert to this hideous moment, including @isaacpickell.bsky.social @alextretbar.bsky.social
issue01.org/joe-hall

Piece from a digital chaplet that recently appeared in ISSUE. Head to issue01.org to read the urgent and vital work of other contributors such as @joehalljoehall.bsky.social, Echo, @isaacpickell.bsky.social, Jenkin Benson, Rachel Lauren Myers, Tyler Barton, and others.

"Sonnet With Congealed Labor In It." Thanks to @multiwhirl.bsky.social for publishing it in @proteanmag.com, a magazine that everyone should read.

"He became most rabid when speaking about the Grays."

Fiction by @alextretbar.bsky.social . Spring '25, exclusive to print. Subscribe today for full access and your discounted rate.

https://www.exactingclam.com/subscribe/

To my older brother: I forgive you Not to unshackle you. But to relocate the power. The hour where my little girl gashes are barred shut and clamped. My wings have grown too fierce, unyielding. Now I am a Siren, eclipsing three children. Fluttering, with the gleam of a diadem. Luna-like, loving each queer shadow I cast. I forgive you, only so that what you've sown doesn't scatter. Now you, gorging on mud near the crest of the plume by my feet. And my gorgeous wings spread like the mouth of a carnivora.

“Now you, gorging on mud near the crest/ of the plume by my feet. And my gorgeous/wings spread like the mouth of a carnivora.”

More copies of Joshua Burton’s FRACTURE ANTHOLOGY in Ethel’s shop,with art by Zumbambico.
www.ethelzine.com/shop/pre-ord...

a small fiction for my friend "Slim"
wherever he may be

in @exactingclam.bsky.social

It is more than our minds can handle:
finding at the end of all meadows
a mandible, sunwashed and wordless.

Today's poem from the $ vault is "Hex Season" by @alextretbar.bsky.social!

poetrycurrency.com/poem/alex-tr...

Tonight!

Recent poem in Words Beyond Bars. They pay each of their incarcerated and formerly incarcerated contributors $50. They don't accept snail mail submissions, but if you know someone in prison who'd like to submit and needs help doing so, feel free to DM me.

wordsbeyondbars.com