Dave Bonta

If We Knew Then by Gil Arzola - Rattle: Poetry what we know now then Ernie would never have paid attention in math class, he would have lived inside a daydream and counted the birds outside the window instead of calculating angles.

One of my favorite things about @rattlepoetry.bsky.social and the main reason why I continue to subscribe despite not really sharing their aesthetic is their consistent support for outsider poets, part-time and older poets www.rattle.com/if-we-knew-t...

Alive In a world as full of beauty as it is of horror, gods exist so that people have somewhere to direct their gratitude for being alive.

By next year at this time, I'll probably be babbling about how I have to learn to align my creative energies with the divine feminine. Pray for me.

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Early-morning rain past, a chill breeze stirs in the tulip poplar beside the springhouse, four-lobed leaves waving like jazz hands on a thousand-armed bodhisattva, some green, some yellow.

There is that. I am reading Marc McKee's great book Consolationeer this morning and feeling, yes, a little consoled, precisely because it is so eyes-open to the apocalyptic realities crowding into the frame.

Hey Jim. Yeah, Fay's translations don't always do it for me, but I loved that one

You bet!

Consolationeer by Marc McKee — Moonlighting Reading  Consolationeer  in this setting, however, was a serendipitous exception. If you live in a major US city with an unreliable and unpleasant public transit system, I can’t recommend th...

I looked to see how the 2017 book of #poetry I'm reading—CONSOLATIONEER by Marc McKee—was critically received & found this reviewer who read it on his daily commute in Chicago & realized that it illuminated his entire bus-riding experience
www.thelitpub.com/reviews-inte...

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Overcast with an orange sunrise glow. Jays, the cardinal, a towhee. A winter wren burbles quietly beside the springhouse.

(I don't know why @thepoetslizard.bsky.social failed to link in that last tweet?!)

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 40 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

Despite everything, poetry. With @webbish6.bsky.social @velveteenrabbi.bsky.social @ren-powell.bsky.social @garybarwin.bsky.social @thepoetslizard.bsky.social @jamesmcconachie1.bsky.social @oyoguhito.bsky.social @robmclennan.bsky.social @emmalee1.bsky.social 3/3
www.vianegativa.us/2025/10/poet...

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 40 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

A gun utters a death wish; a spare poem spares us nothing— @victoriamoul.bsky.social @suefinch.bsky.social @alinaetc.bsky.social @clareshawpoet.bsky.social @myheadtheforest.bsky.social @dharmabam.bsky.social @vanopticon.bsky.social @richfergusonpoet.bsky.social 2/3
www.vianegativa.us/2025/10/poet...

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 40 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

Interesting times as always this week in the poetry blogs with @robin-gow-poet.bsky.social @wendypratt.bsky.social @jwikeley.bsky.social @kimmoorepoet.bsky.social @richardjnewman.bsky.social @edmundprestwich.bsky.social @salenagodden.bsky.social 1/3
www.vianegativa.us/2025/10/poet...

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Crystal-clear. A Cooper's hawk calls from the top of the tallest tree in the yard as sunrise reddens the western ridge.

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Clear and very quiet at dawn. Some scattered towhee tweets. The thump of a walnut dropped by a half-awake squirrel.

This time, it seems, "states rights" will *not* be a rallying cry for the arrogant fools starting a civil war

Can you do this? A 24-hour challenge for leftists and liberals:

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Another classic October morning, crisp and clear. From the sun-struck treetops, a brown-headed cowbird's liquid note. In the still air, a falling leaf spirals and somersaults, taking its time.

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Cold and still at dawn, with pink clouds emerging from the engines of a jet. A white-throated sparrow pipes up. Something on four feet runs off through the deepening leaf duff.

thanks

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Cold and still, with a wash of cirrus clearing off after sunrise. Sound is out of the east, so instead of the usual roar of interstate traffic, I hear the shrill beeping of quarry trucks reversing to be filled and the grumbling of stones.

I wonder whether this stony response from the generals has Trump and his myrmidons worried about the possibility of a military coup if they take things too far

in rural areas we're already seeing this

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A cold front has delivered October's bright blue weather right on schedule. Yellow leaves flutter down in the breeze. A Carolina wren draws again and again from a seemingly inexhaustible well of song.

There's a strange tendency in center-left discourse to treat Zohran's focus on cost-of-living as the *only* reason he's succeeding. Yes, it's critical. But that overlooks the other big thing he's doing: Relentlessly highlighting Trump's authoritarian abuses.

newrepublic.com/article/2011...

Ah, glad you liked! A complete re-write of my ten-year-old first draft, when i hadn't spotted the two "under God"s

It's good. Got my copy last week.

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Sunrise brings birdsong: a Tennesee warbler's blur of high notes answered by a towhee's interrogatory tweet, and a white-throated sparrow's "Oh, sweet Canada" giving way to the reedy whistles of cedar waxwings, tut-tutting robins, and a winter wren's liquid braid.

you bet

my pleasure

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 39 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

An imagined history of the Green Man, anti-capitalist work poetry, the dactylic hexameter line & more with @robinhoughton.bsky.social @richfergusonpoet.bsky.social @lesleymwheeler.bsky.social @webbish6.bsky.social @aempoet.bsky.social 3/3 www.vianegativa.us/2025/09/poet...