Kelli Russell Agodon

We are on loan to each other.

Tell the one you love that you love them while you can.

Thank you, Majda!❤️

Sending love and strength ❤️ There are so many of us moving through this. Wishing you the best.

I love this book!

Absolutely love that final phrase.

From @kathyfagan.bsky.social's book, Bad Hobby: bookshop.org/a/862/9781571315458

#poetry #books #writing

keep your wonder alive, keep your aliveness alive

"her memory is a cloud she can't hold..."

Lots of feels with this poem for my mum. Sent with love for anyone with a parent or loved one with Alzheimer's/dementia. It's a journey.

(And thank you @poetsorg.bsky.social and Rick Barot for sharing this one. It means a lot.)

Magpies Recognize Themselves in the Mirror Kelli Russell Agodon The night sounds like a murder of magpies and we're replacing our cabinet knobs because we can't change the world, but we can change our hardware. America breaks my heart some days, and some days it breaks itself in two. I watched a woman have a breakdown in the mall today and when the security guard tried to help her what I could see was all of us peeking from her purse as she threw it across the floor into Forever 21. And yes, the walls felt like another way to hold us in and when she finally stopped crying, I heard her say to the fluorescent lighting, Some days the sky is too bright. And like that we were her fock in our black coats and white sweaters, some of us reaching our wings to her and some of us flying away.

Today I'm reading - Magpies Recognize
Themselves in the Mirror
~ By Kelli Russell Agodon 🍂
America breaks my heart some days -
I watched a woman have a breakdown in the mall today/what l could see was all of us/Some days the sky is too bright. And like that, we were her-

Everyone Is Acting as if We're Not Temporary, and I Am Falling Apart in the Privacy of My Own Home KELLI RUSSELL AGODON SHARE V When he said, Sometimes we learn the most from losing, I think how often I've been bamboozled by life, how I've dropped a quarter in a slot machine and instead of cherries got coffins. Got death? Yeah, I've seen the grim reaper wander my neighborhood in a Chanel suit and a diamond studded scythe because we all want to be overdressed for the afterlife, we all want to believe there is a special place for us. But when I watched the body of my nana fade into thinness I thought please let me leave early—in a plane crash, car accident, a lightning bolt, don't let me hold on so long I am a body longing for someone to text it —hey babe, I'm kind of into you. To say, I miss you even though I don't visit. Death and we butt dial the wrong person. Death on a good drunk of port. Once I remember my dad saying, You are worth more than you think, as I always sold myself off at a discount and I wish I didn't, I wish I didn't say how much I hurt on social media but sometimes I just want to believe I'm not alone like how we're all doing cartwheels on life's grass until someone lands in a sinkhole, until one of us decides it's late and the streetlights are telling us it's time to return back home.

For your Monday
Everyone Is Acting as if We're Not Temporary, and I Am Falling Apart in the Privacy of My Own Home
~ Kelli Russell Agodon
I am a body longing for someone to text me, "Hey, babe, I'm kind of into you." I miss you even though I don't visit. /and we butt dial the wrong person.

'Aubade as Fuel' from LOVE PRODIGAL by Traci Brimhall (Copper Canyon Press)

"You know / I always need to save something, to control it."

'Aubade as Fuel' from LOVE PRODIGAL by Traci Brimhall (Copper Canyon Press) @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social

Sheer brilliance 🤍

#poetry #poetrybooks #poetrycollections

Looking forward to it! —I’ve been reading your poems lately and so enjoying them!

Launch night and I’m never shutting up about this look.

Dang! Yeah absolutely not! Congrats!❤️💫

Arthur Sze has been named the new U.S. poet laureate. He succeeds Ada Limón, who has held the position since 2022. During his term as poet laureate, Sze plans to have a special focus on translating poetry originally written in other languages. Read more: at.pw.org/ArthurSze

"kindness in poetry is an act of rebellion" -- I stumbled about these words I said to @onlypoemsmag.bsky.social in an interview pre-election. It's funny your own word speak to you...

We Teach Each Other How to Stay | T. De Los Reyes All good things in the life I know involve me stumbling into my own astonishment. I take a half-step in the dark and you are beside me... ❡

"When you place a wet kiss on my nape while washing my back in the shower, I think of all good things and forget I am wounded. "

~ T. De Los Reyes @andhow.bsky.social
waxwingmag.org/items/issue3...

My gawd I love this poem:

"When you place a wet kiss on my nape while washing my back in the shower, I think of all good things and forget I am wounded. "

~ T. De Los Reyes @andhow.bsky.social
waxwingmag.org/items/issue3...

This happened to me last night in bed--I had 2 lines to a new poem. . .and I didn't write them down. (And they are now "dust") :-/

#LivingPoetsSociety #ShareLivingPoets

Anti-Love Poem by Grace Paley Sometimes you don’t want to love the person you love you turn your face away from that face whose eyes lips might make you give up anger forget insult steal sadness of not wanting to love turn away then turn away at breakfast in the evening don’t lift your eyes from the paper to see that face in all its seriousness a sweetness of concentration he holds his book in his hand the hard-knuckled winter wood- scarred fingers turn away that’s all you can do old as you are to save yourself from love

"Sometimes you don't want to love the person you love. . ."

Dang, sometimes I catch myself doing this too--protecting myself from the tenderness I actually crave.

~ Grace Paley's "Anti-Love Poem"

But it does suck to feel this way—I’m sorry you’re going through that. (Also know, I think we feel
This way sometimes in our writing life. I’ve always thought it was when we were near a breakthrough or a success).

Here’s how I see it—are you going to quit TV? Quit social media? Quit online shopping? What’s the point of any of it, but at least with poetry—you’re creating and connecting. And you never know who’s at the other end of your words. Maybe just try to let go of outcome. To me, any art is good. ❤️

Thanks for posting this beauty from @kelliagodon.bsky.social , Ali

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 33 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

Polar bears in the pews, the secretary spider and more with
@maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social @kelliagodon.bsky.social @webbish6.bsky.social @collinkelley.bsky.social @kristybowen.bsky.social @roguestrands.bsky.social 3/3
www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/poet...

It seems to me that most of the time, we don’t see, understand, know or even realize the contours of Reality; instead we try to inhabit it the way we do our clothes or fashion accessories—“no, I think this red cashmere works better”—few people “get” & express that better than Kelli Russel Agodon.

QUEEN ME Playing chess I realize how tired I am of the patriarchy, how the winning move involves the king, the useless piece who can only skate square to square. When playing checkers, I taught my daughter to say as she slides her plastic red chip the full length of the board: Queen me. It returns to my youth when I wanted to play baseball and the coach said, Girls can only play softball and tossed me what looked like a small leather planet. Queen me, I wanted to say when I couldn't be captain of the kickball team, couldn't play Santa in the school show. Queen me, my daughter says to the neighbor boy, who without question places another checker on her piece. Later I hear him say to my daughter, Queen me, as they begin another game. Queen me, he says again and again as the universe begins to shift like a tilted tiara finally made right.

#PoetryMoment
"Queen Me"
by @kelliagodon.bsky.social
from Dialogues with Rising Tides
Copper Canyon, 2021

An excerpt from “Hunger” by Kelli Russell Agodon

A headshot of Kelli Russell Agodon

A quote from today's community curator about the poem “Hunger” by Kelli Russell Agodon

“Today’s allegorical poem captures the staggering wisdom of finding and losing love. As we learn about another, we learn as much about ourselves — and the dialectical role of endings,” shares Major in today's encore episode.

Read “Hunger” by @kelliagodon.bsky.social: bit.ly/4eyZZ0P

Thank you, Vikki! Just saw this! (I forget BlueSky exists!!) 😭 Appreciate your words and your sharing!

Kelli Russell Agodon At Times My Body Leans Toward Loss You don't remember seeing the deer give birth on the highway, so when I said, I worry about things I can't control, you told me the pitchfork I carry in mind stabs inwards, like the day was sun-filled, but what I saw was how I bumped the planter of Gerber daisies and the moth fluttered up into the beak of a bird. Death and dinner. A minor accident and something dies. Like the woman who drove to work crying in her car and when I saw her, she waved, a reflection in the glass, the good fortune of having a job to drive to, but the collision of sadness in the left ventricle of a heart. Who can hold a knife without thinking for just a second, which vein is the most useful to slice into? Most everyone, you say, as you dull-down the ends of my pitchfork, most everyone, you say as you unlock the door to our house.

I was reading this gorgeous poem 'At Times My Body Leans Toward Loss' by @kelliagodon.bsky.social in @poetrysociety.org - winner of the Lyric Poetry Award, 2019.

Just stunning ❤️

poetrysociety.org/award-winner...

#poetrycommunity #poetry

I have never seen my poem used more perfectly! Yes!