Stefanie Kirby

This is one of the hardest pieces--both literally and formally--I've written. Started in a class with @civitaveritas.bsky.social, aided through revision with @killerbreeze.bsky.social, now published at TIMBER: it's "Newport, 1991"--my lipogram. timberjournal.org/archive/newp...

one of the single best deals in streaming. i've been paying for PBS Passport for years. it rules

I know that
hope is the hardest
love we carry.

—Jane Hirshfield

A deep blue book with the illustration of a white flower that has a button for its middle sits atop a tiled table decorated with yellow flowers with light blue middles

I finished @susanlleary.bsky.social 's brilliant DRESSING THE BEAR almost a week ago, but it's not finished with me. I know I will revisit it one day.

On Shelter You can write on a wall with a fish heart, it's because of the phosphorus. They eat it. There are shacks like that down along the river. I am writing this to be as wrong as possible to you. Replace the door when you leave, it says. Now you tell me how wrong that is, how long it glows. Tell me.

Tell me.

- Ann Carson

Matthew E. Henry: Two Poems - Cultural Daily Two poems by Matthew E. Henry: "this time I have to remember not to mention ms_________, a “nice white lady” / who wears her DEI support like a white durag on Juneteenth"

Two poems up at Cultural Daily

"when asked what poets should do in response" & "when asked to read a poem for the Black History Month assembly, again"

www.culturaldaily.com/matthew-e-he...

David Seung

@thesongcave.bsky.social

Did you know that from 2006-2018, "Inch" magazine was an eight-page, 5.5″ x 4.25″ beauty shipping every three months? Back in the day, the print run issues for 1-20 was 250; for issues 21-37, the print run was 350.

Flash forward to this month and we just released our SIXTY FOURTH edition!

Something to look forward to this fall!! Big fan of Aase Berg since WITH DEER, and of all things Black Ocean. Really grateful to @johannesg.bsky.social for all of these translations! 🙏

Flight: A Literary Sampler

Welcome to Flight: a Literary Sampler!

We’re a literary journal, publishing four interconnected pieces in each edition.

You can learn more about us at our website: flight-literary.ghost.io

😍

🤩

A Mantra:

Spending money on books doesn’t count

Spending money on books doesn’t count

Spending money on books doesn’t count

Before you go for Andrea Gibson when the famous poet dies— the one who sheltered death from slander and promised us it was no act of leaving— you try to follow their lead and plead to the sun I want to be somebody’s favorite hiding place. it hurts to become something new before we go [satellite, volcano, open door] and you aren’t ready yet: you still think you can write to survive your heartbeat [like our vessels will outlast us] but they were always spilling love like it would never run out and maybe a life doesn’t need any longer than that.

"Before you go"

for Andrea Gibson

We’re giving away one copy of Issue 2 and one copy of Issue 3 to two randomly selected individuals! All you need to do is like this post AND quote post with someone (living or dead) you’d like to send a poem postcard to and why. Winners will be selected on July 31st!

PLACE Love is the place where the wounded started calling the wounds on their knees strawberries.

Andrea Gibson forever ❤️
#poetry

BARN POEM 10 we all belong to a barn somewhere - there is no escape

Zac Smith

@zacsmithtweeto.bsky.social
@clashbooks.bsky.social

Many thanks to @phoebejournal.bsky.social, where this poem first appeared!

Feeling grateful! 💙💙💙

Couldn't ask for a better reader!! 🥰

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

in @exactingclam.bsky.social

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.

The Minor Bridge Between Us & Other Poems - Lunch Ticket Three poems by Susan L. Leary that address incarceration, addiction, and unnamed trauma through the use of metaphor and verse.

"What you wanted to leave me was metaphor. What you left
was a black-and-white notebook from the commissary
that might contain the mystery of you"

#TodaysPoem #poetry
This Minor Bridge between Us by @susanlleary.bsky.social (2025 Lunch Ticket) tinyurl.com/msbje5d2

DAY The world is, in spite of everything, very over. I asked the carnie, and he said Marvin. And I said yes? And he said Marvin, it's very over. I nodded in agreement, as I rearranged the wisteria. Also, the day was clear. A single silk stocking hung in the air. And the carnie, his hands in his pockets, said Marvin. And I said yes? And he looked at me tenderly and said the dish has run away from the spoon. And I said yes, it was bound to happen. That night, in his orange pickup truck, we made love for the last time, as it sunk into a muddy swamp. Somewhere else, a tree was burning.

"Day" from Sabrina Orah Mark's THE BABIES (Saturnalia)

"Compose one long poem in your head for a year. Keep your laptop closed, keep your phone off. Don't talk to anyone. Then, without ever writing it down, read your poem aloud from memory on a stranger's grave. Imagine being the dead. This is your gift."

- Zachary Schomburg

Disintegration Made Plain and Easy has a make-belief cover of an antique book: brown, embossed ornamental ridges and gold lettering in gold ornamental frame with a butterfly at the center of the title plate.

about the author Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi's frist book of poems made no impact whatsoever. Critics were not pleased by it saying we have no knowledge or record of her whatsoever. Kiik usually is a man. Unless no record exists in which case he is a woman. she was winner of the Haemophiliacs Hospital Raffle. Kiik lives here in this room. When you switch off the lights he comes in through the window and eats out of the garbage. Because he's eaten the garbage seven years it is molecularly accurate if you say Kiik is mostly water garbage. When the lights come on Kiik deflates and he crawls inside this tiny box. A pupa wraps its mitten of fur around the word. The mouth of flour rubs its ghost over the flute. The angel of steam raises its palm flush to the barrel.

about the author Kiik puts the lotion on its skin. Kiik gets the hose drinks lotion from the son the holy spigot. Kneels down again in cutoff shorts says get the lotion the hand gripping the base of the hose overhead the body of water rushes in. Poems appear but for every appearance six or seven dissolve in a basin of acid. The hydra appears in her lederhosen. Hoses Kiik down with acid. Twins emerge from the residue from ectoplasm. The scorched tights. When the hydra removes her clones Kiik makes that muthafucker RAIN. Kiik is the recipient of numerous prizes almost none of them for poetry almost all of them for shapeshifting in a puddle of flesh of rain. Pictured here among a collection of acids. None of this is sexual of course. If this made you imagine sex whoa you failed the test yeesh what a pervert. But if you are a pervert follow this hose to connect with Kiik via chatroulette down the well down the butt of rain.

Disintegration Made Plain and Easy by Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi (@pizamapress.bsky.social, 2025). Take the title by its word & have your expectations thoroughly rattled in the best of ways.
Two samples here. Enjoy! 🙃😊
#poetry #bookSky 📚💙

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I don't talk about this much since I'm usually ranting about politics, but one of the things I'm most proud of is the work that we do at @thirdlanternlit.bsky.social.

What started as a writing group of 3 became a full-blown non-profit with a growing community, that has hosted over 100 events.

What an incredible cover!!

June dust dust dust dust dust dust only small rain small rain small thin thin rain starved rain rin

happy last #smallpoemsunday of June! here’s a treasure by Barbara Guest 💜

feel free to participate by posting small poems you wrote, +/or small poems you love by somebody else :)