aɐrik francis

I read You Better Be Lightning again today, and i'm left resonating on the power of words, and in particular, the word "love"

love

it's so strange how business have and use our data. capitalism is so strange, to say the least

i woke up today to birthday greetings from my alma mater (?? don't recall this happening before), from my dentist office, and from my local pharmacy 😅🥴😵‍💫

perhaps related, perhaps not... but I then learned (for the first time! [how!?]) of a slave insurrection called the Stono Rebellion of 1739

wow

poetry / history rabbit hole: i wanted to use the word "behemoth" in a poem and the word "mammoth" rolled out after. I became curious if there were American mammoths... and learned that enslaved Africans found a mammoth tooth in Stono River, South Carolina in 1725

omg someone already listened to my album 🥹🥹🥹

oh also hi bluesky my new poetry album PRXPAGANDA is out now, streamable and downloadable exclusively on bandcamp

link in linktree in bio

(and by the way, I try my best to refer to the country as USA and not America. People often laugh when I say I am from Denver, Colorado, USA because we often just make the assumption. America is a super continent, divided in two [arguably 3 plus islands]. America is not just the USA)

(this may or may not be a critical question undergirding my poetry manuscript, aptly titled American Polytychs)

i just really want us to critically think about the identity "American" – who does and and doesn't come to mind? what does an American look like? what do they act like?

now think about yourself: to what extent do you fit or not fit that identity?

Heaven Looks Like Us: An Evening of Palestinian Poetry Virtual Launch Event Thursday, May 15 5:00 pm CT Rasha A. LDA A Dina Abdulhadi Leena Aboutaleb George abraham Rimona Afana Fadia Antabli Summer Awad Asmaa’ Azaizeh Farah Barqawi Sarona Bedwan Carolina Ebeid Olivia Elias Summer Farah Layla Azmi Goushey Maen Hammad noor hindi Lenna Jawdat Emily Khilfeh N Mankinem Angie Mazakis Hajer Mirwali Sara Saleh Hind Shoufani Jen Siraganian Rewa Zeinati Omar Zahzah

Heaven Looks Like Us: An Evening of Palestinian Poetry 🇵🇸

Join @intifadabatata.bsky.social, @noorhindi.bsky.social, and contributors to the new Palestinian poetry anthology Heaven Looks Like Us for a virtual reading in commemoration of Nakba Day.

RSVP to join:
www.tickettailor.com/events/hayma...

upcoming readings: two music&poetry events local to Denver and one virtual reading to celebrate the chapbook BloodFlex by Ajanaé Dawkins

never really cared about being bald because I've always kept my hair short anyway, but also, looking at old pictures when my hairline was not only present but sharp makes me feel emotions

this plus the updated algorithms and feeds means that you have to invest more time and effort to get any yield, made easier of course with paid verification

basically, like everything else, rich people ruined social media

anymore, these sorts of apps require constant exchange, which requires more attention than i'm willing to give. What i mean: people aren't going to like your posts if you don't like theirs. so if i'm only posting and not interacting, i'm also not receiving interactions

YouTube video by phaentompoet Mutual Constitution | phaentompoet (Visualizer)

Also check out my music video to the sibling poem of "Preamble" called "Mutual Constitution" (after all, the preamble is the introductory statement)

youtu.be/uNSxIEjEhQU?...

Preamble • Protean Magazine Drawing on the work of Layli Long Soldier and Solmaz Sharif, Aerik Francis's "Preamble" adopts the language of the law to expose its violent contradictions.

New poem out called "Preamble"

Thank you so much the Protean Mag team!

"Drawing on the work of Layli Long Soldier and Solmaz Sharif, Aerik Francis' "Preamble" adopts the language of the law to expose its violent contradictions."

proteanmag.com/2025/04/30/p...

Detained U.S. Citizen Says Immigration Agents Lied About Everything Immigration officials detained Jose Hermilloso for over a week. He says their story of what happened is completely inaccurate.

i'm struck by how blatant and obvious the lying is

"he got himself detained" is basically their defense

newrepublic.com/post/194303/...

YouTube video by phaentompoet Mutual Constitution | phaentompoet (Visualizer)

here is the aforementioned poem "Mutual Constitution" in music/music video form

youtu.be/uNSxIEjEhQU?...

someone came up to me after and said "beautiful stanzas" and i think it was a compliment, but all i heard was "Great gowns, beautiful gowns."

I will now be adding "beautiful stanzas" to my toolbox of useful phrases

me at my last poetry reading: alright y'all, my next poem is about the constitution
crowd: *collective groan*

the western media has been using "war against Hamas" as a cover for "genocide of Palestine" – and it doesn't even matter that Israel is attacking West Bank (is it a war on Hezbollah too? probably...) and Lebanon

not to mention the rebuff of proxy wars in the African continent as "civil wars"

war is a word that the US govt has avoided since the Vietnam War, for many reasons. in my lifetime, congress has not officially declared a war on a country. Instead, our government has declared war on concepts: the "war on terror" and the "war on drugs"

the thing about the leaks that is most concerning to me, well i mean other than the idea of these men giggling and laughing about mass murder in text chats, is the confirmation of war with Yemen, though "war" is one of those strange words we keep using when we actually mean "campaign of mass murder"

YouTube video by phaentompoet Mutual Constitution | phaentompoet (Visualizer)

Made a song & video for a poem of mine, took a very "hands-on" approach

"Mutual Constitution" | phaentompoet
youtu.be/uNSxIEjEhQU?...

Over/Under: Love by Aerik Francis — Retrograde Review Love is overrated.  Sure, I love love.  Love can be lovely  But love is overrated.  Love or lack thereof  Cannot be an excuse  To hate, as if hate  Is the opp...

I have a new poem out with Retrograde Review (an online literary zine that only publishes during Mercury retrograde) about love or lack thereof

it's called "Over/Under: Love"
retrogradereview.com/retrorevfeat...

been getting really cool poetry news lately, but with world news the way it is, it all feels hollow and bittersweet.

Even still, good news can be a shining light where there doesn't seem to be anything to look forward to, so i'm grateful for these moments of lightness

but i'm a poet so all i have is this line I put in a poem:

"A phase so unfazed by exaggeration / So unsure yet so unperturbed by hyperbole"

if i were a prose writer, i'd write an essay about how colloquial american english has become so figurative and extreme that it is legitimately difficult to discern reality from exaggeration

whatever you believe too important to be spared, it's not. health care, social security, immigration, yes, but also park services, postal services, translation, safety regulation, infrastructure, etc etc. everything is going to be privatized if it isn't already

if it's not clear to everyone by now, the current US administration is gutting everything remotely related to social welfare, and in the chaos, they are setting up a system that exclusively benefits themselves (the rich white elite) at everyone else's detriment