Marilyn A. Johnson

haha no i’m not

everything's falling apart

loved it!

please! we need this!

he is *literally* tearing down the White House

The Democrats need to get a hell of a lot of cameras on the White House and plaster the photos everywhere. It's not just the brazen symbol of a megalomaniac destroying national heritage; it's happening during a government shutdown when ordinary people aren't getting paid. Make every American see it.

I'm reading my poetry today at 3 pm at Tompkins Corner Cultural Center in Putnam Valley NY -- open mike to follow -- pick some apples and meet me there!

official flyer of the reading with photo of the poet

I'm reading poetry at Tompkins Corners Cultural Center in Putnam Valley NY Sunday Oct 19th at 3. Open mike to follow.

thank you, my friend and excellent writer

ha! no. Have you forgotten that everyone I wrote about in advance then lived on and on?

The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries|Paperback A light-hearted look at the history and practice of “the ultimate human-interest story,” the obituary.“What a wonderful surprise—a charming, lyrical book about the men and wome...

Obituaries used to speak no ill of the dead. It wasn't until writers stopped this nonsense that obits became worth reading. People are human. Tell their real stories. Quote them. (I know this because I wrote a book about the art of obituaries.) www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dead-b...

"Just the other day, I was in the audience at Lincoln Center when Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, while promoting a new book, that she doesn't think the United States is in a constitutional crisis," Farias told us. "Today, the Supreme Court, without offering a single line of reasoning, more or less declared that the Fourth Amendment, which protects everyone from unreasonable searches and seizures, nonetheless allows the Trump Administration to arrest and detain anyone who looks Latino, citizen or not, on account of the language that they speak or the kind of jobs they do. The ruling putatively covers the Los Angeles area, but the effect could be national," he continued. "If that's not a constitutional crisis, then what is?"

The New Yorker asked me “how bad” today’s Supreme Court ruling was. I boiled it down to one paragraph:

link.newyorker.com/view/5bda429...

no that's the poem -- those lines were quotes (though I added the exclamation points)

My poetry reading for the month of August for the #sealeychallenge, detailed day by day on Instagram.

There is no such thing as the State! We must love one another or die!

I’m from Missouri. This is crazy.

I wish!

there's some excellent and fascinating history!

yes, I've noticed how many more page one obits there are!

number one fan by a mile, John!

@marilynajohnson.bsky.social 🎉🎉🎉

Congrats to the finalists—! Thank you for sharing your beautiful poems with us! 🙏

“The Sealey Challenge, at heart, is a big, raucous, joyful celebration of poetry.” —Laura Sackton

Whether you're brand-new to the challenge or old hat, everyone is invited to read (more) 31 books in 31 days this August!

www.thesealeychallenge.com

Mass starvation stalks Gaza as deaths from hunger rise Aid agencies warned for months that Israel’s harsh limits on food aid would bring acute malnutrition and widespread suffering to Gaza’s 2.1 million people.

"Doctors are famished to the point that they have dizzy spells as they make their rounds, medics say, and the journalists documenting their caseloads are often too weak to even walk to the clinics." www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

“Forget about intelligence” is a pretty good mantra for this administration

In ‘Not My Type,’ E. Jean Carroll Gets the Last Gab About the Trump Trials

She could have written it as a tragedy, or a personal and political screed. Instead, it's a comic romp, and she thumbs her nose at the Tr*mp team with such inventive hilarity, it makes us hopeful about surviving these times. Well done, E.Jean! www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/b...

New York City mayoral candidate Brad Lander arrested by Ice agents Lander, who has been released, was arrested at courthouse, where he said he intended to ‘accompany’ immigrants out of the building

Something horrible being met by bravery. As in all these stories, I wonder, who are these ICE agents? Does anyone know someone who works for ICE? Whose kids take that job? PS support the @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

thanks @npr for this delicious story....

don't want to overlook this story

thrilled to be in there with you, too!