Julia Bouwsma

Blessing for the End Times - Ecotone We can’t stop counting backwards & why not? Tonight’s moon, blood- blistering her eclipse as our necks crane star-ward, should be answer enough.

Read the full poem + subscribe: ecotonemagazine.org/poetry/bless...

@juliabouwsma.bsky.social

#Ecotone #TheMoonIssue #LitMagLove

A projection on the outside of the Old North Church reading "Let the WARNING ride forth ONCE MORE: TYRANNY is at OUR DOOR"

Old North Church in Boston last night on the 250th anniversary of Paul Revere's ride.

I’ll be reading Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” at the Maine State House tomorrow.

“In the hour of darkness and peril and need, / the people will waken to listen and hear…”

"Everything we write
will be used against us
or against those we love.
These are the terms,
take them or leave them.
Poetry never stood a chance
of standing outside history."

Adrienne Rich, from "North American Time"

SHOW UP FOR LIBRARIES 7 things you can do right now • Visit your local library and speak with a librarian. • Attend the next library, school board, or city council meeting. • Run for local office or support local elected officials who are standing up for your rights. • Apply for a library card if you don't have one already, and USE it. • Join your local Friends of the Library organization. • Take to the streets! Sign wave outside your library. (There are 2 cartoon people holding signs that say “support library workers” and “We love libraries”) • Spread the word.

“No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear: In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.” by Toni Morrison; excerpt reads: “Dictators and tyrants routinely begin their reigns and sustain their power with the deliberate and calculated destruction of art: the censorship and book-burning of unpoliced prose, the harassment and detention of painters, journalists, poets, playwrights, novelists, essayists. This is the first step of a despot whose instinctive acts of malevolence are not simply mindless or evil; they are also perceptive. Such despots know very well that their strategy of repression will allow the real tools of oppressive power to flourish. Their plan is simple: 1. Select a useful enemy—an “Other”—to convert rage into conflict, even war. 2. Limit or erase the imagination that art provides, as well as the critical thinking of scholars and journalists. 3. Distract with toys, dreams of loot, and themes of superior religion or defiant national pride that enshrine past hurts and humiliations.”

Toni Morrison:

I'm still putting the story together. I'm sharing limited info and request for more info anyone seeing this message might have. I understand that DOGE showed up today at the Institute of Museum and Library Services and rapidly began sending employees home. This was presaged in an executive order...

Just another day in the hellhole we now call Trump’s America #booksky #librarysky #ala

Oh, I didn’t mean to be unclear. Most library wifi is subsidized through the E-rate program, indoor or outdoor.

They won’t know the full impact yet, but they’ll find out for you because that’s what librarians do.

But the point still stands, which is that your local library is receiving a TON of services through federal funding, and they are in jeopardy. Go to your library. Ask what services they expect to lose.

That free library parking lot wifi rural communities depend on? That’s called E-rate and the Supreme Court will be hearing a case later this month to determine its fate. E-rate goes through FCC, not IMLS, for the record,

Hot spot lending? Federally funded. Did your library just get a grant to enable resources for remote workers (laptop desks, work carrels, etc.)? Federally funded.

The e-books / audio books you download through Libby or CloudLibrary? Federally funded through IMLS. Databases? Federally funded through IMLS. Librarian access to support services and professional development? Federally funded. Free tech help services? Good chance that’s federally funded too.

Though specifics will likely vary state to state, there is no question this will result in a significant cut in a wide variety of resources and services at your local public library.

ALA statement on White House assault on the Institute of Museum and Library Services An executive order issued by the Trump administration on Friday night, March 14, calls for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the nation’s only federal agency for America...

I think a lot of people missed the news that the IMLS was eliminated via EO on Friday. IMLS is the federal funding source for public libraries. It goes to state libraries to fund staff positions and state-run programs used by local libraries.

www.ala.org/news/2025/03...

ALA statement on White House assault on the Institute of Museum and Library Services An executive order issued by the Trump administration on Friday night, March 14, calls for the elimination of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the nation’s only federal agency for America...

www.ala.org/news/2025/03...

Librarian here. The free parking lot wifi is almost certainly being provided through a federal program called E-rate, the future of which is currently pending in a supreme court case.

I’m so sorry. I am the director of a small public library in rural Maine and will keep this amazing book on display in solidarity.

Anne Carson · Beware the man whose handwriting sways like a reed in the wind This​ is an essay about hands and handwriting. I think of handwriting as a way to organise thought into shapes. I like...

‘It is hard to live within constant striving. It is hard to live within the word “degenerative”, which means that, however I strive, I do not win.’

Anne Carson on living with Parkinson’s: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Social Skills Training by Solmaz Sharif Studies suggest How may I help you officer? is the single most disarming thing to say and not What's the problem? Studies suggest it’s best the help reply My pleasure and not No problem. Studies suggest it’s best not to mention problem in front of power even to say there is none. Gloria Steinem says women lose power as they age and yet the loudest voice in my head is my mother. Studies show the mother we have in mind isn’t the mother that exists. Mine says: What the fuck are you crying for? Studies show the baby monkey will pick the fake monkey with fake fur over the furless wire monkey with milk, without contest. Studies show to negate something is to think it anyway. I’m not sad. I’m not sad. Studies recommend regular expressions of gratitude and internal check-ins. Enough, the wire mother says. [ran out of space. poem also here: https://tinyurl.com/sharifpoem]

History says we forgave the executioner.

—Sharif

Despair is not the poet, just someone who knows them really well.

When the Patriot Act was passed, libraries got requests for patrons’ borrowing history. We were prohibited from disclosing those requests.

We deleted and shredded those records and stopped tracking reading history for that reason.

ALSO.

“May all dead things lie down in me / and be at peace, as in the ground.”

—Wendell Berry 💙

Guide to Attending Library and School Board Meetings Make sure local officials know you support the library and access to books of all kinds by attending, listening, and speaking out against censorship.

One more thing! If people need a toolkit to show up to school board meetings, here's a good one:

uniteagainstbookbans.org/guide-to-att...

“And now I am here, an unwanted steward, unneeded / witness. I am here, and this topography has made a debt of me. The debt / began before we ever arrived.”

—From “After We Wound the Land to Maps” by @juliabouwsma.bsky.social

kenyonreview.org/piece/after-...