Paige Ryan

Words that have been marinated for 30+ years must be read! (Just ordered your book and am very much looking forward to reading it 🙃)

Cuuuute

lol this vibe is unmatched

The curse of being a poet is: every word is guilty until proven innocent 🤔 😅

Writing poems is just: uses word I’ve known forever → panics → googles definition.

The Good Whale This is the story of a wildly ambitious science experiment to return Keiko to the ocean — while the world watched. A new limited podcast series from Serial Productions and the New York Times.

I’m not sure where or if this fits within the defined categories but this was really engaging:

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Quite possibly my favorite philosophical question to date 😂

I am right there with you!

I picked strawberries last weekend, and halfway through the field—I had a moment.

Here’s a poem about remembering what joy tastes like 🍓

“…I eat another, then another, again and again, each more ferociously than the last…”

@rebeccasolnit.bsky.social thank you for this.

Picture of a page in a book that reads: They formed a group they named Common Ground and chose as their slogan "Solidarity not charity," a phrase inspired by the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano's statement "I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity. Charity is so vertical. It goes from the top to the bottom. Solidarity is horizontal. It respects the other person. I have a lot to learn from other people."

Picture of a page in a book that reads: “To put it more directly, what is mutual in mutual aid is not in the goods and services delivered; it's in the underlying belief in the deep connections between those who give and those who receive. It is a deep belief in and commitment to inseparability: that my well-being is inseparable from yours and that, in caring for yours, I care for myself and, more than that, for the larger whole that is us, because we are in this together. That is, we are not mutual because of the exchange of aid; we aid each other because we are already mutual. The word mutual is often used in this context to mean sym-metrical, as in a symmetrical exchange, a relationship of reciproc-ity, but mutual aid in the sense that ASS and Common Ground practice it isn't exactly this kind of mutual. It is more like the other meaning of the word what we have in common before and beyond exchange: mutual friends, mutual feelings, a mutual fate.”

Picture of a page in a book that reads: “This means recognizing the indirect, long-term, and incalculable benefits of actions. One source of my thinking is anthropologist David Graeber's writing on debt, in which he notes that the old idea was that traditional societies bartered, awkwardly, until money smoothed the transactions. He makes the case that, instead, goods and services circulated in complex ways that knit people together as a community; the transactions were never finished in the way that a cash transaction is, and neither were the relationships. Money is, in his telling, specifically a way to terminate a connection, while the other models of circulation strengthened and perpetuated the connections.”

Picture of a page in a book that reads: Organizations spring up suddenly—but, to use a fungal met-aphor, just as mushrooms are only the visible, fruiting bodies of the larger fungus that was long there, underground, so emergent disaster mutual aid often arises out of networks that have long ex-isted. In ordinary times, those organizations may exist for other reasons—as church groups or friendship networks; in extraordinary times, it turns out that the pleasure and leisure produced a safety net that can catch us when things fall apart. In those times of crisis, these networks often expand suddenly in ways that matter afterward. Other times, an emergent organization is like spores on the wind that may land in new places, sowing new life.

Rebecca Solnits “No Straight Road Takes You There” is currently keeping me sane.

Read for good perspective on solidarity, mutual aid, community, and pleasure/leisure’s ability to be a safety net.

Q: Would you explain something about your poetry? A: My poetry is something that happens throughout the day. When I water the vegetables or wash dishes, poetry is born in me. When I sit down at the writing table, all I do is deliver the poems. Poetry comes as an inspiration, and is the fruit of my mindful living. After a poem is born, I may realize that it helped me; the poem is like a "bell of mind-fulness." Sometimes you need to reread a poem you have written because it takes you back to a wonderful experience — it reminds you of the beauty available inside of you and all around you. So a poem is a flower you offer to the world, and at the same time, it is a bell of mindfulness for you to remember the presence of beauty in your daily life.

I don’t remember where I got this copy of a talk Thich Nhat Hanh did at a correctional institution but it’s full of nice little meditations on poetry and life.

You know a poetry book is good when…

Awe thank *you* traversing the forest of my words 🫶

A poem that reads: TO BE HEARD, ONE NEEDN'T MAKE A SOUND I am myself tree-like, the who of me a fist of wood and xylem. Did you know? If a girl falls in a forest and no one's around to hear it, her fingers pierce the soiled ground and keep growing. Years later, she's a woman [buried alive in dirt] and her favorite thing is to watch from her branches, the way the rain bleeds yellow with meadow pollen.

Retreating back to nature where the chaos of the world can’t get me.

Send me poems that ground—either ones you’ve read or written.

#poetrycommunity
#writingcommunity
#naturewriting

Yes, so true and me too! Do any come to mind that you’d recommend?

Such good fortune I have, as it seems to be a vein I also enjoy. Added to my WTR!

I feel I must return the favor and though these are not cut from the exact same cloth, the writing is 👌

Exhalations by Ted Chiang and Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Her book of essays, “Upstream” was also a great read! Grounding and mindful—softening, and gently profound.

@robinthewriter.bsky.social

Ah, interesting! Looks like I know what I’m reading next now 🙃

The novel “Playground” is my first exposure to Richard Powers and I must say, the out-of-the-blue burst of magical realism on page 173 is such a flex.

#booksky

WRITING TIP: if you get stuck, try making the font really really big. This will remind you of being a baby, when you only knew twelve words and didn't know about death

Yes, another Mary Oliver, from her book “Devotions” 🫶 I hadn’t come across it until recently, either, and now it’s one of my favorite of hers.

Also I can’t stop referring to my baked goods as babies because my biological clock is like WHAT ELSE COULD YOU POSSIBLY BE DOING.

#writingcommunity
#poetrycommunity
#breadmaking #queerwriter #queerpoet

Spent the day watching my sour baby grow up instead of whatever garbage is popping up in the news. 10/10 recommend if you want to maintain your sanity.

A poem that reads: “THE AFTERMATH OF SCROLLING THE NEW YORK TIMES IN JANUARY (2025) I overdid it on the honey again this morning— first in tea, then on yogurt, followed by a long drawn out drizzle across the counter, my dogs heads, my head, a little in each shoe before leaving— and whatever was left of the bear, I took in my tote to go. My body, responding to a need for sweetness. My mind, letting it.”

Modern day self-care 101 🍯 🥲

#writingcommunity #writinglife #poetrycommunity #queerartist #queerpoet #queerwriter

Returning the favor @robinthewriter.bsky.social

ugh, this is it—the kind of poem that aches me into aliveness and makes me wonder how I ever lived without it.

What book is this from?

Thank you for this. I feel held by this poem.

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of Mary Oliver 🫶 her words, soften.

Working for a company that directly conflicts with your values is a special kind of fun.

Someone send me a poem beautiful enough to drown out my disappointment in humanity.

(I promise I’m not usually this dramatic, it’s just been a day)

#poetrycommunity
#writingcommunity