Just as an example: faking chronic hiccups is a time-proven strategy, but if you want to take your workplace-ruining to new heights, try ALSO setting your coworkers' spellcheck so that it autocorrects "hiccups" to "hiccoughs" and "hiccoughs" to "hiccups."

There's a lot of pressure on women to find innovative ways to ruin the workplace--let's team up and share some strategies that have worked?

I really love Elliot's readings.

Two more events this month and then I am done with book-travel until January. Next week Boston (see flier for details), then Madison on Nov 22. (Flier coming soon.) If you live in one of those places I would like to read poems to you with my actual mouth.

The “they’re rapists” line from racists is not about women’s autonomy or dignity; it’s not even about the wrongness of rape. It is about white men’s property interests over white women. It’s not “they’re doing something horrible”; it’s “they’re raping the ones only you have a right to rape.”

"[T]he formulaic is recast as reflecting human nature...as opposed to a feature of algorithmically generated content that usefully serves to shrink audiences' horizons and harden their tastes, thereby making it easier to predict what they will or won't consume next."

The word "boing" is one I find incredibly embarrassing to be associated with/be made to say aloud. So I put it in a poem. (This one.)

Y’all here is a fun fact: Portland has a brand new volunteer organization called “operation inflation” that allows people to borrow inflatable costumes for protests. They just started a couple weeks ago and have like a 160 costume library (and counting because people keep donating).

the owlishness of certain people Heather Christle, from PAPER CROWN

Curious how other people might answer this question (borrowed from W. S. Graham)

"It’s a form of resistance that requires us to put aside ego, and the need for personal gratification, to become a node in a living network of care, support, and defense." More than anything else I hope the legacy of this moment will be organized care everywhere

Going back and forth between listening to podcasts about the Spanish Civil War and holding a kitten and reading about large language models and holding a kitten and writing about universities' capitulation to the loyalty oath during the red scare and holding a kitten... thank you, kitten.

Wrote about Vanessa Bell--Modernist artist (and Virginia Woolf's sister)--and the various kinds of host one can be, with a little light antifascism on the side.

TIL that the CEO of Core Civic (the private detentions company who runs the only known ICE facility holding families...

It's here!

Breaking news from Des Moines: ICE has detained Dr. Ian Roberts, the superintendent of Iowa's largest school district. The Des Moines Public Schools said "We have no confirmed information as to why Dr. Roberts is being detained or the next potential steps." www.bleedingheartland.com/2025/09/26/i...

accidentally ordered a dinner that matches my book

One tech company's slogan is NEVER WONDER and another is literally called PANOPTO and in conclusion I have no words or expect that to soon be the case.

seriously. The Big Dumb Algorithm can be bent as much by a twenty-second "loved it" as an eight-page screed.

NYC TONIGHGHT

Seeking a term akin to proprioception but for the sense of one's mortality; does such a thing exist? (I swear I am so fun to talk to.)

Let me tell you, the number of times where having For Grace After a Party by Frank O'Hara memorized has come in handy is less than five but it sure is more than zero.

Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are asking Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for answers after more than a dozen people died in immigration detention, as the department rushes to expand.

It's feeling more and more important to be able to gather together in physical space, hope I get to see some of you! 9/26 NYC (McNally Jackson Seaport) 10/4 ATL (Decatur Book Festival) 10/16 Sarah Lawrence 10/30 Hollins University

they’re putting Kimmel back on the air. I would now like to see the same amount of outrage for the firing of professors for their statements

Today’s poem is selected by Heather Christle (@heatherchristle.bsky.social) as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry.

Today’s poem: Heather Christle, “I know what I’m talking about” #lunchpoems

Researching and writing this was a joy. I began in an attitude of skepticism and ended elsewhere.

If you memorize a poem you will have it with you in an emergency. You could add that to your list.

We have been shadowbanned on this event and yet we are nearly sold out…come help us sell out and show your love and support for Palestine and Gaza. www.ticketmaster.com/voices-for-g...

I am going to be reading/talking in these places this month: 9/2 Memoiring Book Club (online) 9/4 The Writer's Center (online) 9/11 Amherst Books (Amherst, MA) 9/17 & 9/18 Emory University (Atlanta, GA) 9/26 McNally Jackson Books Seaport (NYC) More details below!

Managed to write a thousand words about poetry without (I am almost certain) lying.

Unraveling of federal arts funding infrastructure continues. Hard to describe the decades of debates & advocacy invested in sustaining the CW fellowships at the NEA. Now, wiped out.

Our fall issue is coming! We have essays by @heatherchristle.bsky.social, Oliver Egger, and Ash Sanders; interviews with Laura van den Berg, @blondieband.bsky.social, and Richard Ayoade, conducted by @rokwon.bsky.social, Emma Ingrisani, and Wallace Shawn; poetry, reviews, and more.

Reading about neuroscience leads me to reconfirm that a fundamental quality I value in poetry is its ability to "perturb those restless proactive seas." Poetry loves to get in the way.

This is true of so many phrases. Every word is a choice: Which actions are we naming? Which are we hiding?

Pretty sure this diagram is making fun of me.

How the word “breaking” appears again and again on posts announcing the IDF killing people in Gaza.

"Reading through a stack of the summer’s new books, I’ve found plenty of poetry as funny as written-down stand-up comedy: poems to be laughed at, in only the most affirmative senses."

The past 8 days have included a spouse with Covid, an unexpected flight to Washington, evacuating a harborside hotel bc of a tsunami advisory, and eating fresh blackcurrants for I think the first time in my life.

Banger opening poem in @heatherchristle.bsky.social ‘s new book PAPER CROWNS

This might be the happiest sensation I’ve had in relation to Paper Crown so far—watching Elliot move the opening poem through his body and the ways it changes his face as he goes. This feels so good. Thank you @1t2ls.bsky.social!!

“Working-class people can’t think, but should be allowed to become knowledge workers by using machines to think for them” is about the most “the author of this argument works for Microsoft” version of cosplay progressivism I could possibly imagine. (The author of this argument works for Microsoft.)

Any other poet-ish people reading this? Only 1/4 through but am finding it to be the most helpful text on the subject I have encountered so far.

Heather Christle, wrecking me in 16 lines @heatherchristle.bsky.social @weslpress.bsky.social

FLAMINGOS FLAMINGOS FLAMINGOS (Also my first poetry collection in ten years lol)

Join us tonight at 7 pm for a reading by @heatherchristle.bsky.social and conversation with @kavehakbar.bsky.social !

Kaveh Akbar talks with Heather Christle about her new memoir “In the Rhododendrons” and changing the narrative around violence against women buff.ly/aXYxypS

This week, I talked with @silkys13.bsky.social about immigration raids, rising authoritarianism, mass protest, innocence narratives, and what it means to organize effectively in this moment. Given everything that's happening, I highly recommend checking this one out.