Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

None other than Harryette Mullen!

Just #finished Mark McMorris’s Entrepôt. Seductive, erudite, often sinister sequences of long-lined, mid-length pomes. Held together by 17 epistles. First-order postcolonial gothic lit—fantasy-tinged. From Coffee House Press, 2010.

Where but KCR can you hear a program of classical tributes to Lenin on your morning commute ❤️

First as tragedy, then as farce, then as fashion.

KAIROS by Jenny Erpenbeck. Just #finished … very unsettling read.

Alan Gilbert, THE EVERYDAY LIFE OF DESIGN 2nd ed. (winter editions 2024). #finished and loved

Motorists, who cause (literally) 99% of pedestrian fatalities in NYC, get off with warnings. Meanwhile cyclists are slapped with criminal summonses and get their infrastructure yanked. Adams continues to amaze!

Just #finished Robert Glück’s ABOUT ED after taking a semilong break between its first and second books. Moved me very much—left me with so much to think about—but I am especially left with several passages about the afterlife of objects in “Ed’s Things” / the white Pyrex cup on Bob’s nightstand

“And the advancement of that movement—for socialism, for freedom, for social peace, for the unity of the multiethnic working class—is how we end the 9/11 Era. Not shallow declarations by Security State-allegiant politicians…. By organizing and outcompeting them.”

She’s a democatic socialist

Mamdani speech has gotta be the greatest nyc democratic primary victory speech in history—no way it's even close. I LOVE YOU, NEW YORK!

Jeffrey Joe Nelson, POSTCARDS FROM THE HIVE (Slab Editions, 2025). #finished

The fuck is this? “Best overall pick for mayor”? The Times used to do the serious thing and endorse a candidate. Now they’re stooping to “Wirecutter but for politics.”

Reading tonite in the East Village.

So low this week grappling with the death of my former prof. Cole Heinowitz. Cole fully reoriented me at 19 by modeling a contemporary life of reading & writing among poets I hadn’t known was possible. I was sure I’d see her at Pete’s Candy Store this summer. My teacher—I needed you still 💔

“The public sphere is so debased that saying anything true is a breach of etiquette. The profiteer says there is no tomorrow and then turns that cliché into the daily reality of his victims.” Robert Glück, About Ed

Groundbreaking poet Alice Notley, winner of the Poetry Society‘s 2018 Shelley Memorial Award, has passed away. Rest in Poetry.

Alan Gilbert

Kostas Anagnopoulos, HAIKU (Smoke Specs 2024). #finished in a record 5 minutes. Fully delightful little book.

Lucy Sante, I Heard Her Call My Name (2024). #finished & loved

Lucy Sante beautifully distilling the end of the East Village: “Around then Jean-Michel disappeared into Annina Nosei’s basement and then the cold heaven of fame; I never saw him again.”

Nominating this one in advance for Word of the Year 2025

le jail

My bank has placed an interstitial ad between logging in and viewing my balance, ratcheting up the drama of my penury immensely

A great pleasure of reading Lucy Sante’s transition memoir directly after Lisa Robertson’s Baudelaire Fractal is that both feature “profuse” plein-air makeouts in Parisian parks.

Rob Manfred has always been a joke baseball commissioner, but this is nuclear-grade doublespeak. Zero integrity—a fucking sellout.

Pete hit ball good

The NYC “beach status” SMS alert system is going offline. End of an era! :,(

Tr*mp hates cyclists and bike lanes so much—he has talked about painting over bike lanes in NYC as a condition for federal funds—that I genuinely wonder whether the criminalization of cycling is coming down from Washington thru compromised Mayor Adams.

At 7:30 a.m. this Saturday 5-0 cuffed a cyclist in Central Park for failing to pull over quickly enough. Then told him “We speak English in America.“ Huge structural changes in how cops interact w/ cyclists are underway in NYC rn and dovetailing w Trumpist racism. Stay vigilant.

Last month I delivered a talk on psychoanalysis and poetry at Saint Mark's Church. Today, it appears in the @parisreview.bsky.social. I wrote it at JClo's house, and he makes a cameo: www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/05...

Lisa Robertson, THE BAUDELAIRE FRACTAL. #finished & loved

On June 24, you can rank up to five Democratic candidates for Mayor of New York City and none of them should be named Andrew Cuomo. For example: Zohran Mamdani Brad Lander Zellnor Myrie Adrianne Adams Jessica Ramos It’s that easy.

Report on the cop-on-student violence at Brooklyn College from @profyarrow.bsky.social, faculty-observer of the non-violent student action for Palestine. Most chilling detail: officers disregarded the college’s wishes that they remain off campus, forcibly entering to kettle and attack undergrads.

Vibes are up in NYC

Every spring I consider copping a pair of the white CDG Play Converse. This spring has been no exception.

NEW: ALA salutes Dr Carla Hayden for her exceptional service to the nation as the Librarian of Congress. We are deeply disappointed in Dr Hayden's abrupt & unjust dismissal last night, an insult to the scope & breadth of her work. Read ALA Pres. Cindy Hohl's statement: www.ala.org/news/2025/05...

“…as a sillage is the release of an alternate time signature by the perfumed body. No perfume, no syntax, no flower can be definitively policed.” Lisa Robertson

Nora Treatbaby, OUR AIR (Nightboat). #finished

Juliana Spahr in @thenation.com

It’s déjà vu all over again. @nyc.streetsblog.org is reporting that New York’s finest are handing out summonses to cyclists like it’s 2014. Keep your eyes peeled! #bikenyc

Paco Cathcart’s set at Union Pool just changed my life fr. You should spin (and buy) their new record.

Extremely weird flex in NYT’s profile of Harvard prez Alan Garber

Percival Everett, SONNETS FOR A MISSING KEY (Red Hen Press, 2024). #finished

“Always trying to arrive is one way to seldom do. An ever-arriving coincident with a failure to recognize it, the air of our heads conditioned to miss the particles we land on, over and over, this progress.” Ian U Lockaby (@ursalockaby.bsky.social), DEFENSIBLE SPACE / IF A CROW— #finished & loved

At long last, the pre-order is up for a new story. This will be print-only at Topos Press but I got permission to post the pdf on Patreon and will also do that. www.topospress.com/collections/...

Paul Legault, LUNCH POEMS 2 (Spork Press) #finished

“If what you want is calm / to be restored you are still the enemy / you have not thought thru clearly / what that means” Joshua Clover

May Day reading with @terrencearjoon.bsky.social 🫶