This is really excellent, glad to see you given the space to go big with this @jamellebouie.net www.nytimes.com/video/opinio...

An observer arrested in Suth Minneapolis. Photo by Richard Tsong-Taatarii/The Minnesota Star Tribune

More parenting poems... I think this was when they watched Spirited Away or something like that.

Super happy to share "Haiku Against the Police" from @neonpajamas.bsky.social 's "Sunday Poem" feature. It's the first poem I've published from my new manuscript, The Adorations, and it's a signaling from the flames. (Also please post your responses to the prompts.)

"I’m not sloppy, I’m meticulous. Working on sonnets or something like that would also be fun, but that’s so old-fashioned, and I want to communicate with the contemporary world and find a new language, not show off conventional skillfulness." - Aase Berg Interview: paulsemel.com/exclusive-in...

Third poetry book of the year was Aase's Death by Aase Berg translated by @johannesg.bsky.social. Spare and uncomprising, these small poems left a big impression, taking the reader to the bottom of the sea and the bottom of the heart with a dark humor and wisdom in simplicity.

@jamellebouie.net is correct again. But it's really not a complex solution. It's common sense. End this authoritarian BS.

Today at 34 & Park in Minneapolis, a woman tried to drive down the street where a protest had broken out in front of a home ICE was raiding, saying she had a doctor apt to get to. ICE agents busted out her windows, cut off her seatbelt, and pulled her out before arresting her.

ICE kidnap 17-year-old U.S. citizen working at Target then dump him bleeding and crying miles away in a Walmart parking lot… 🤬

"I never consciously start with an explicit theme, because the purpose is to learn something new about the world + influence it in my own way. At least push some small particle in the universe around. I feel like some kind of quantum ghost. The book writes itself once I get started." - Aase Berg

"Giving up, no matter how much you want to, doesn’t work." Aase Berg interviewed by Paul Semel about her latest book, Aase's Death paulsemel.com/exclusive-in...

Aase Berg tr. @johannesg.bsky.social

AOC: What we saw today was a criminal murder a woman while she was trying to flee for her life. What we saw today was a manifestation of every American’s worst nightmare: their government turning into a tyranny.

This was a fantastic event. Great poetry, great vibes. Brought joy and defiance into my heart. Expertly organized and curated by @neonpajamas.bsky.social . Also what a bar The Whistler is. Like a black lodge of poetry.

Looking forward to this reading. I'll read some poems from Aase's Death and some of my new poems. Really looking forward to this. Hope to see you there, Chicagoans.

Strong recommend for this approach to reading Spencer's Faerie Queene (and vice versa)...

this is kinda it. I'm posting and flailing and irl just havin a fuckin Saturday I guess because what is there? but it sucks. the US destabilizing governments wantonly for a century plus sucks.

I haven't had time to write any Substack essays for months but I did write one this morning about the year that passed - about Chile and my mom and flowers and the poetry I did and did not write: open.substack.com/pub/johannes...

Here's a good thread with tips for poetry in translation -

Excited to have the long title poem of the new book ms in the latest Notre Dame Review alongside some of my favorite poets— especially @rodrigo-toscano.bsky.social and @richard-siken.bsky.social and @dylanwk.bsky.social and @samuelamadon.bsky.social Thanks so so much to @johannesg.bsky.social

Samuel Beckett on longing Cascando the hours after you are gone are so leaden they will always start dragging too soon

"In a handful of words, that evokes the haunting glimpses of nature found throughout this collection, as well as the way that Berg establishes a sense of the familiar turning alien. Aase’s Death memorably juxtaposes the cosmic and the quotidian, and it gives this book a disquieting energy."

NEXT NEON NIGHT MIC! 📚 @blackoceanbooks.bsky.social takeover edition, celebrating the launch of AASE’S DEATH by Swedish author Aase Berg (translated by Johannes Göransson) 🎤 Johannes Göransson 🎤 Hedgie Choi 🎤 Paul Cunningham 🎤 Carrie Olivia Adams 🎤 Brian Foley 🎤 Nathan Hoks

"I Love The Perfect Theft You Write That You Have Wept Enough Tears To Wash All My Clothes But Have You Seen My Closet You have Lost The Ticket Before The Theater Is Even Built Black Horsese In Your Alley Black Horses In Your Alley" Some early Bruno K Öijer

”And wanting to live in Maria Callas’s voice. And not having money. And waiting for payment from poetry.” Wow this poem by Afrizal Malna… i dont want to read anything else for a week or ten. (Trans Daniel Owen)

"You know very well that God gouges out the eyes of flowers, as his obsession is blindness." - Huidobro

There will be a special Aase Berg night in Chicago in January. I will read with a bunch of Chicago writers to welcome my translation of Berg's AASE'S DEATH into the world. Thanks to @neonpajamas.bsky.social for organizing, for foregrounding translation.

"fervent and propulsive. devastating and sublime." - Christine Shan Shan Hou on Summer in Goodreads (lol I'm the last person in the world to discover Goodreads) www.goodreads.com/book/show/62...

The racism and incompetence of AI.

Thanks for post Ben. I like this one a lot - Jäderlund at her most Björling-esque.

"Beautiful and grotesque surrealist poetry. Sludgy secrets between sea floor abominations. This is Berg’s best collection since “With Deer”." This is what someone on Goodreads wrote about Aase Berg's Aase's Death. It's out now from Black Ocean: www.blackocean.org/catalog1/aas...

Trump promised the tariffs would help lower grocery bills. Dept. of agriculture has money from tariffs and he is barring them from using that money to fund SNAP. Tell everyone who voted for him (the not-rich ones, the rich ones don't care). Also, ball rooms easily funded. Hungry kids, nah.

Joyelle McSweeney winning Jeopardy is a win for poets everywhere

Congrats to Joyelle for winning Jeopardy tonight...

I know it is infuriating to faculty at Ohio State that their institution is being converted into a para-governmental incubator for technofeudal collaborationist hackery like this. We’ll worry about AI slop, cognitive atrophy, AI psychosis, etc. AFTER we compel every teacher & student to use it. 🤬

My trip to Chile was incredible. Not only did I read from Verano/Summer in Neruda's house, but I found this great cafe run by a young guy and there in a fit of inspiration I finished writing my next book. I marked my gratefulness to Santiago by having this tattoo made by a Santiago artist.

”I slept, then recited my most beautiful poems. The flames of my poetry dried the Virgin’s hair. She thanked me and went off, seated on her soft rose." At Huidobro's grave in Cartagena, Chile. (Thanks Weinberger for translation.)

I'm in Santiago Chile to do some readings from Summer/Verano as well as talk about translation. It's spring here and the city is beautiful.

Now on sale! Aase Berg ’s Aase’s Death! 25% off with code DEATH at checkout! www.blackocean.org/catalog1/aas...

sext

Top advice on teaching creative writing: teach Keats' letter to Leigh Hunt. "I’ll cavern you, and grotto you, and waterfall you, and wood you, and water you, and immense-rock you, and tremendous-sound you, and solitude you..."

AASE'S DEATH (Forthcoming from Black Ocean)

Some of my Courtney Love fan fiction

Be sure to check out the internet launch of the critical-electronic edition of Joyelle McSweeney's brilliant and immensely influential Dead Youth, or The Leaks today at 3:30 eastern time. There will be reading, discussion and writing prompts. www.eventbrite.com/e/open-poeti...

"It’s difficult picking up another collection of poetry after finishing Burn the Losses; it’s such a damn compelling and spellbinding book... it is stunning both in image and in idea." Review of Gamoneda's Burn the Losses at Action, Spectacle: www.action-spectacle.com/summer-2025-...

September issue of Poetry Magazine is up on the PF website, incl my translations of a couple poems from Aase's Death. They also posted sound files of us reading the poems, so if you want to hear what Aase Berg sounds like when she reads her poems, go here: www.poetryfoundation.org/audio/171462...

Cracked open Aase Berg's "Hackers" as part of my reading for Women in Translation month and this is the first page 🔥 Eagerly awaiting her new book later this year.