the thing about being creative is you have to say "no" to yourself a lot. you have to recognize the first thought to pop into your head is the tip of a long shadow cast by a weirder, more huge, and better thought.

society: COMPARISON IS THE THIEF OF JOY writers who use similes: ☹️

Now that it finally feels like spring in Saskatoon, seems like a good time to share my spring poem from the January 2026 issue of @prairiefiremag.bsky.social.

Now that it finally feels like spring in Saskatoon, seems like a good time to share my spring poem from the January 2026 issue of @prairiefiremag.bsky.social.

Learn how to shift your digital life away from Big Tech in our new, LIVE online course: Take Control Live: Taming Big Tech! https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/taming-big-tech/

Supreme Court Overturns ‘Right v. Wrong’ https://theonion.com/supreme-court-overturns-right-v-wrong-1819573211/

I think the danger of the personal narrative poem is that we’re creating the self that is speaking. All too often we create a self we can live with. —Marie Howe

Announcing: the readers for our Poetry Month Wrap Party! We're so happy to be joined on May 1st by some of the wonderful Winnipeg-based contributors whose work appeared in CV2 this past year! Friday, May 1st 6:30PM doors / 7:00PM readings Video Pool Media Arts Centre, 100 Arthur Street, Winnipeg

Turn sideways on tablet. Thank you @lrb www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Eliminating libraries in prisons is a disaster, completely shortsighted. Libraries are a lifeline for incarcerated people who want to learn and grow, and have few other options.

they really said "they should have sent a poet"

#SundayReads: Beginning with a 14th-century king who believed he was made entirely of glass, Tamara Sanderson investigates the “glass delusion” — https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/fear-and-fragility-the-glass-delusion-and-its-history/ #longreads

"Lynch on Lynch" (1997), Chris Rodley — A collection of interviews with David Lynch

Our newest book, Take Control of Focus by @glennf.com, helps Apple users reduce the constant barrage of beeps, buzzes, rings, and notifications while ensuring that desired alerts appear. https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/focus/

"I stare / at the back of your head—framed by pleats of plum-honeyed clouds, / framed by the door jamb, framed by the limits of my periphery." (Mulbery // Adam Gianforcaro) Link: dishsoap-quarterly.com/11-12-2024/m...

I need this good news.

poems with titles longer than the poem vs poems with a title so tucked and short it feels hardly there at all

“I’ve always thought the opposite, that most poetry isn’t hard enough, in the sense that it’s not interesting or engaging enough. It doesn’t hold the attention—you read it once or twice & you’ve used it up. The engagement I look for and too often miss is a kind of pleasure…the opposite of boredom.”

He says introspection didn’t exist 400 years ago? Montaigne would like a word.

Actually, Americans are just like you. ~20-30% of them genuinely support fascism, as in ~every 🇪🇺 country. You are just more fortunate to have political institutions & a multiparty system that prevent that 20-30% from fully capturing the center-right party, becoming 51%, & controlling the government.

"No one wants to see a feminist spin on Frankenstein" is a thing I actually just read.

Sonny Burton is set to be executed by the state of Alabama on Thursday. There is a direct line between a government that murders its own citizens and the devaluing of life abroad. The sin has always started at home.

The literal worst version of it has to exist first if you're ever going to get anywhere, so you might as well embarrass yourself by writing it

Born #onthisday in 1533, the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne. Aged 38 he quit public life to devote himself to leisure, reading + reflection. He began writing experimental meditations he called “essais” and thus a new literary genre was born: publicdomainreview.org/collection/f... #OTD

Wrote on @literaryhub.bsky.social about a win for fiction: the strange case of a piece of speculative writing spooking tech investors this week

Our winter issue is on sale now on our website and in stores around the country! Featuring new work like this haunting new poem from Morgen Jahnke. Details: prairiefire.ca/current-issue/

We've finished spotlighting the poets in our new issue! Read the whole thing, 'Wildfires', here badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three

Necessary reading

You, an individual, cannot "fix" the whole world. You can act at the scale of your life. You should act at the scale of your life.

“Whenever we go past that school, Ty's like: ‘Am I going back to jail, Mom? Are you taking me back over there?,’” Ty’s mother said. “I felt like nobody at that school was really fighting for him. They were too busy trying to justify what they did.” (Pub. Nov. 2024)

My dear friend, the poet Sandy Shreve, has died. A number of us wrote tributes to Sandy for @eventmags.bsky.social in December. I welcome you to read them today, and learn a bit more about an incredible poet, painter, arts organizer and human being:

“A poem is like a radio that can broadcast continuously for thousands of years.” ~ Allen Ginsberg

"This is Mia, 7 years old -- 'I don't want to be in this place. I want to be in my school'" -- Walkinshaw confronts Lyons with letters written by kids being detained by ICE

I just wrote a 100-page book about Apple Wallet. Yes, that’s right. You heard me. There were so many pain points that I dug deep into the app, its settings, how Apple Pay works, and more. If you’ve ever been frustrated with Apple Pay or Wallet, this ebook is for you: www.takecontrolbooks.com/wallet/

Thrilled to have a poem published in this new issue of Prairie Fire!

They changed my headline; I said Barbie was always autistic and they made it into a question. But here you go! If Autistic Barbie isn't you, good news - another Barbie might be: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/neur... Thank you @psychologytoday.com

i guess this is me until further notice

Your devices may sync your messages even when you have Messages in iCloud disabled. Here’s why and what you can do about it @sixcolors.com sixcolors.com/post/2026/01... You can supplement the column with my book, Take Control of FaceTime and Messages! www.takecontrolbooks.com/facetime-mes...

Excited to get my hands on this sequel to The Shadow Road by Saskatoon author @kurtkirchmeier.bsky.social!

“Write to the market.” You’ll never catch the market. By the time you’ve written it, the market is gone. Write what you’re on fire to write, and sometimes the market shows up.

The leaders of the country’s biggest white nationalist group believe that “the Nazis were right” and that a violent “race war” for Canada’s future is underway youtu.be/scR4OZX4g4s?...

Poem: ‘Snow’ by Andrew Motion

Happy birthday Jane Austen! You're looking pretty fresh for 250! p.s. @devoney.bsky.social 's Wild for Austen is highly recommended (including by me, as you can see).

Kudos to @josiahnelson.bsky.social for his excellent short fiction piece in the new issue of Brick! Clever, alchemical, eerie - a great read. @brickliterary.bsky.social

“You come at poetry with the momentum of having failed. It’s only when other communication is absolutely impossible that a poem has to exist.” —Alice Oswald

One of the many reasons AI can't produce good writing is it can't hate its own writing. It can't think to itself "Maybe I'm illiterate" during the writing process. And that's essential

this is my #1 advice to grad students: anyone can reproduce jargon; the bigger flex is being able to make the argument in straightforward prose. clarity is indicative of deep thought and engagement. even chatGPT can write word salad.

Brandon Kilbourne, Natural History: poems / @graywolfpress.bsky.social ; robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/12/bran...

It's amazing how a few weeks away from a poem makes you see the cracks in it. Time is the best editor. Patience is better than any craft book.