“Art is not a sufficient substitute for the problem of leading a moral life.”—Czeslaw Milosz

Now when the wind blew, I pulled my dark wings, shingled and oily, around me. --From an interesting poem by Lucy Silbaugh in @thetls.bsky.social

I'll be reading one of my poems at this anniversary event:

Laura Sheahen visits the Markučiai Manor Museum in Vilnius, Lithuania, one of a dwindling number of places in eastern Europe where visitors can pay homage to Alexander Pushkin. @lsheahen.bsky.social worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe...

Two of my poems--"Ornithomancy" and "Petrarch 189"--are in the latest issue of @pnreview.bsky.social. The latter poem takes on a sonnet known to readers via Sir Thomas Wyatt. The issue also includes an interesting medieval Welsh poem in translation. @claireridgway.bsky.social @chiorbo.bsky.social

"When you go, space closes over like water behind you" Wonderful reading last night of poems by Ivan V. Lalić, read by his translator Francis R. Jones. Thanks @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

@worldlittoday.bsky.social has posted my article about the contortions of a #Pushkin museum in a country near the #Ukraine war. worldliteraturetoday.org/2025/novembe... @aatseel.bsky.social @dostoevskysociety.bsky.social

My review of new translations of Song dynasty poems: artsfuse.org/317950/poetr... @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social @victoriachang.bsky.social

Came across an interesting 2023 poem by Rachel Linton: ...Cassandra marries Sisyphus. She places the personal ad— ... OK Cupid doesn’t have a category for “comfortable with futility.” The only person she can marry has to know failure is the only option. ... www.thesunlightpress.com/2023/08/18/p...

Gary Saul Morson gives specific examples of why the Pevear/Volokhonsky translations of great Russian literature "are a disaster." "...readers should never choose a translation by P&V if another exists." Testify. hedgehogreview.com/issues/lesso...

From a good poem that @pnreview.bsky.social resurfaced from 1988: "But eventually there are things that flesh does not forgive; now my skin rises against you, rigid, my body beats you back."

The Fortnightly Review has published my poem "The Country of Bodily Pain." Thanks @robertarchambeau.bsky.social fortnightlyreview.substack.com/cp/172105216

On a bookish trip to Lithuania, I asked many people about #Dostoyevsky. In most cases, they told me #RussianLiterature classics are anathema. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/rea... #Dostoevsky #Baltics @dostoevskysociety.bsky.social @bdralyuk.bsky.social

Wonderful #Orpheus poems translated by Anna Jackson (@flewoutof.bsky.social) at exchanges.uiowa.edu/axbeyond-jac... I am here to reverse the death of my wife if even here, surely, love has some dominion, here being where we all, sooner or later, ready or not, will arrive home.

"The only people Rouault treated without sympathy were judges – a subject he returned to again and again. 'The reason I gave my judges such woeful faces,' he said, 'was doubtless because I expressed the anguish that I myself feel when I see one human obliged to judge another.'"

"... in any good translation, poetry is also what's found," says Geoffrey Brock--among others. www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/168...

My brief poem loosely based on a #haiku by #Buson, recently published in @thelincolnreview.bsky.social

@thelincolnreview.bsky.social just published three of my poems, including "Lachrymosa": lsheahen.substack.com/p/lachrymosa...

"be freedom’s intermediary hold the escape rope smuggle the message give the sign." The poetry of #ZbigniewHerbert often reads like a panicked ransom-note job description for artists living under totalitarian regimes. Here's my review of two Herbert collections: artsfuse.org/312770/book-...

Many thanks to @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social , editor of @whaleroadreview.bsky.social, for promoting my poem "Exorcised Vampire": www.whaleroadreview.com/sheahen/

One of my poems is in the new issue of Rogue Agent, a journal which focuses on the body.

Two of my poems--"Class for Unlearning Life" and "Self-Made Woman"--in a UK journal: www.morphrog.com/laura-sheahe...

Van Gogh's #loneliness: My review of a new book on Vincent van Gogh's formative two years in Paris, where his style evolved but no friendships emerged. Even when the artist was among his peers, he didn't click with them. newcriterion.com/dispatch/van... #VanGogh #art #painting #mentalhealth

One of my poems is in a new anthology about the women's resistance movement in #Iran: bookshop.org/p/books/wome... #mahsaamini #zanzendegiazadi

Dostoyevsky read Jane Eyre in Russian while he was in prison--and drew from Brontë's novel for one of his own. lsheahen.substack.com/p/when-dosto... #brontë #janeeyre #dostoevsky #dostoyevsky #bronte #Достоевский