Happy May Day

Heyyyyyy, Maine! We’ll see you in Camden for the poetry festival book fair on May 17. Shanna will bring Bloof books & chapbooks + her own new artist’s book published by Black Square Editions. See ya there? Jane Hirschfield is keynote & craft talk! www.camdenfestivalofpoetry.org/2025-festiva...

i am beating and turning and emptying out and opening up and beastly the sky of local clouds parts & the sun breaks the woods, soft legion comfort w/ reds surrounded by greens — @jayjayrowan.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/29/2...

I love this part Where the earworm wriggles And the spider smiles Toothlessly back — @jaredwhite123.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/29/t...

no one talks about what tanks we are how our exoskeletal bodies swell to contain all the horror also blue sky blood of field and wood — @kikikasch.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/29/i...

I looked at Matt and was like “YO!” Matt grinned like a devil, sun glinting off his green hair. Velocity Girl’s Copacetic became soundtrack to that blurred line between adolescence and adulthood. — @stevenrkarl.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/29/9...

Yolanda at the gate says i was so worried about you & im so depressed her silver hair oceanic around her radiant whole life the generosity of seeing like folded strata at the shoreline of time — @reaganlouise.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/29/a...

We split the 16-oz beer a friend left In the fridge three months ago Squinted into clouds Of dustbowl and citylight Remembered yesterday’s Daytime owl on the fence Like a yoked dream — @bexklaver.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/28/a...

The Bloof poets are in the home stretch now. Soooo close to day 30! Go cheer them on? #NaPoWriMo www.bloofbooks.com/blog

cross-legged killjoy in black nylon leggings reminding my daughter to keep the sand inside the box girl you are 42 years old I tell myself in a group chat — @nicolebrett.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/28/p...

in the “radical amazement” line, this action would be the last thing we could see in real time but we’re stuck in the “blunt dissociation” line with too many panes of glass between we & bee — @jayjayrowan.bsky.social with @airbudhockey.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/24/2...

Smudge went a little shoulder-shruggy & ants continue to carry granules of sand Smudge went a little hesitant but all around work continued to work Smudge wanted to feel magical but didn’t want to go shopping — @stevenrkarl.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/24/s...

slime might be how i like it cooked tender turned over frond on bug on dirt mound and roll, slip — @jayjayrowan.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/24/2...

scrolling back through photos when did his tail stop curling how could it be missed a devastation of notice a devastation of solitude in August a bliss blur — @reaganlouise.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/23/s...

In the dark ages There was no point Of comparison Or at least No point comparing Names Used to be words too — @jaredwhite123.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/24/g...

And for book buyers who want to support!

PLEASE don’t buy into Amazon’s booksale this week. They are intentionally trying to eat into profits from Indie Bookstore Day this weekend, a really important annual event for our important community institutions. Check out your local fave or bookshop.org.

Fellow authors, I love you, and I know it feels like we don’t have a choice, but B&N and Am*zon both scheduled sales this week to preempt Independent Bookstore Day, a hugely vital source of income for indie bookstores. Please don’t promote their sales; please promote your local indie this week.

Miss Aligned and I walk in the woods together a little off kilter a little off the path between trees. We crook our way the way of the wild turkeys toward the eastern beach. “You go the opposite direction, of course — @shannacompton.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/23/3...

then lulled by the flicker of degrading battery, I find me nearly drifting off leaning my face out over the rough raft’s edge — @kikikasch.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/23/i...

we’re both so full of miles we’re neither of us new i dot the grid in your direction pen to tongue i say some words against romance — @jayjayrowan.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/23/2...

she shimmers phantasmicly – auras aglow. nervous, not knowing where to set your mind but you don’t hide it. you can tell she’s your kind — @kikikasch.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/22/f...

She is funny — ha-ha, not peculiar Ono replied: “I’m not the pope” (This was years before “Family Guy”!) Her art was crowdsourced long before that was a word — @bexklaver.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/22/f...

& if in the confusion the evidence gets obstinate this is because not-sister & non-sister have both been other sides of peace & if it is peace we’re hoping for then we’ll have to invent new spirit — @stevenrkarl.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoems bloofbooks.com/2025/04/22/t...

I can’t write poems in a boat in the middle of a donut-shaped pond called Third Pond or maybe it is Fourth Pond but it’s certainly not called Poem Pond — @shannacompton.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/22/2...

There are seven kinds of smells but who needs species Your body is vast and resonant with miscommunications Your finger moves like it has its own nose Now do you remember? — @jaredwhite123.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoems #Poetry #DailyDraft bloofbooks.com/2025/04/22/t...

extraordinary people are people they might not even be kind mostly trying for kind right now decent honest meeting the moment though the moment surges a tidal wave building since long before any of us were born is the wave — @reaganlouise.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/22/a...

Besides memory is a library Work that is the best work that is not work yet a livelihood yet friendship I’m wool gathering with Pride and Prejudice —Farrah Field #NaPoWriMo #Poetry #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/22/p...

calculus of care quality until everyday is made of bad news a barbed wire garden — @reaganlouise.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoems bloofbooks.com/2025/04/22/a...

Our homes resemble garbage dumps. The surrounding planet is collapsing. Blood and tears are flowing. The war is lost; all wars are lost — @bexklaver.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #Poem #AprilPoems bloofbooks.com/2025/04/21/q...

Smudge went a little rotty but found the horror lackadaisical so decided to double-rinse Smudge went gurgle gurgle like one world was ending while another world had yet to begin — @stevenrkarl.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/21/s...

in the late night of unreadyness there is space in a self, what you carve out for friends & lovers & befriending and loving yourself in those waves loving your ghostlegs loving your womanhood — @jayjayrowan.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/21/2...

get inside take off your clothes and put on Minions someone directs someone else on this show and I’m still laughing about it — @nicolebrett.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoem #Poetry #DailyDraft bloofbooks.com/2025/04/21/m...

The small scales feel like code A blue message in an empty clock Busy with silent love ritual — @jaredwhite123.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoem #DailyDraft bloofbooks.com/2025/04/21/t...

it is time you wrestle from the shelf a book or begin your own novel of inner largesse–longhand. — @kikikasch.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo #poem #DailyDraft bloofbooks.com/2025/04/21/i...

Bernadette takes a swig of Beer and puff of Cigarette before reading “Eve of Easter” in which she makes sure everyone in Lenox and New York City and the World knows her Daughters are as important as Milton and Melville and Hawthorne. @bexklaver.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/20/e...

The April poems continue to rage, rage, against the dying of [looks around, gestures at all of it] Go see how our poets are getting thru it www.bloofbooks.com/blog

We tried the wrong way first, called what opens in the mind foothills, drank the rancid seltzer to not waste the water. We did things in reverse, a cloud came after the snowcap, the mountain before tectonic shift. — @natalieeilbert.bsky.social #Poem #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/15/s...

Smudge went a little sad so two bodies began to blur Smudge went as moonlit water for no one to see Smudge went all warm like how summer light falls through a pond Smudge went from amoeba from shapeless thing into form — @stevenrkarl.bsky.social #Poem #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/15/s...

delight sorts itself acceptance seats itself in the last empty chair strangers are yolked to other strangers in the enclosure — @jayjayrowan.bsky.social #poem #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/15/1...

anything’s an office if you press yourself far enough into a corner, it gets late and the buds build a dream life around you, you don’t live there — @jayjayrowan.bsky.social #poem #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/15/1...

Ugly on the outside same on the inside by design Mom applied lipstick before getting out of the car The heyday of malls went by so fast End to department store end They moved a river to build it —Farrah Field #Poem #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/15/l...

Big eyes open To the tender anemones I smoosh without thought Pugilist and optimist Can we talk about it yet — @jaredwhite123.bsky.social #poem #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/15/g...

the daughter calls daily listens hard but the mother doesn’t like scrutiny doesn’t want to be listened to not like that because won’t some- thing slip, one of the shames she has over years pressed into gem. — @kikikasch.bsky.social #poem #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoem bloofbooks.com/2025/04/15/c...

I only ever remember playing them back to see Tara’s sister Erin who died at 18 hit by a semi in a snowstorm on a two-lane highway in Northern Wisconsin — @bexklaver.bsky.social #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/14/t...

Racheal Kundananji caught in the corner stood two footed on the ball paused beckoned her defender with her out stretched hand — @reaganlouise.bsky.social #poem #AprilPoem #NaPoWriMo bloofbooks.com/2025/04/14/7...

Smudge went the painted fog across the forest Smudge went the fingerprint upon the tender part of your mind Smudge went the kitten heel between platform and steel — @stevenrkarl.bsky.social #poem #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoems bloofbooks.com/2025/04/14/s...

i don’t know how to explain i’ve been somewhere, like once i closed my eyes and so many people were in there the pressure changed. i’ve been thinking about the geography to direct you — @jayjayrowan.bsky.social #poem #NaPoWriMo #AprilPoems bloofbooks.com/2025/04/14/1...

The quality of the conversation A scattershot feeling Rose without punctuation What was its impact — @jaredwhite123.bsky.social #poetry #poem #NaPoWriMo #DailyDrafts #AprilPoems bloofbooks.com/2025/04/13/t...