THE MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED Submissions are now open until May 25th! Don’t miss your final chance to submit your poetry at www.montrealpoetryprize.com #poetryprize #poets #poetrycommunity #prize #lovepoetry

Remembering Emily Dickinson on the 140th anniversary of her death (May 15, 1886).

Arrghh. Daughter being sent home from school with fever. Uh oh. Anyway, coffee!

🤨🤔 greekreporter.com/2026/05/11/g...

"The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary." -Ursula K. Le Guin, *A War Without End*

"One study found that increasing the number of people who receive SNAP benefits by 5 percent could have prevented nearly 32,000 suicides over 15 years. And a $1 increase in minimum wage has been linked to roughly 8,000 fewer suicide deaths over a decade."

"My Sharona" by The Knack--potentially a ghazal? Discuss.

My favorite mother’s day cartoon from the stupendous @rosemarymosco.com

“officials discovered two industrial-scale water hookups feeding a data center campus located 20 miles south of downtown Atlanta. One water connection had been installed without the utility’s knowledge, and the other was not linked to the company’s account and therefore wasn’t being billed.”

yes. change the statute on which this decision turned and redistrict according to the legitimacy conferred by the people of the state

I do love it.

Mark Zuckerberg built a massive data center in Georgia just hundreds of yards from people’s homes. Now the water pressure is gone. Sinks don’t run. Toilets won’t refill. Homes shake nonstop. Power outages are routine.

"R*ssia is not winning":

Doing this soon in LA: hammer.ucla.edu/programs-eve... @hammermuseum.bsky.social

Tickled to learn, via Willa Cather's "Death Comes for the Archbishop," that the French for "rattlesnake" is "serpent à sonnette."

‘Saint Augustine’s dog domesticates him, adumbrating a whole life outside the painting and outside sainthood, one that might involve play as well as prayer, affection as well as piety.’ Robert Hanks on Thomas Laqueur’s survey of dogs in art, from Carpaccio to Kerry James Marshall.

A woman who doesn't put up with much, by her look!

Καλό Μήνα! Καλή Πρωτομαγιά!

Doing this very shortly in Oxford. Please come if you are in town!: english.web.ox.ac.uk/event/lispin...

It could be worse, my dear, it could be worse. The world is ending—this was always true. But that could be a blessing, not a curse. @aestallings.bsky.social

#Agenda Professor of #Poetry Talk by A.E. Stallings @aestallings.bsky.social 'Lisping in Numbers: Poems that Count' 🗓️30 April, 5.30pm 📍Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities This is a public event and everyone is welcome! Tickets are free but booking is required. @engfac.bsky.social

The way out is the path back to the start: Diving back in, we still get lost, and swerve. A bright toy flag makes gestures at the heart. We lose sight of it, although we observe, Diving back in, we still get lost. ‘The Maze’, a poem by @aestallings.bsky.social. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

They thread the living labyrinth of yew. We find that in the middle there’s a fort And climb the ladder for the overview: The maze collapsed, and time foreshortened, short. ‘The Maze’, a poem by @aestallings.bsky.social. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

19 poets, 19 translators, 15 languages from Amharic to Uzbek—don’t miss New Verse Review’s special translations issue edited by @dacooperpoet.bsky.social & Mary Grace Mangano, featuring translations by @bdralyuk.bsky.social, @victoriamoul.bsky.social, @aestallings.bsky.social, and many more!

Remembering Amal Khalil

Besides my lecture next week at Oxford (on the 30th), I'm hosting a "Dead Poet Slam" at LMH on the 28th. Basically it is an opportunity to recite a favorite poem by a dead poet. Or to watch people do same. More info here: www.wejoinin.com/sheets/zgxnf...

I'm here with translations of a couple of sonnets from the Greek of Yiannis Doukas:

Deep in the tea-colored Okefenokee, the Hooded Pitcher Plant is a lighthouse of lost souls. It uses translucent "windows" to trick insects with a false sky, luring them into a stained glass trap of digestive fire. A wonderful, macabre marvel of the swamp. #WyrdWednesday #EarthDay #Okefenokee

Good morning, Durham! Off to conference on Classics & environment. Many cheerful twittering birds. Coffee!

Back from Gdansk festival, a day before I turn around to be back in the UK. Laundry, catching up with teen, other preparations, admin. Coffee!

Professor of #Poetry Talk by A.E. Stallings @aestallings.bsky.social 'Lisping in Numbers: Poems that Count' 🗓️30 April, 5.30pm 📍Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities This is a public event and everyone is welcome! Tickets are free but booking is required. #poetrysky #poetrycommunity #oxford

The way out is the path back to the start: Diving back in, we still get lost, and swerve. A bright toy flag makes gestures at the heart. We lose sight of it, although we observe, Diving back in, we still get lost. ‘The Maze’, a poem by @aestallings.bsky.social. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

A new pome, with thanks to the LRB: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Orban’s ouster from mainstream European politics began with a Greek bid to eject his Fidesz party from the broad tent of the centre-right. Greece’s stand against collaboration with the far-right comes from its own experience with Golden Dawn. open.substack.com/pub/johntpsa...

‘Genocidal intent can be expressed through the destruction of heritage as well as violence against people.’ Peter Stone on the greater emphasis now placed on protecting cultural property in war – in principle, that is.

OK, today some admin and e-mails. Peacocks subdued after all the Easter excitement, although occasionally a firework sets them off again. Bees droning. Sun peeping out through Sahara dust haze.

My latest in the IISS magazine Survival on how the US pushed back against a €1bn Chinese investment in Piraeus. US-backed ONEX Shipyards is producing some of the first Greek newbuildings in decades at Elefsis Shipyards. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Ukraine is doing better than you think:

UPGRADED YOUR RAM FOR YOU

Peacock (Indigo Montoya), sneaking past drying Easter Eggs, in search of cat food...

Too cold yesterday for a swim (even for me), so we took a mountain walk in the bee-loud hills: Jerusalem sage, purple sage, pink and white rock roses, chamomile, poppies, assorted orchids (including my favorite, the Naked Man Orchid), a pair of partridges.

Good Friday here: www.the-tls.com/literature/o...

Good Friday here--the church bell is tolling, peacocks honking, white-tailed bumblebees busy in the flowering sage.

Hearing that the splendid Dame @averilcam.bsky.social has passed. She was an amazing scholar. She will be missed. Please note her memoir and remember to cite her as one of the pivotal founders of the field we now call Late Antiquity. www.brepols.net/products/IS-...

This week in '85: ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ was released as a single in the UK.

Posiedon left me a present--a Trident--by the sea! (Playmobil Poseidon for scale.)

Well, glad to wake up to find nothing has been nuked, I suppose. The bells have begun tolling for Holy Week, and the peacocks are in full squawk, each to each. A blustery day on the sea (no swim today, I think). Droning of bees, tinkle of goat bells.

Registration is now open for our next Professor of #Poetry lecture on 30 April at 5.30pm. A.E. Stallings @aestallings.bsky.social will talk on 'Lisping in Numbers: Poems that Count'. All welcome! Tickets are free but booking is required. schwarzmancentre.ox.ac.uk/spektrix/Cho...

Today I learned that there is a site called Librivox, where books in the public domain have been read aloud by volunteers and you can listen to them for free. There is even an app. I‘m telling you about it, in case you, too, did not know. librivox.org #audiobooks