If I were elected comptroller, my inaugural speech would start, "Well, well, well. I guess you people just couldn't comptrol yourselves."

Happy 2026...?

People are dying inside American concentration camps right now. www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/i...

“I carried him on my back. It took seven days.” A camp in eastern Chad is now home to more than 100,000 refugees of Sudan’s civil war, and is a key destination for those fleeing El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State. Resources are strained as the number of newly displaced people increases.

This reading's going to be excellent - mark your calendar: www.folger.edu/whats-on/the...

"Verse was a special illness of the ear" www.babelmatrix.org/works/en/Aud...

"We write to you today as concerned poets, educators, and members of the poetry community, regarding the Poetry Foundation's intent to lay off longtime staff members Shoshana Olidort and Maggie Queeney...we strongly urge [PF] to reverse its decision and retain them." docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Might Could has a cover! Designed by the lovely Philip Hoy, with artwork by Amber Cowan. Thanks to Waywiser Books—can't wait to share this book with y'all. ❤ www.waywiserbooks.org/coming-soon

The titular wokeness being rolled back is the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Gift-giving season is here. Do you know someone who enjoys poetry? Typography? Travel? Saudade? French cosmology? Limestone statues in labyrinths? Gondolas? Rendezvous? This book might be for them: www.powells.com/book/the-tra...

"Carried her unprotesting out the door. Kicked back the casket-stand. But it can't hold her, That stuff and satin aiming to enfold her, The lid's contrition nor the bolts before." Gwendolyn Brooks died 25 years ago on this day.

One of my #Shetland stories, set at the height of Shetland's arctic whaling. About a whaling marriage, the winter solstice, and trowies (Shetland trolls). Thank you so much to @northamerreview.bsky.social for publishing this one. northamericanreview.org/open-space/f...

!

Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.

"Autumn eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends." www.artofeurope.com/celan/cel2.htm

"To push an idea through a rhyme-pattern feels like straining fruit through muslin, and it often emerges refined, sharpened and about 50 per cent lighter." — @dharmabam.bsky.social

Adversarial poems!

A round of applause for the 2025 #NBAwards winner in Poetry: Patricia Smith for The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems.

If you weren’t able to join us for the 2025 Literary Prize presentation, you can view it here. An inspiring double reading! Our thanks to our winners and judges, including @talianeffson.bsky.social, @nancyjooyounkim.bsky.social, and @randallmann.bsky.social! youtube.com/watch?v=r53p...

It's an honor to have 2 poems in this month's issue of Poetry magazine. Thanks to the Poetry editors for featuring them, and providing the opportunity to record them. "Arrival in Montpellier": www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi... "The Last Catalogue": www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

Please join us on Friday, November 14, at 2pm CST, to celebrate and hear the winners of NIMROD’s annual literary awards, Michael Lavers and Talia Neffson, with judges Randall Mann and Nancy Jooyoun Kim. Zoom address in post below.

One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc

Attention: this exists www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBkm...

Wild that there aren’t more Tennessee Williams revivals considering how miserably hot life will be now. We are all of us sweaty and slightly unwell

Wrote something on Harrison & class. Also scansion. But remember the first rule of Foot Club. open.substack.com/pub/northsea...

'Dissent at the Temple of Gemini' by @austinwriting.bsky.social badlilies.uk/austin-allen-2

As long as I’ve got my laptop and summer breaks, no urban legend is safe.

“But for him it was not an important failure”

"Through his mode of life...Diogenes exposes himself absolutely to domination, to murder. He can be crushed like a snail is crushed underfoot. He can be broken, reduced to pieces. He can be exiled and tortured. But he cannot be governed." Catherine Malabou on Diogenes. No notes.

Doing this soon:

Grateful to @kathryngray.bsky.social and @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social for including my narrative poem "Dissent at the Temple of Gemini" in the new issue of Bad Lilies. Enjoy, and please do yourself the favor of reading the full issue! www.badlilies.uk/austin-allen-2

If you're eagerly seeking a copy of The Travels of Blad J. Garamond: In Search of Geneviève Sans-Serif (and I know you are), why not try Powell's Books? Special thanks to the good folks at @powells.bsky.social for helping ensure the "è" rendered correctly! www.powells.com/book/the-tra...

The Hecht Prize contest is open through Dec. 1. Poets, send your manuscripts! www.waywiserbooks.org/the-anthony-...

Sonnet in The London Magazine!

Resistance to authoritarianism is a coordination game. That's why universities and law firms and nonprofits can't let themselves be picked off one by one. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/o...

News!

Today marks the official launch of my new poetry confection, THE TRAVELS OF BLAD J. GARAMOND: www.measurepress.com/measure/cata...

It's nice to be reminded that the iambic pentameter line is one of the most beautiful things to have ever existed.

I have a new book coming out next month. It's called THE TRAVELS OF BLAD J. GARAMOND, it's a comic romance (a com-rom?), and it's available for preorder: www.measurepress.com/measure/cata...

I would just like everyone to know I did NOT write the title (or choose the pic, though it's a nice dad joke). But here's the op-ed I wrote for the NYTimes. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/09/o...

Waywiser Books, the 501(3)(c) US-based successor to the UK's venerable Waywiser Press, is now running the 21st Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, to be judged by A.E. Stallings. Deadline December 1, 2025. We want to read your poems! www.waywiserbooks.org/the-anthony-...

Writerfolk: the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize contest opens tomorrow. Poets with no more than one published full-length collection are eligible. A. E. Stallings will be this year's judge. Send your work!

Back for a spell.