Handing back student work that’s been written by ChatGPT with a 0 followed by the comment “This essay will never stand in authentic wonder before the Beauty of God’s creation.”

A woman on IG has been making videos of immigrant lines at the U.S. Mexico borders…full of Americans standing in line to get affordable dental care in Mexico. It’s sublime counter programming.

Giving up on Christmas? So soon? You have company. updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/if-its-dar...

You Have Four Browsing Days to Read These Randomly Unimportant Christmas Thoughts... updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/random-tho...

Is Denis Johnson's version of "the writer's life" anything like yours? updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/the-wisdom...

Critiquing someone else's poem? There's a how to and a how not to... updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/how-to-cri...

From the making lemonade from lemons department comes harvesting hate for writing success. updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/how-do-i-h...

Before going over the river and through the woods, before the playing the drumsticks, before sleeping in front of the football game, some thoughts... updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/random-tho...

If Ponyboy could do it, why can't you? updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/the-secret...

Writer's Block Is Well-Known, but Don't Discount the Perils of Reader's Block updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/the-tyrann...

When the poetry submissions game is a losing one... updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/a-sure-sig...

Some of Raymond Carver's favorite quotes by other writers. updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/bon-mots-f...

Ada Limón's 3-year stint as Poet Laureate may have ended, but we can still look back fondly on her book, The Carrying. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Sometimes poems that end in a question are the best kind. Exhibit A: Stephen Dunn's "The Inheritance": substack.com/home/post/p-...

Get those poems ready! The 2025 Charles Simic Poetry Prize will open for submissions on November 1st. This year's judge is Hole in the Head's founder and former editor, Bill Schulz. Full guidelines at www.holeintheheadreview.com 🐇

More coming very soon, we promise, including info about the next issue and our next reading period!

Today’s episode of The Ezra Klein Show. The Emergency Is Here. With @asharangappa.bsky.social. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/o...

Tom Friedman in the NY TIMES just now: "My fellow Americans, we are in completely uncharted waters, led by a president, who — well, I cannot believe he is a Russian agent, but he sure plays one on TV.​" #Ukraine

“He said, you Americans are so naive. He said, you think that evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots and climb up the stairs—it begins in the language. Look to the language.” -Joseph Brodsky, as recounted by Marie Howe themillions.com/2018/01/tk-t...

This A.M., a Mark Strand poem...

As a kid, "Are we there yet?" was a common refrain on long-distance road trips. Now "Are we there yet?" means a Constitutional Crisis.

As a subscriber of the NY TIMES, I used to enjoy reading the front page every day. But now that it's pregnant with 1930s-style bad news from Washington, reading it gives me the equivalent of morning sickness. The GOP Congress doesn't seem to realize that the prez will come for them some day, too.

Rust & Moth is just consistently very good. And they present things simply and elegantly. It’s a top-notch joint. Yeah, yeah, I’m in this issue, but skip my poem and read the rest. It’s a great issue (so far — they add more each week). Seriously, check it out.

"Unlike riding a bike, with poetry, you never quite know how." -- Phoebe Millikin

So, how good is YOUR town library? www.kencraftauthor.com/yes-you-can-...

Thank you @rustandmoth.bsky.social for making me part of your latest issue! rustandmoth.com/work/morning...

New #poetry from Ken Craft: "Morning Reflections".

Excellent by @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social "If you’re always consumed by the next outrage, you can’t look closely at the last one. The impression of Trump’s power remains; the fact that he keeps stepping on rakes is missed. The projection of strength obscures the reality of weakness. Don’t believe him."

When Adam Zagajewski couldn't write, he wrote about what he was doing while not writing...

What Danusha Laméris, earthworms, and memento mori have in common (other than good poetry)... www.kencraftauthor.com/a-garden-of-...

Resolution-wise, Plan A was to read a poem a day from my complete Emily Dickinson collection (a poet I've read little of, truth be told), but the poems are so short I've shifted to Plan B: Read them in bunches, catching the rhythm (she likes meter and rhyme, even when telling it slant)

Just sent A.J. Brown a copy of my most recent book (though I changed the name to "Inner Excellence & Other Stimulants). Hope to see it in his hands on the sidelines (line of scrimmage may be asking too much). #Eagles

Led to www.truefood.tech by a NYTIMES wellness piece, I found surprises in just how processed a few of my favorite "foods" are. Turns out I am a highly-processed man! And even when I do the right thing (e.g. buy plain yogurt with very little sugar), I add maple syrup for flavor. Mea culpa.

Reading some Matthew Rohrer tonight when the last line of this poem spoke to me.

First walk through first snow brings that satisfying crunch of snow under foot. The sound brings you back to childhood. The only thing missing is the wax paper used on your heels to get your foot into the boot. (All-purpose wax paper was also good in other 3 seasons to make slides slippery-fast).

December 7. I remember it for more reasons than one. In 5th grade, my teacher, Mr. Underwood, started the class by solemnly telling us, "Pearl Harbor was bombed today," to which I said, a little too loudly and a little too incredulously, "AGAIN?" Naive was my middle name. Sometimes still is.

Odd how reading some poets generates ideas and inspires you to write yourself, while reading many others generates nothing and inspires nothing (your specialty), even if their work is good. Why is that?

In NYTIMES "By the Book" column this week, Billy Collins professes a dislike for poems about dead relatives. I once read that he stops reading poems if he sees the word "cicada," too. Clearly he once worked with Jeffrey at Curmudgeons R Us.

family—and maybe especially parents—is one of the great subjects of literature. imagine telling a novelist not to write about parents, about families

See enough & write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do, which is write – on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook & there it will all be --Joan Didion

In a column about Kash Patel's FBI plans, NY TIMES columnist David French quotes former Peruvian president Óscar Benavides: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.” Great quote and salient stuff.

Grateful to @poetrydaily.bsky.social for choosing my Dylan piece on Lit Hub as a pick of the day today. Nice to come across his 'nonchalant, slightly dumbstruck face' staring back at me when I opened their daily email!

According to Keats, the only thing necessary for good poetry: "a feeling for light and shade." Sounds easy, but go ahead and write it.

From David Markson's "Reader's Block": Not one of Thomas Hardy’s first three novels sold more than twenty copies. Walt Whitman more than once wrote anonymous favorable reviews of his own work. Robert Frost had exactly five poems accepted in the first seventeen years in which he was submitting.

New #poetry from Mike Bove: "Choose Your Own Adventure".

Best part about late fall in Maine (post-summer people and post-leaf peepers): You can take a left onto Route 1 again.

From Mary Ruefle's "Madness, Rack, & Honey," a book I never tire of dipping into: “Paul Valéry, the French poet and thinker, once said that no poem is ever ended, that every poem is merely abandoned.” More of her poetry-centric quotes here: www.kencraftauthor.com/no-poem-is-e... #poetry