i am meant to be cute at cute cafes, like that’s my destiny, and too much time away makes me despondent, like it makes me fucking wither

eavesdropping on the homosexuals as well as the bisexuals: a craft essay in the form of community gossip

🪶 ✨ Join us Thurs, 10/23 @ 7 PM ET on Zoom for a workshop with @chenchenwrites.bsky.social! We'll explore a poetry form using only the letters in your name. Discover how this constraint boosts creativity through examples and hands-on creation. 🎟️ More & Register: chenchen2025.eventbrite.com?aff=Bsky

thinking about luke and lorelai

no i love the temperature love it i just need the sun to keep setting at 8:00pm thanks

Poetry is a matter of life, not just a matter of language. —Lucille Clifton

📣 NEW RELEASE ALERT! 📣 Boa Editions is thrilled to announce that Aracelis Girmay's new collection of poetry GREEN OF ALL HEADS is out now! We have signed paperbacks and hardcovers for sale on our store in limited supply! Purchase yourself a copy today at boaeditions.org. Spread the word🍃

oh! my second book just turned three!! happy third bday, emergency contact!!!

love getting to the "But is this comma right" stage of editing and losing my mind

but i can't remember a thing: a memoir

what a weird week

love teaching this poem by @chenchenwrites.bsky.social so much and cannot wait for students to dive in today!

so important to be hot AND funny AND sad

i love how if just one line is wrong in a poem the whole thing is wrong (currently trying to revise One Line)

i love a long meandering conversation about the heart with a friend. about OUR HEARTS. and outfits

i am not nonchalant about anything, i am so chalant, the chalantest guy who's ever chalanted

ugh there really is Something about late summer. a joy that is a sad at the same time

we need more queer lactose intolerant representation in the arts

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves... the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. —Rilke

sometimes you really do write a whole poem just to give one beautiful phrase a home

wrote 3 poems yesterday??? not sure if any of them are good, but i guess my heart’s been needing some language for things

love it when a poet’s new book genuinely surprises me. like oh i didn’t know you had THAT in your repertoire

had some tiramisu gelato today and now i understand true joy

got to read a favorite poem to some adorable farm friends

i love paperclips. wish i could paperclip my soul to my favorite colors

#SealeyChallenge 17/31 Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by @chenchenwrites.bsky.social 🌜🫂 www.instagram.com/p/DNfR7sauru... 🙏🏻sponsor me (name: dianalogbooks) — docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... — or direct — open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com/products/sea... — to #FeedGaza

last night’s reading on this outdoor stage felt extra special. an amphitheater! i always picture big ones, but this amphitheater was so intimate and perfect for poetry

need to be held for at least 14 hours and then i will be okay

Celan said a poem is a handshake. Tranströmer—a meeting place. But isn't a poem a kind of soup dumpling? Deceptively small, seemingly simple. Containing a juicy secret about existence. Or maybe a poem's a soup dumpling spot, where people meet & shake hands, yes. & slurp together

i love the expression "feeling emotional," which is funny when you really stop to think about it. feeling the feelings of this moment, yes. could be sad, but grateful, too. and in love. but frustrated, also. maybe hangry. failing. but in a triumphant way? i'm feeling emotional

& so to tenderness I add my action. —Aracelis Girmay

i love bagels and i love bagel sandwiches

I asked how can you ever be sure that what you write is really any good at all and he said you can't   you can't you can never be sure you die without knowing whether anything you wrote was any good if you have to be sure don't write —W.S. Merwin, from “Berryman”

i have an mfa and a phd in creative writing, and my best, most creative ideas still come in the shower

i used to think intimacy meant being always (magically!) deeply understood. now i think it’s the everyday, consistent, mutual effort to deepen conversation

need to become poet laureate of costco

I love you, love you, love you, sad as you are, O world. —Adelia Prado

those months of little daylight the dusk kept folding its lava fields into a syntax  of evening It was beautiful It made me smaller  — Allison Titus

Today’s poem is selected by Chen Chen (@chenchenwrites.bsky.social) as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry. “It will all work out okay” appeared in High Lonesome by Allison Titus, published by Saturnalia Books, 2023. Shared here with deep gratitude.

genuine goofiness makes a man so much hotter

giggly together after an especially sweet kiss >>>>>

when i'm avoiding writing about something i need to write about, i know i'm avoiding truly thinking about it

Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance. —James Baldwin

When I think of my life and all its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears. —Albert Camus

The vulnerability of precious things is beautiful because vulnerability is a mark of existence. —Simone Weil

recent reading fit 🌻 🐶 💙 🌸 🌹

I know that hope is the hardest love we carry. —Jane Hirshfield

honestly, this month has been exhausting

Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes. —Stanley Kunitz, from "The Layers"

is the poem i'm working on bad or do i dislike it at the moment or am i just tired of working on it