Today’s poem is selected by Yanyi (@yanyiii.com) as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry. “Who Is a Poet” appeared in The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry by J.D. McClatchy, published by Vintage Books, 1996. Shared here with deep gratitude.

“Like a palimpsest, the light cheery music consumes some of the blade of the words, and indulges a deep longing for a world that comes into being just beyond reach.” —Eddie Bruce-Jones, from “The Urn” in I WILL NOT GO (2024).

“But what is promise if not slaughter and yield?” —Jimin Seo, from OSSIA (2024).

“[H]ow we choose to interpret life and death is not neutral; interpretation itself is always strategic.” —Jackie Wang, from THE SUNFLOWER CAST A SPELL TO SAVE US FROM THE VOID (2021).

A song from another time survived with me. —Dunya Mikhaïl, from THE IRAQI NIGHTS (2014), translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid. #sealeychallenge #womenintranslationmonth

From Yanyi's book, Dream of the Divided Field: bookshop.org/a/862/9780593230992 #poem #books #writing

“Transitioned” Yanyi, *Dream of the Divided Field” (One World, 2022) @yanyiii.com

Book people: the following small presses have just lost funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Please consider supporting them! A Thread.

Thank you to @splitthisrock.bsky.social for including me in The Quarry! This poem surprised me one morning during a twenty minute writing practice. I hope it moves you.

1953: US orchestrates a coup in Iran, deposes democratically elected prime minister 1953-1979: US supports dictator reinstalled in coup 1980-88: US supports Iraq in war w/Iran 1979-present: US sanctions on Iran 2018: US abandons nuclear treaty with Iran 2025: US bombs Iran

My Summer 2023 @warrenwilsonmfa.bsky.social lecture, “A Formal Feeling,” on writing pain with/around Toni Morrison, Linda Gregg, Agha Shahid Ali, and Mary Oliver, just came out this month in APR! I’ve been so glad for the convos that this lecture initiated and am glad to share it more widely.

Quite excited for this! The inaugural term will be January 2026.

I got to talk to poet Jennifer Chang about her complicated and many-stranded new book, An Authentic Life, for Adroit. "Friendship is, I think, a kind of utopia. You never think it’s going to end, so it’s also a kind of eternity." theadroitjournal.org/2025/02/17/a...

it does feel nice to write a new newsletter for The Reading! yanyiii.com/the-reading/...

Sometimes, when we are lucky, titles come close at the time a piece is written. Yet, this is usually not the case: to title a piece of art may be just as mysterious a process as creating the piece itself. Explore titling strategies and more in this craft intensive! Sign-up: https://buff.ly/4hxZNQ2

I contributed 6 poems to the Feb 2025 issue of the Brooklyn Rail. A homecoming & perhaps the most poems I've ever published at once. These both speak from 2020. May the new year, new moon, bring you something all good. Ty to editor Erica Hunt. brooklynrail.org/2025/02/poet...

in my deepest interior moments, I am writing, and when I am lucky enough to find the door in, there is nothing--nothing nothing nothing--that feels more truly myself than to have captured "it:" that which I sought, but had to write to see--

Here I am with @murmurshewrote.bsky.social and our peppermint teas from Friday at Third Place Books Ravenna! It was a pleasure to talk about ghosts, hauntings emotional and actual, and the after-afterlife in her new novel, How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster.

something about summer in the light and winter in the shade

I want to share my experience today with Google support, trying to get Gemini (their AI/plagiarism machine) turned off in my Google workspace account. That account is where I personally do all my work communication—I am an editor, and most of my work contracts explicitly ban any use of Generative AI

If you're in Seattle this week, I'm looking forward to catching up with Muriel Leung on Friday at Third Place Books Ravenna! We'll be discussing her new novel, How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnameable Disaster: www.thirdplacebooks.com/event/muriel...