Poem and the poem that inspired it

Poems are enough to move a human soul

Big News!

That is amazing.

Dear poetry lovers, want to help me reach the “1000-books-sold” mark and send my second book to a second printing? Consider purchasing THE OPPOSITE OF CRUELTY, published by @blairpub.bsky.social I’ve sold 887 copies & w/ a little help we can make it to 1000! blairpub.com/shop/p/the-o...

On Poetry: October 2025. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-... @stevenleyva.bsky.social #booksky

Reposting because we found @stevenleyva.bsky.social on here!

Write poems. Read poems.

To Be Continued 5... comes to an end! THANKS to organizers @grossmjj.bsky.social, @iainrobertsmith.bsky.social, Con Verevis, & Tom Leitch, who has our best wishes for his pending retirement! Thanks also to hosts @kylemeikle.bsky.social & Steven Leyva @ U Baltimore. To be continued in 2026! 🕰️

Reading 📖, literacy, & critical thinking are probably the most valuable job skills in this moment of techno-fatalism and fascist hysteria. Poems, Novels, & Memoirs are the strength training for the muscle of your imagination. Journalism is the cardio. Conversation the cooldown

High-fives, Handshakes, and Hugs: A fragmentary lecture while the ink is running out. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/hig... @stevenleyva.bsky.social #booksky

Might be a good time to read or read this poem www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43076/...

O’s. Magic.

Flum manages to make the reader an intimate outsider, rather than simply a voyeur. Steven Leyva www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-... press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

Day 20 of the #sealeychallenge August 20th- The Opposite of Cruelty, Steven Leyva Breaking the alphabetical order we’ve been jamming on because this collection by @stevenleyva.bsky.social is so damn breathtaking

The study of poetry is anything but linear. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/lea... @stevenleyva.bsky.social #Booksky

Day 5 of the #sealeychallenge finds me contemplating the beauties and shifty dualities of Steven Leyva’s excellent The Opposite of Cruelty. Traveling as of tomorrow but I’ll be back with more poetry faves later in the month! @sealeychallenge.bsky.social @stevenleyva.bsky.social

You are here:

Beach been my job

And hear me, my attitude is that no poetics is more or less natural than another. I tend to be anti-essentialist in that way. I believe we make choices with what’s a hand, with what’s familiar, with what we can imagine. And so love is an act of not just care but of imagination-expansion.

I’ve seen some poets so starved for love — I do mean love not attention — that the only poetics that feels “natural” to them is to scrape the syntax down to the bones. And I get it. We all do what we must. It’s not a judgement but a reminder that we must care for each other. How can love be centered

Lovely night reading in Lancaster, PA

On Poetry: June 2025. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-... @stevenleyva.bsky.social @omnidawn.bsky.social #Booksky

Applying an associative property as a way to resist cruelty. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/a-p... @stevenleyva.bsky.social #Booksky

My Father’s Day gift was gathering the family and watching GATTACA together. I think this is a film that can speak cogently to 2025. “You want to know how I did it, Anton? I didn’t save anything for the swim back”

My goodness. This is a conversation that everyone needs to hear w/ Lauren K. Watel podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

the hoot of being alive is how i’ll describe my best days from now on.

We don’t have many reviews on Apple Podcast, and would appreciate some more if you have a minute! ☺️🙏💙⭐️

Poems > Gossip

“There are four lights!” #iykyk #startrekTNG

Becoming who you are takes work because that isn't who this world wants you to be. Defy the world and become you.

Read poems like they were the best flavor of spindrift

Damn

New poem (1/2) in Bear Review

Baltimore friends—tonight at 6 PM ET (Monday, 5/19) I'll get to be in conversation with the stellar poet @stevenleyva.bsky.social at The Ivy Bookshop to celebrate Leyva's collection, The Opposite of Cruelty (H/T @blairpub.bsky.social). Please join us on The Ivy's patio at 6 PM!

When I’m back on my BS

Envy, ultimately, may be the source of all writer’s block. Curiosity can transform envy. Protect your ability to sustain curiosity.

Sort of in love with this accidental screenshot. S/o to @ofpoetrypodcast.bsky.social

So over for you hoes

First of all, you’ve not gotten the full @jkrummeck.bsky.social experience until you’ve actually heard her speak… Secondly, @stevenleyva.bsky.social’s new collection - “The Opposite of Cruelty” - is something we ALL need right now - the words, the poems, the message…

Texas conservatives who've championed book bans & anti-LGBT policies suffered big losses tonight in school board races. And They seem to have lost their working majorities to pass their policies in big school boards. I tracked these results in FOUR boards tonight. So a 🧵 on each ICYMI.

Loved talking to @stevenleyva.bsky.social about his newly published 2nd poetry collection.

Check out this wonderful addition of Book Notes hosted by @jkrummeck.bsky.social . She was gracious enough to have me on the radio talking about #theoppositeofcruelty www.wbjc.com/2025/host-bl...

I love “the heart’s timpani at a sundress, a thigh, a braided anklet.”

It’s gorgeous. I especially liked “Instead of wisdom why not wish for the owls heart”

Isn’t that lovely? So much beautiful imagery in there.

This is wonderful. I like ‘the hoot of being alive’.

This, today, from Poetry magazine:

Well — bless my poems bare heart! Thanks for reading and sharing this one