“A debut of startling promise, specific pleasure, and honest love.” #poetry of @jaiofearth.bsky.social Review by @stevenleyva.bsky.social

New collections to make life more lyrical. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-... @stevenleyva.bsky.social @ohiostatepress.bsky.social @jaiofearth.bsky.social #booksky

Steven Leyva discusses his poetry collection, 'The Opposite of Cruelty.' He will talk about the work more at Unbound Book Festival's Warp Speed Ahead: Nerd Culture and Literature panel.

A Special Edition Lair Poetry Corner!! Ode to Storm,Goddess, Thief, Mutant, Queen by Steven Leyva #booksky #blacksky #poetry #nerdypoetry #blerd #staynerdy

(Jumping in from another field to add that no one can honestly be invested in changing any field if preparation for that field also requires perpetuating cruel historical practices.)

No matter how much we may have suffered under certain harsh, toxic, or oppressive forms of art education (creative writing ✍🏾 in this case) it is cruel to “haze” our students, thinking it prepares them for the “industry”. Suffering is not the only road to resilience.

!!!! It was such a great poem and I very much i enjoyed it. I hope i did it some modicum of Justice 💜

River River Books authors at the co-reading with Blair last night! Many thanks to @stevenleyva.bsky.social and University of Baltimore for hosting us!

A quick morning Lair Poetry Corner! Ode to Lando Calrissian by Steven Leyva #booksky #poetry #blacksky #nerdypoems #blerd #staynerdy

On Poetry: February 2026. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-... @stevenleyva.bsky.social @riotinyourthroat.bsky.social #booksky

Come talk book reviewing with us at the University of Baltimore TONIGHT at 6 p.m.! www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/the... @stevenleyva.bsky.social @hsmithwrites.bsky.social #booksky

New Poem published today www.pergolalit.com/poetry/steve...

IYKYK

Let’s go!

So, I’m thinking about writers who run running routes for @awpwriter.org with literary landmarks. When we run by University of Baltimore I’ll say, “your favorite poet’s favorite poets went here: Steven Leyva, Tonee Mae Moll, Tafisha Edwards…etc etc etc.”

Mouth comes out this week.

#Poetry: Doesn’t it teach us how to mourn so that we’ll value having lived? @stevenleyva.bsky.social asks in his stirring review of Rara Avis by @blasfalconer.bsky.social in @wirobooks.bsky.social

Very excited to be doing my first Wilde Readings event, with Steven Leyva, on Tuesday, January 13, 7:00-8:30 PM, at Queen Takes Book bookstore in Columbia, MD! There's also an open mic after our readings, if you're BOLD. :) More info and a fun interview here: hocopolitso.org #HoCoPoLitSo

Why middle age is the perfect time to revisit Middle Earth. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/a-m... @stevenleyva.bsky.social #booksky

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

I saw poet @stevenleyva.bsky.social and several other Cave Canem poets this afternoon at Motor House here in Baltimore. Check out Steven’s incredible new collection - “The Opposite of Cruelty” - here: blairpub.com/shop/p/the-o...

The poets / the poems 🌸 🌼 @stevenleyva.bsky.social @blairpub.bsky.social @ohiounivpress.bsky.social blairpub.com/shop/p/the-o... www.ohioswallow.com/978082142591...

On Dec 4, I'll be part of this reading at Fadensonnen in Baltimore. I hope people will come. No word on whether the pink bunny will show yet.

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”