Did you know that if you buy my book on Amazon, Jeff Bezos makes 5 times as much as I do on each copy sold? Sharing some behind-the-scenes book math on why buying directly from presses is best for EVERYONE (except Bezos) in my newsletter today! aubreyhirsch.substack.com/p/book-math

From ‘How To Carry Water’ (2020) —Lucille Clifton #poetry #poem #booksky

It’s worse than “Gaza is being starved and destroyed and no one cares.” It’s that hundreds of millions *do* care and are powerless to stop it. We need a world where that can never happen, where the masses actually have political power.

Andrea Gibson is still with us, every moment & forever, even when we’re not reading them. But to read Andrea Gibson is to make a new “every moment” a new forever a mix of new and old—forgetting time has any hold on us entirely. Thank you, always-poet.

Our opera, Sensorium Ex, on PBS Newshour: www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Our opera Sensorium Ex opens in 4 days, at the Sapp Field House in Omaha. In dress rehearsals now and it’s looking gorgeous. Paola Prestini’s music is divine.(commonsensesfestival.org) (www.visionintoart.org/via-projects/sensorium-ex)

New trailer for the opera ✨ vimeo.com/1082191184/f...

YES. This.

A Princeton undergrad saying what needs to be said.

An important thread:

Here are the links to said pod & playlist.

I yap with Aaron & James on @breakingformpod—we remember & wonder & lament & wander poetry together. Or if you need fuel for yr fight, listen to my Brenda’s Resistance Playlist—where Mitski & Cecile & St. Vincent & Janelle & We Are Ladyparts rule! www.instagram.com/p/DHlMEypu5R...

Why hasn’t musk been arrested for anything? He breaks laws & NO ONE can come up w/ a charge? He stole govt $ & info, made himself co-prez, colonized the very skies. Meanwhile if a woman 8wks pregnant drives out of Idaho for an abortion, SHE’S a criminal. He has an army of fetii on ice! WTAF?!

Sometimes it feels like I’m going crazy, because there is something that is right in front of our faces, has been for years, and nobody of consequence ever says it: Donald Trump works for Vladimir Putin. How much more proof does anyone need? And what is anybody going to do about it?

There’s something happening in this country.

What these nihilistic vandals are doing to dismantle science & medicine—generations of expertise & public service & life improving benefits—is cultural revolution level national self harm. No foreign foe could inflict such brutal damage & senseless suffering on US so fast & effectively & unresisted.

SHARE WIDELY. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. With mass deportations starting today across the country, it is vitally important - for both citizens and non-citizens - to know your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Assert it. You have the right to a lawyer. Ask for one. (1/3)

it’s bad and it’s gotten exponentially worse in the past 6 months. if you write anything involving deep research/old books/forgotten periodicals you’re probably noticing “wiki creep,” because it’s one of the few resources left standing. the internet as an archive is disappearing, has disappeared.

Megarich/technocrats know creative talent is the only irreducible human juice that $ can’t “make happen.” This frustrates them. Being unable to purchase, possess & control creativity enrages & embitters them. They’d gladly destroy art & any notion of artistic meaning, w their big dumb AI, jealous.

Holiday books to give relatives this season! Give the gift of maybe your loved one might crack a book, contextualize, comprehend: Maria Ressa, Angela Y. Davis, Jill Lepore, Marilyn Frye, James Baldwin, Alexandra Kollontai, Masha Gessen, Kazuo Ishiguru, Audre Lorde, Wendy Brown.

Time for this cursed seasonal confusion again:

Pay attention. Idaho did this too. Trying to erase the facts that women are dying because reproductive healthcare’s now illegal/criminalized in vast swaths of this nation. www.propublica.org/article/geor...

Kickass brilliant debut poetry from Spencer Williams: TRANZ. Four Way Books. The real deal 🤩💐✨

Thinking of myriad anti-fascist uses of a home photocopier/printer w/ advanced finishing functions (booklet, staples, d/s, color, photo settings.) Pamphlets, zines, how-tos, poetry, letters on paper. Writers/educators/former Kinkos ppl: recs for under $600? The less “Smart” the better. Leads?

Is anybody else realizing you’re having to use your “poetry brain” (whatever that means) a lot more, lately, in more emergency functions, esp. in trying to keep up w/ & process all the chaos/fear? Like: my poetry journal is now my to-do list.

Dorothy Allison RIP. Her work was there for me at the very beginning, changing everything. What a shero. Never to hear her again: just another thing I can’t accept, but will be forced to. Brokenhearted to bits these days, a feeling she understood & from it made beauty/wisdom/strength/eros/survival.

The snuff on Twix is too horrible. I can’t anymore. So I’m asking here: does anyone know what Scarlet Letter Doofus thinks the “A” means? Is she saying that having a hard week “as a woman” = what exactly?? I never heard of her before today but now I gotta know: what does she think “A” means?

Ok I’m doing a few readings this month. I typed it up for you:

I put on a new old-fashioned kitchen radio to do the dishes to (That sentence? Is it one?) & this interview from the NYer radio hour came on. Considerably brightened a dim, stormy morning. ✨ Hernan Diaz is delightful & brilliant! www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tny...

Craig & I are waiting to see the genius Cecile McLoren Salvant perform—w/pianist Sullivan Fortner—and I can’t believe it: 12 ft from the mic. Not crowded small venue. Am I really going to experience that voice… this close? 😄🤩 (It’s giving poetry reading.) @cteicher.bsky.social

Ok this is my first post on this. I feel like Celery Man out here…. m.youtube.com/watch?v=maAF...