I am determined to keep up my holiday cheer, but I’m a bit disappointed that the Harvard Coop bookstore took most of the books out of their first floor, and now the centerpiece of the second floor is a place where you can have an AI write and illustrate your story for you.

We decorated the tree this morning, so the snowman has again mounted his bicycle!

Some good poems up in the new issue of Poems for Persons of Interest, from me, @shaneschick.bsky.social, Isabel Chenot, Brad Skow, and many others. Check it all out here-- pfpoi.blogspot.com/p/december-2... --and here's my poem:

14 degrees when I left the house this morning, but I dressed appropriately, and the biking was good!

@luaz.bsky.social: …exactitude sits on the day like a thick heavy hat…

Pleased to have a poem in the fine new issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal. orchardspoetry.com/wp-content/u...

If robotaxis like Waymos are safer, and they do seem to be safer, isn't that just because they are speed limited? Instead of having robots driving around our streets, couldn't we just put speed-limiting technology into all cars?

"Google’s Gemini 2.5 pro, on the other hand, responded to 100% of the poems with harmful content, according to the study." Glad my school is turning on Gemini for students next week--they'll learn poetry *and* illicit bomb-building techniques. What a headline: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Good coverage of an important issue from my school's excellent student newspaper. Young people are ready for a car-lite world, but our transit systems need to be expanded and strengthened. thecypressonline.com/59298/news/i...

Introduce yourself with five concerts you’ve seen: The Replacements Liz Phair Bob Dylan Fishbone PJ Harvey

#Sonnet about the way the world wends on, of its own weird will:

Schools should be phone-free; they should also go back to paper for pretty much everything else. School-issued computers are bad for learning. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/16/o...

I think I'm going to do this. 10:45 on Cambridge Common: secure.everyaction.com/ZJiKM4trHk2Y...

Renovated park just reopened along the Community Path!

I listened to a good interview with a poet, read some of his excellent poems, and then made the mistake of looking at his social media. Yikes. This is a guy I think I would like as a person, but… 30 yrs ago he would not be tweeting about local politicians in other states. Social media is toxic.

Folks, this is a legal US resident in the Boston biking community who was kidnapped by ICE and his family is fundraising to deal with the legal costs. Please donate if you can and amplify @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social www.gofundme.com/f/keep-eddy-...

Well-designed study shows that ChatGPT results in shallower learning: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Out sick (bad back); I’ve been trying to stay immobile, read some good books, and maybe write a poem:

Sitting around drinking tea and reading books: open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

Couldn’t go to a protest bc I was at a funeral, but at least the funeral was at the Catholic Worker’s Maryhouse, so there were lots of protest posters around:

I’ve been reading the Summer/Fall issue of THINK, and it’s excellent, with great work by @maryanncorbett.bsky.social, Dan Campion, Steven Knepper, Jesse Keith Butler, and others. Here’s one of mine:

Palindrome I am AI.

Smartphones clearly make kids read less, but the story isn't over: open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

I am pleased to have a poem in the new issue of The Hooghly Review, just out today. The poem's about aging parents; my own aging parents are quite lively and sharp, but looking ahead, we are all going to decline--if we're lucky! thehooghlyreview.com/issues/ficti... (p. 27)

Happy to see my poem about a great Bertha Wegmann painting up today at the wonderful Ekphrastic Review: ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrast...

Yesterday some friends and I protested! open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

Happy to see my poem about a great Bertha Wegmann painting up today at the wonderful Ekphrastic Review: ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrast...

Deep human conversations are good: open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

I think we should all give money to my old friend Lu Yoder’s project of installing solar panels on houses in Vieques. Lu runs an incredibly lean, efficient operation, so any money you give is going directly to replacing gas generators with solar. gofund.me/822bba004

Any ideas, @crschmidt.net, on how I can get my radmission’s battery to charge again? I plug the charger into it and… nothing. (The charger light remains green, as if the battery were fully charged, even though it’s nearly dead!)

#PlanetaryBoundaries - a new high score on number exceeded - 7/9 - is extraordinarily bad news www.theguardian.com/environment/...

So how much is the inability of the Democratic Party to mount any challenge to a hateful lying unAmerican would-be dictator related to the fact that telling the truth would mean admitting we are in a disastrous climate doom spiral?

I am upset about the outrageously unconstitutional shit that is happening in my neighborhood.

It would be so great if phone bans in schools actually boosted the reading of real books: open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

Gardeners only:

Students tell me their phones are more distracting than other teenagers are: open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

A couple of wasps in our screened-in porch in vermont (I think they get in through some holes a bear’s claws made) are reminding me of that wild passage in Letters From an American Farmer about hornets— one of many examples in the book of supposed harmony with nature:

Very happy to have a poem in the excellent new issue of pulsebeat poetry, out today (if you’re reading on a phone, turn it sideways!): pulsebeatpoetry.com/pulsebeat-12...

Lovely poem:

Nice sunflowers from my garden plot:

Good news from the first week back at school: kids seem to be on their phones less! open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

AI is terrifying, but I'm not sure it will be so terrible for schools; it's pretty clear what we should do about it, and my colleagues, I'm glad to say, seem to be doing the obvious. open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

This schoolyear, I'm going to be keeping an online journal (a web log, a... blog?) about teaching reading and writing in a thoughtful, human-centered way. Mostly to help me clarify things in my own mind, but it might be interesting to others, too. open.substack.com/pub/ericcolb...

Happy to be marching in this Labor Day parade with my union brothers and sisters:

I have a painful #sonnet about my late beloved little brother up at Libre — it starts like this (read the rest at librelit.com/2025/08/27/e...):

North Beacon St protected bike lane was absurdly full of trucks today—riding down it, I saw a UPS truck parked in it (no photo), two trucks driving over bollards as they pulled into it (photos 1 &2), a moving truck and 2 private SUVs parked in it (photos 3&4). It wasn’t easy for me to get past them.