less a poem and more just a venting when i wrote it... Newby's mother had been a recent hire at my old job at the time of his death. the distances between how we share grief & who is deserving of it always falls upon our racial divides.

gwendolyn brooks WHAT SHALL I GIVE MY CHILDREN?

is not the police badge Memento Mori for black people? how are ALL law-abiding people still not gasping for air & justice 5 yrs past the murder of Mr. Floyd? i... [redacted call for violence]

Thanks to everyone who read and shared the piece I wrote that was published in the G & M. I had no gift links but if you want to read it and cannot access it, now you can. web.archive.org/web/20251228...

What is a short(ish) piece of writing (any genre) that you most appreciated reading this year?

Another one from much warmer times, recording 'What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow' in North Carolina. A welcome reminder that spring will always come again. I hope you’re staying bundled up out there and enjoying time with loved ones. Video: Alexei Mejouev

sheeeeeiiit. rest in peace, mr. whitlock.

Of the 12.5M Africans shipped across the Atlantic, 5M were taken by the Portuguese to Brazil. Some Africans made their way to the interior and created mocambos, or maroon settlements. Palmares, a collection of mocambos, aka as quilombos, was one of the largest, best organized, and most defended.

i loved madlib's slim return until becoming familiar with the gene harris original and then i was like, madlib really didnt do enough to distinguish his production work beyond scratchwork and extra drums. gene harris & the three sounds BOOK OF SLIM youtu.be/4GCIIA3b5j8?...

Dr. @chesyaburke.bsky.social and I are editing an anthology surveying the evolution of Black literary horror. Tentatively titled Black Horror, Then & Next: We Have Always Dreamed in Darkness (FlameTree Press), here are the guidelines… blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-goth...

margaret danner GARNISHING THE AVIARY

Painting from Edges of Ailey exhibit by Geoffrey Holder of his wife Carmen. De Lavallade was one of Ailey Dance Company's first principal dancers. Such a multi-talented couple. Portrait of Carmen de Lavallade, 1976 by Geoffrey Holder b. 1930; Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, d. 2014; NY, NY

dudley randall ABU

also... kool moe dee HOW YA LIKE ME NOW youtu.be/A9_nAZ3VEA0?...

the heavy HOW YOU LIKE ME NOW (live) youtu.be/fEJypkRk9IA?...

zeinabu irene davis COMPENSATION (trailer) youtu.be/gyTlR-TKFE8?...

Birthday Girl, 1960s, JK Bruce-Vanderpuije

watch me catch this roadrunner

i now add coarse black pepper & cayenne to my coffee before brewing, so yeah, we cool af. 😎

my preference for black coffee was obviously a mid-life phase... an unresolved "daddy issue"... or perhaps even a call for attention, if not (sadly) a call for help to which no one who loved me dared once to intervene. *bites knuckle & spins dramatically away from the camera*

and, fuck it, revoke my Poetry Card if you must, but (goddammit) i LIKE sugar and a splash of milk in my coffee... yeah, i said it.

to this day, i see frank langella and mistake him as bela lugosi and i think "how is this ancient fucker still alive?!?" i mean, i *know* it's not him but i never fail to not confuse the two draculas.

50K needed to meet their goal so that they can take clients in the new year. They are all volunteers. They need our help. Share. Donate. Share again. Make it monthly!

All right, guys—… $650 to go. Can we make it by morning? Between all of us, we have to have some modicum of power. (And to everyone helping in any way, thank you, oh, my God, thank you.) #MutualAid PayPal: @MatthewStefon Venmo: @Matt-Stefon

youtube.com/watch?v=4wZ3... Habari Gani? Nia Purpose! Song for the day!l Stevie Wonder Higher Ground.

THREAD🧵Before the Civil War, New Year's Eve was often a heartbreaking one for my enslaved ancestors. Called "Hiring Day" or "Heartbreak Day," the need of "owners" to meet their financial bottom lines meant many families were broken up. Don't know about Hiring/Heartbreak Day? Glad you asked.

There is a water main break every 2 minutes in the US. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Today would be Otto Warmbier's 31st birthday. The last messages he and I exchanged were about Charles Wright, so I read and share this poem on his birthday each year. He was brilliant, but more importantly, he was kind. "Archaeology" by Charles Wright, Scar Tissue. FSG, 2006

maya angelou COME. AND BE MY BABY.

here, poet Pat Nolan breaks down & summarizes poetry collections by John Keene (Punks), Bob Kaufman (The Collected Works Of Bob Kaufman), Will Alexander (Divine Blue Light), & upfromsumdirt (Deifying A Total Darkness) #blackademics thenewblackbartpoetrysociety.wordpress.com/2023/05/09/i...

speaking of The Traitors, season 2 of Australia has to have the most gullible cast of any version... but also has the best ending of any of them.

talking about the failures of modern liberalism or the ecological & ethical problems of generative plagiarism machines or about the oligarchs running the planet is kinda like playing The Traitors, because everytime we hone in on the problem we 'vote' to murder some completely unrelated topic.

So back then you thought Moonlight was overrated™️ and Parasite was overrated™️ and Everything Everywhere all at Once was overrated™️…and now Sinners is also overrated™️ too? Oh.

I wish the legacy media would talk about the fact that almost no one under 40 can buy a house, insurance premiums are set to skyrocket, and most Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck instead of *checks notes* the finer feelings of billionaires.

What a quote.

Mournful Ode To My Unopened Bottle Of Water That Fell Over And Rolled Under The Bed, Never Again To Be Seen By Human Eyes.

you soul-sick people should keep DEARBORN out of your fucking mouths. ENOUGH with the bullshit.

if im ever on the come up then im definitely hiring Pat Nolan / @xileinparadise.bsky.social as my PR agent... *eternal tip of the hat in his direction* his review of The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife can be found here: thenewblackbartpoetrysociety.wordpress.com/2025/12/29/y...

ruin two band by combining them: Thelonious Monkees

kentucky weather's been showing its ass since at least 1996... this has been a notable top 10 season.

ruin two bands by combining them: ugk tang clan

joy is ridiculously mocking your spouse’s grammar while washing dishes until they pinch your butt

My new poetry collection, Neo—Dadaist Psyche, is out now! These poems are raw, dark, paranoid, radical, nonsensical, illogical, mythological, syncretic, eclectic, and first and foremost, Dadaist poems. Lulu: www.lulu.com/shop/rose-kn...

I went to some panels with 30+ year artists and ADs in the book cover industry and two of the main take-aways was: Never, EVER associate yourself with genai. It WILL weaken you. Authors; Always tag your cover artists, it will give your book more authenticity that you work with real artists.

*now represented by Snodgrass, Shilling, and Wallop's literary agency*

if mimi choi aint the makeup artist for your alien movie then i dont wanna see it... youtube.com/shorts/4j6hr...

i inherited my distaste for black-eyes from daddy's mama; grandmama lizzie's face would screw up just talking about them, "nasty thangs taste like dirt, just a mouthful of mud!" my parents delivered the ol' black ppl curse of: what you gonna do when your spouse cooks em? me: well we wont marry!

this was my stance for The Wild Fig — the maintaining a balance of books that might help keep the lights on vs the books that might prevent the backsliding of our country into more armageddon. a commercial love vs deep-rooted passion.

me out here #pewpewing my way through the rest of 2025 with my kittygurls like BACK TF UP!!

POEM 285: "Flyer Taped to a Store Window…" by Sam Rasnake (@samrasnake.bsky.social) "the mouth is a cavern with rock formations, trails, and stream—the lips an eel—the chin a block of granite chiseled to fit—the face" stonecirclereview.com/flyer-taped/ #Poem #Poetry #NewPoem #PoetryCommunity