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Anna Lena

@aproflection.bsky.social
807 followers 654 following 104 posts

Poet/teacher/editor/printer/plant person. Might Could, winner of the Anthony Hecht Prize, 3/2026 / Ornament, UNT Press / Editor, @ecotonemagazine.bsky.social / Opinions my own; reposts ≠ endorsements linktr.ee/alpb

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Reposted by Anna Lena
Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Something that has troubled me over and over in these AI years is how we seem to need to redraw every line to accommodate AI. It is possible for writing to have value for thinking and for oral exams and discussions to have value. We don't need to remake the world to eliminate writing/5
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Beaucoup thanks to @bittersouth.bsky.social and @kyletibbsjones.bsky.social for including this poem among such good company in their issue 14. Love that back cover 💗 Tisko Tansi for scale bittersoutherner.com/issue-no-14/...
Instructions for Healing Within View of Those Who Have Wished You Harm

Anna Lena Phillips Bell

Shake it,
without moving,
out. 
      Planted, rooted, sit 
utterly serene: as iris, as anemone,   
shake it—
                send it,
hard rain off crown, beard, skittering
out 
     past sight, past doubt. 
Still in your withstanding, shimmery, 
shake it, 
             silent-laugh it
off; see it shimmying         
out 
      into far air—and you, lit
with nectar, in reverie,
shake it
out.The Bitter Southerner issue 14, a large-format magazine on rust and white-colored fabricTable of contents for The Bitter Southerner 14Back cover of The Bitter Southerner 14, reading THERE WILL BE NO CAKE, on rust and white fabric, with a petite buff-colored cat lying next to it
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Anthony Etherin @anthonyetherin.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
WORD FACT Greek “strephein” (to turn) ultimately gives us the word “strophe” — a “turn” in poetry. It also gives us: Catastrophe → an overturning/downturn [1/3]
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Sir Almaviva @ilcontealmaviva.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I've always thought maths was one of the humanities.
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jenna newman phd @jennanewman.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
“The whole ‘Oh no, our [AI] models went rogue’ thing ... When a bridge collapses, you don't analyze whether the bridge was ethical or sentient or why it decided to collapse. You ask, who is the person who built this bridge to be so flimsy?” @timnitgebru.blacksky.app
In my book I write, "Can a bridge decide to collapse?" The whole "Oh no, our models went rogue" thing ... When a bridge collapses, you don't analyze whether the bridge was ethical or sentient or why it decided to collapse.
You ask, who is the person who built this bridge to be so flimsy? There are permits you have to acquire. There are supposed to be tests. When you ask about the bridge collapsing itself, you've lost the thread.
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Ulrica Hume @uhume.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages. And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent. ~Virginia Woolf (The Waves)
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Alice Miranda Ollstein @alicemiranda.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
BREAKING: EPA is launching a study of water contamination that will, for the first time, test for the abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol. Anti-abortion groups consider it a major win that could pave the way for restrictions. subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2026...
subscriber.politicopro.com
POLITICO Pro: Abortion opponents claim ‘tremendous victory’ as EPA tests water for abortion pills
The new study will test for trace amounts of chemicals, pesticides and drugs — including ones used to induce abortions — in drinking water in multiple cities.
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phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Must you have a part in everything? William Carlos Williams, in Nancy Willard's Step Lightly: Poems for the Journey (1998)
William Carlos Williams 

SMELL!

Oh strong-ridged and deeply hollowed 
nose of mine! what will you not be smelling? 
What tactless asses we are, you and I boney nose 
always indiscriminate, always unashamed, 
and now it is the souring flowers of the bedraggled 
poplars: a festering pulp on the wet earth 
beneath them. With what deep thirst 
we quicken our desires
to that rank odor of a passing springtime! 
Can you not be decent? Can you not reserve your for ardors
for something less unlovely? What girl will care 
for us, do you think, if we continue in these ways? 
Must you taste everything? Must you know everything? 
Must you have a part in everything?
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Frog and Toad Bot @frogandtoadbot.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Toad sat and did nothing. Frog sat with him.
Frog and Toad sit together, doing nothing together.

From "A List"
In *Frog and Toad Together*
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caroline cash @cashbrowns.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Nancy 9/7/26 … Happy Labor Day 🛠️
8 Hours for Work, 8 Hours for Rest, 8 Hours for What We Will. Based on a screenprint by Ricardo Levins Morales after the organizing work done by Robert Owen.
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Them @them.us · 07/09/2026
​To help address the upcoming shortfall, the Greenville Gay Men’s Chorus has set up a GoFundMe.
them.us
South Carolina Pulls Funds From Just Two Out of 180 Arts Orgs: A Gay Men’s Chorus and an LGBTQ+ Theater Company
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Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
On #ThreatenedSpeciesDay, our latest #BHLat20 post explores some of BHL’s most precious treasures: extinct species descriptions. BHL’s historic literature preserves information about what we’ve lost, and what we can still save: blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2026/09/exti... 🧪 📖
An historic illustration of two thylacines (dog-like marsupials with black stripes across their backs)
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Maureen Langloss @maureenlangloss.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
So happy to see NYC lead on this! AI has no place in our schools. Kids need to learn to use their own brains to solve problems & read & write & play. I hope they extend the ban to high school next. I am all for HUMAN schools!
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 01/09/2026
Next time your local or state legislature parrots some lobbyists talking points trying to tell you data centers will "increase our tax revenue," ask them about this NINETY-ONE PERCENT LOSS in tax revenue in Georgia & elsewhere, and whether & How they can guarantee the same thing won't happen to you.
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Éireann @eireannmor.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Special for @mimosaishere.bsky.social
A broadside, lettered by hand in india ink and "amen" style lettering, that has the text of the quoted post
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Thanks, Wendell Berry.
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May-lee Chai (she/her) @mayleechai.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Thank you, Alta Journal! www.altaonline.com/books/g73497...
altaonline.com
14 New Books for September
Here are the works by authors on and of the West—including Under Story, Open the Floodgates, and For Customers Only—that we’re most excited to see published this month.
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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Just hours left to comment!
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Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
posted in the lefty folk group chat
Karl Marks, the communist manifesto, Dolly Parton, 9-5
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Sarah @thebasementtan.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
"The voluptuous embodiment of empathy." God, what a glorious thing to have been.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 25/08/2026
I have really enjoyed the experience of reading story after story about how good and selfless and beloved a recently deceased famous person was
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
💯 💗☀️ h/t @lawrenceschimel.bsky.social
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Éireann @eireannmor.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
when your college or university asks you to join a panel or run an event about "ai" you can say, no I'm not doing that
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Northwestern University is reportedly shuttering its 80-year-old Program of African Studies, laying off staff and keeping students in the dark It is the "first formal academic program focused on Africa in the United States."
thepurplewire.beehiiv.com
SCOOP: Northwestern moves to close Program of African Studies
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
A delight to talk with Autumn Newman, about meter & rhyme & plants & ecological trauma, for @southrevbooks.bsky.social 💚
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Lupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.blacksky.app · 15/08/2026
The only conversation worth having is how Black people are overpoliced & over-punished & held to different standards in all aspects of life. That there is an outrage when Black people transgress that isn’t there when their non-Black counterparts do.
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Be sure to read this piece in @nytopinion.nytimes.com by Jessica Grose. There's a straight line between what she's talking about here--college-as-trade-school-- and the options for how we deal with AI in the classroom. If everything is output and product, then the outsourcing of writing /1
Who knows how many kids we have already trapped in a cutthroat competition to get a small number of finance or tech jobs, when their brains might have been put to better use creating the next great piece of literature, designing a new kind of green building, or working in a lab that could lead to the next medical breakthrough? When we impugn the more esoteric ambitions of higher education, we lose the ability to dream big about what our young people can accomplish.
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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Heartened to see that my university is ending its contract with Turnitin before the next academic year, because Turnitin is going to use student submissions to train AI models. Institutions can and should resist this stuff!
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 08/08/2026
exactly 💯 on LLMs: they simulate the output we call language, not the cognitive capacity we call language!
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ARTWIFE @artwife.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
This month on The ARTWIFE Podcast, we welcome Anna Lena Phillips Bell to talk about her most recent collection of poetry, Might Could. We talk about the process of titling poems, the elements of craft that are often neglected in prose but amplified in poetry, and what we can learn from plants.
podcasts.apple.com
MIGHT COULD by Anna Lena Phillips Bell
Podcast Episode · The ARTWIFE Podcast · July 7 · 39m
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Plant-Human Quarterly @planthumanq.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
This week’s feature is the wonderful Anna Lena Phillips Bell, with an artist statement reflecting on kindness, mutual flourishing, and the care we share with the plants around us. Read here: otherwisecollective.com/phillips-bell
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Thank you to @readalittlepoem.bsky.social for including this here anticapitalist aubade, from Might Could & first published in the much-missed Gettysburg Review <3
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Austin Kocher, PhD @austinkocher.com · 21/07/2026
ICE is quietly arresting more people than ever. After months of releasing no detention data at all, the new numbers show a record 1,474 arrests a day in early July, the highest daily pace of the entire Trump administration. 🧵 austinkocher.substack.com/p/ice-quietl...
austinkocher.substack.com
ICE Quietly Arresting More People Than Ever According to Latest Data
NEW DATA ALERT 🚨 After months of data silence, ICE's new numbers show 65,765 people in immigration detention, deportations near 1,250 a day, and arrests now at 1,473 a day.
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Lawrence Schimel @lawrenceschimel.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
😍😍 #poetrycommunity #bookarts #poetry #booksky
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
When people ask me what the phrase "artificial intelligence" means, my short answer is, it means "venture capitalists, give me some money". But OUP asked me for a longer answer, given here and summarized in the section headings: doi.org/10.1093/9780...
Screencap of page for linked article, reading: 

Contents
Introduction
AI Is a Research Field
AI Is an Approach to Cognitive Science
AI Is a Parlor Trick
AI Is an Ideology
AI Is a Way to Hide and Devalue Human Labor
AI Is a Way to Shift Accountability
AI Is a Way to Centralize Power
Conclusion
Notes
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Happy solstice! Here is the kind of luck I have—Emily Hancock of @stbrigidpress.bsky.social has made my poem “One Lightning Bug,” from Might Could, into a tiny letterpress-printed pamphlet. Emily showed me that the cover does this!
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Anthony Etherin @anthonyetherin.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Palindromists have taught the world that daffodils love to slide. (They do.)
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Just such a delight to talk with Amanda Hawkins for @therumpus.net. Thank y'all! 💚✨
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
"Against Stoicism" among the columbine! Thank you, @lesleymwheeler.bsky.social! 💗💚
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Logged on and immediately saw an exhausting conversation. Remembered these words.
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Larry O. Dean @larryodean.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
futurism.com
Study Finds AI Use Eats Away at Users' Confidence in Their Own Brains
A new study out of Middlesex University argues that the ultimate effects on an AI users' brain come down to how they use it.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
John is absolutely right to see the “infinite patience” for Khan’s failed EdTech creative destruction & the closure of Hampshire as linked. EdTech has always been dependent on using grades as the foundation for A/B testing, behavioral modification (which they pretend is learning), & tokenization.
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Ignacio Gallup-Diaz @igallupd.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
"Independent bookstores make quiet comeback as big chains dominate retail" "About 422 indie bookshops opened in 2025, up 31%, defying predictions of retail consolidation"
theguardian.com
Independent bookstores make quiet comeback as big chains dominate retail
About 422 indie bookshops opened in 2025, up 31%, defying predictions of retail consolidation
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Sharing this belatedly here but with much appreciation for @oxfordamerican.bsky.social—for everything they do, and for featuring two poems from Might Could and a series of river photos <3
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Anna Lena @aproflection.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Thanks for the shout-out for Might Could, @clmporg.bsky.social! Just seeing this! 💚
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
big ruling from the Montana supreme court. as bolts reported last year, this court in Montana has been a backstop against all sorts of conservative policies: boltsmag.org/montana-supr...
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Alexandra Samios @xanboni.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Frankly, the really stupid thing about them latching on to "just war theory" is that this /isn't/ a just war, by anyone's interpretation.
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Elinor A. Levin @levinforiowa.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
"Deere also agreed to make available to farmers for 10 years 'the digital tools required for the maintenance, diagnosis, and repair' of large agricultural equipment, including tractors, combines, and sugarcane harvesters, the filing showed." Great news! www.reuters.com/sustainabili...
reuters.com
Deere settles US right-to-repair lawsuit with $99 million fund, repair commitments
U.S. agriculture equipment maker Deere on ​Monday agreed to pay $99 million into a settlement fund for ‌farms and farmers that are part of a class action over costs and access to repairs.
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Euthyphro @euthyphro.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Probably not surprising to anybody posting on bluesky but ChatGPT is a surveillance machine. Even queries made outside the US, in French, are getting sent to the FBI.
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