iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Protection Spell Jar gets an encore from The Slowdown today! This poem is about the magical spells #ocd tricks us into thinking are keeping us safe, from my memoir in prose poems, EXPLODING HEAD.

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

This new lit journal is one to watch! 💥 Poems and creative nonfiction about pop culture.

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Thank you, @litbowl.bsky.social , again, for sharing a poem from EXPLODING HEAD, my OCD memoir in prose poems, again. What have I done to deserve you? 🥹

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

"A great many things will happen to you, but none of the things you are afraid of." 🪶 🛁 🐦 Thank you for sharing this poem, @litbowl.bsky.social !!

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

To not only be read but also re-read is such a gift. Thank you @thorntonforreal.bsky.social

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Reposted by Cynthia Marie Hoffman

The Slowdown @slowdownshow.org · 14/10/2025

"I admire the way we’re invited into the speaker’s consciousness, to see her mind at work," says host @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social in today's episode. Read “Protection Spell Jar" by @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social and our full episode transcript: bit.ly/3J9U8Uw 📖: Persea Books

A graphic featuring a portion of Cynthia Marie Hoffman's poem

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

Summer is a busy time for filling up classes, but if you know anyone who might be interested in this, I'd love it if you'd share! Two poems in two hours ! This Sunday!🦋 Write Two: The Prose Poem as Diptych Memoir on Sunday, July 27, from 4-6 PM ET.

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The Notebooks Collective @notebookscltv.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Friends, we'd love for you to join us for this class on Sunday, July 27th. @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social is teaching Write Two: The Prose Poem as Diptych Memoir and whew, does it promise to be an amazing two hours. thenotebookscollective.com/event/write-...

thenotebookscollective.com

Write Two: The Prose Poem as Diptych Memoir

This is a class in dualities: two forms, two poems. (In two hours!) The two forms: We’ll explore the prose poem (a hybrid of prose and poetry) and the prose poem as memoir (a lyric rendering of a…

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

I blame the root cause of my undying obsession with the poetic series and project books on a creative writing teacher who introduced me to the diptych. Now I want you to to suffer, too! (Ha! I mean... prosper!). And it's just a really cool form. Would you share with anyone who might be interested?

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mankrik's wife guy @byelacey.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

you don't need chatGPT i am perfectly capable of drinking a bottle of water and lying to you

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

Thank you for sharing this. ❤️ Hoping for better days.

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

I'm in my midlife/ motherhood sad rage era. Thanks to @swwim.bsky.social for giving this one a home. 🔪 🪓 🎸 🖤 🦋

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RedruM @dorsalstream.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

For some reason, today seems like a great day to post "You with the Getting Shot" by @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social

Poem by Cynthia Marie Hoffman called "You with the Getting Shot"

It is a crisp autumn day when you get shot walking by the parking lot on your way to the lake. An arm goes up. A gun blows a hard kiss. You continue down the path, stepping around the acorns. You already got shot twice this morning. Always, you with the getting shot. You need to just let it pass. The lake goes on dragging the heavens this way and that. Your skin grows over the bullet. You sit at the shore with your back to the park pavilion where someone dismounts a bicycle and pulls out a gun. Over the years, your body has filled like a penny jar with bullets. Someone's creeping through the trees. Your body heavy on the park bench. You watch clouds becoming snarled in the rippling water, angels drowning in their tangled skirts. Someone's breathing down your back. There is no bone left in your body that isn't a clattering procession of bullets. You just need to rest for a bit. One after another, the white knots bob toward the shore but never fully arrive. Even if they did, even if they tumbled gasping at your feet in gauzy threads, you with your buckshot hands, your mind a shuddering animal hunkered down inside your skull, heaven help you, couldn't do a thing about it.

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

With cuts to funding, resources, and rights--writing the disability experience is ever more urgent and necessary. ✨ EXPLODING HEAD✨ is on this Reading List of 7 poetry books for @electricliterature.com, in which @sfmontgomery.bsky.social also talks about her craft book NERVE. tinyurl.com/4sycj8ph

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Can't wait to chat with Sarah Kain Gutowski for @notebookscltv.bsky.social Tuesday! We'll read a little, chat a lot, and share what we learned from our year of jointly pitching events and readings and classes! Also, mental health and genre-hopping! Free: thenotebookscollective.com/event/in-con...

thenotebookscollective.com

Cynthia Marie Hoffman & Sarah Kain Gutowski

Poets Cynthia Marie Hoffman and Sarah Kain Gutowski will read from their collected works, with an emphasis on their newest respective collections, both of which are cohesively themed (Cynthia’s is a…

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

There's still time to register for my zoom workshop Thursday, March 13. We're going to write sentences and cut up sentences with scissors and talk about this really obvious but mind blowing concept of sentence combining and the infinitely (sort of) generative tool of modifying clauses and anaphora!

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

I've got an essay up on reading Attic Rain, a collection of poems about OCD by @sjonespoet.bsky.social !! Thank you @anmlymag.bsky.social for giving this piece the best home. So much important work here. 💧🙂 📕 @newestpress.bsky.social

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

I'm not! I was in Louisville for the Conference of Literature and Culture and decided I shouldn't miss the cave, even though it turned into an almost ten-hour driving day south and then back up home to Wisconsin!! I'm sure Natural Bridge is amazing, too!

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Mammoth Cave! Why are these experiences so brief and hurried and then they're just... over? How am I turning 50 in less than a week? I just want to sit in a dark and quiet cave, alone, just for a minute.

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

I almost didn't write or publish Exploding Head because I thought I had to be "cured" first. It didn't help that an early reader told me I needed (more) therapy. She was not an OCD expert- but had bought into the idea that we write from hindsight with 20/20 clarity and never from the messy middle.

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

This advice works well for first books and angry emails- but at a certain point, shouldn't we give ourselves the grace of owning our present selves? We're hopefully always learning and growing, and if we wait until we have the "final answer," guess what? We'll never write.

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

I think now that I'm about to turn 50, I'm tired of putting my writing in a drawer for 6 months to see if I feel different about it later. I'm ready to trust myself in the present moment and be messy. We can't always live in fear that our future selves will be ashamed of our present selves.... ?

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Floored by this stunning review of EXPLODING HEAD in North American Review! Thank you to Shannon K. Winston for spending time in deep communication with this book, and for seeing it so clearly. ✨ Read it here: northamericanreview.org/open-space/2...

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Happy 1-year birthday to EXPLODING HEAD! 💥🤯📕🎂 I was planning to itemize the year's accomplishments, but then I woke to a beautiful email that echoed so many of the meaningful connections I've made with people who have OCD (and loved ones with OCD). So that's what I want to celebrate. Thank you. ✨

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Thank you for sharing this poem, @litbowl.bsky.social !! I'm celebrating the one-year anniversary of Exploding Head's pub date today! 🎂💥🤯📕✨

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Looking forward to being In Conversation with Sarah Kain Gutowski on March 18 at @notebookscltv.bsky.social . I have a long history with this fabulist (and fabulous) poet, and we're going to talk about so many things, including what we learned pitching events and readings for our new books in 2024.

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

What a nice surprise to be paired with Joan Kwon Glass for this poetry reading!! WHAT: Cafe Muse Literary Salon WHEN: Monday, Feb 3, 7:30 PM Eastern WHERE: ZOOM! 🏎️ Hosted by The Word Works 🧡 REGISTER to receive the link: sites.google.com/view/cafe-mu... Would love to see you in cyberspace!

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

EXPLODING HEAD is still on tour in 2025 (and I'm dragging along behind it!). In February and March, l'Il be on Zoom and working my way through Minnesota, Kentucky, home in Madison-Wisconsin, and Virginia. Clinging to poetry right now, and looking forward to connecting via these events!

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Abbie Kiefer @abbiekiefer.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

Really appreciated this thoughtful essay by @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social on Sara Moore Wagner's equally thoughtful LADY WING SHOT. Hoffman considers our collective history with guns, our needs for agency and power, and what it takes to read a book in good faith. www.ronslate.com/bad-faith-ob...

ronslate.com

“Bad Faith, Obsession, and Guns: on Reading Lady Wing Shot by Sara Moore Wagner” – On the Seawall

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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 17/01/2025

SCOTUS announces it will hear whether or not LGBTQ inclusive education is unconstitutional. Not great for LGBTQ people, and could be disastrous to teaching that we have a history and have existed alongside everyone else for centuries.

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Miriam Gershow @miriamgershow.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

These reviewers are 🔥. I feel lucky to be getting to know them all! Follow them. Tell them about your small press or your 2025 small press book here: www.miriamgershow.com/100smallpress

miriamgershow.com

100 Notable Small Press — Miriam Gershow

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Cynthia Marie Hoffman @cynthiamhoffman.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Ah! Thank you for reading Exploding Head, @simeonberry.bsky.social . Made my day to see it on this tremendous list of poetry faves!!

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