iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 29/11/2025

NEW and OUT NOW! Brick Road Poetry Press is pleased to announce the release of the 2024 prize-winning collection “Mortar” by Christopher Shipman.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

Some of y’all need a lil more razzle dazzle in your life. Some whimsey if you will. Some chicanery and bafoonery. In short—y’all are not silly enough geese. In this economy?? You absolutely must latch on to your small joys. I expect to see some improvement from you soon.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

One of my fav things as managing editor of @bham-poetry-review.bsky.social is assembling the cover. Check out this upcoming issue with cover art by Debora Greger. Also, a lil whale tail told me Victoria Change is the feature poet. BPR is open for subs today! Go hit our linktree for deets

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Been thinking about what I want to do with my one and precious life & all the adventures I’d like to have. I’ve come to the decision that if an activity requires any sort of bottled air, it’s not for me. This takes the highest highs & the lowest lows off my list. Turns out I’m a middle bits person

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

No submission fee or cover letter or anything like that. Just a good ol fashioned poems in an envelope with a SASE, because we still party like it’s 1987 (the year we were founded).

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

My phone ran out of storage, and I deleted this damn app. I am back now. What did I miss?

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

You know one thing you’ll never hear me slander? Wikipedia. It’s been helping me answer my most pressing questions for decades. It’s dependable, consistent, convenient, and gives me just enough to start my deep-dive spirals. It has hella value for being what it is.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

open.substack.com/pub/thecahab...

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

Brick Road Poetry Press is thrilled to announce our 2024 contest winner as Christopher Shipman for his manuscript “Mortar” which will hit bookshelves this fall. Congratulations, Christopher!

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Today has been a hobbit hole day. Groundhog day approaches. Y’all, I’ve done about met my fill of this cold. You better hope the local possums have good things to say about the forecast. Lord knows the groundhogs can’t get their sh!t together.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

A spider built a web between the ice and the bucket

A black bucket with a solid block of ice in it. A gap has formed between the ice and the bucket. In this gap a tangled mass of spiderweb has formed.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Today’s the daaaaaay! Come spend a lovely evening with us at @bham-poetry-review.bsky.social with a nice poetry reading. Trust me, you’ll have a delightful time.

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Reposted by H. M. Cotton

𝕤𝕡𝕒𝕔𝕖𝕔𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕟 𝕤𝕡𝕒𝕔𝕖 @sugarkat.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

HBO has declined to renew “Sesame Street” for new episodes. The series that’s been teaching generations of little kids since 1969 now has no studio. Please consider donating to Sesame Workshop to ensure the residents of 123 Sesame Street are still around to teach kids of all needs and backgrounds.

sesameworkshop.org

Support Us - Sesame Workshop

Individual donors and partners can have a major impact. Join Sesame Workshop’s Mission to Help Kids Everywhere Grow Smarter, Stronger, and Kinder.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Heyooo poetry fam! Come join @bham-poetry-review.bsky.social for our annual zoom reading Wed Dec 18th at 6pm central featuring Dr. Erica Dawson, Dr. Beth Gylys, Dr. J. Bruce Fuller, and Dr. Henry Hart. I look forward to this every year! Register: uab.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

It’s the last week of classes and everyone has saved up their emails for all at once. Y’all quit emailing me. You had all semester to do so 😭

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Tis the season where I only want to do hand crafts 24/7. The only thing currently stopping me from picking up a new hobby (pine needle coiling) is all this grading I have to do. Consarn it all.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

You now have one day left to submit to the Brick Road Poetry Press contest. Subs close at midnight on December 1st. @miriamcalleja.bsky.social is judge, and I’ll be your fabulous book designer. We’re thirsty for the verse. Send it! brickroadpoetrypress.submittable.com/submit

brickroadpoetrypress.submittable.com

Brick Road Poetry Press Submission Manager

Between August 1st and December 1st, we accept entries in our poetry book contest. The first place winner receives a publication contract with Brick Road Poetry Press and $1000 prize.Who do we publish...

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

You have two—YES ONLY TWO—days left to submit to the Brick Road Poetry Press contest. Subs close at midnight on December 1st. @miriamcalleja.bsky.social is judge and I’ll be your fabulous book designer. We’re thirsty for the verse! Send it! brickroadpoetrypress.submittable.com/submit

brickroadpoetrypress.submittable.com

Brick Road Poetry Press Submission Manager

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Found in this morning’s reading assignment:

“English, strictly speaking, is not my first language by the way. I haven’t yet discovered what my first language is so for the time being I use English words in order to say things. I expect I will always have to do it that way; regrettably I don’t think my first language can be written down at all. I’m not sure it can be made external you see. I think it has to stay where it is; simmering in the elastic gloom betwixt my flickering organs.”

—Claire-Louise Bennett, Pond

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Y’all, stop rejecting me on major holidays. It’s not very holly jolly

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

A lil friend to brighten your day.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

A rare find for November—two 5-leaf clovers.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Sat down to do some grading. Wound up getting ordained instead—just cause I can.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Because you’ve probably earned a surly cat photo this morning. Here:

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

A poem for your evening: “The Way We Love Something Small” by Kimberly Blaeser. poets.org/poem/way-we-...

The translucent claws of newborn mice

this pearl cast of color,

the barely perceptible

like a ghosted threshold of being:

here not here.

The single breath we hold

on the thinnest verge of sight:

not there there.

A curve nearly naked

an arc of almost,

a wisp of becoming

a wand—

tiny enough to change me.

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Reposted by H. M. Cotton

Alt National Park Service @altnps.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Well, isn’t that convenient? Musk gets named to the fake department of DOGE, and suddenly NASA’s future is up for debate—just as SpaceX is poised to cash in. Funny how “efficiency” seems to mean redirecting public funds straight into private pockets.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Good morning you beautiful poets! Here’s a love poem for an Alabaman accent coming to you from @rayehendrix.bsky.social and if you dig this, go buy their new collection: www.tamupress.com/book/9781680...

Apology-Ode to My Accent

sweetslow as sorghum

vowels gorgeous peaches fuzzing
in the mouth

thick as a thicket of kudzu

smooth as buttered grits

bright hot iron of Birmingham
soft without the g

(it’s fuckin charming
how I differentiate my pens and pins:
ink pen
stick pin
pen for a rooster or dog)

language lush & low in the throat

magnolias tossing their heavy blooms in the breeze

(forgive me my shame, those years
of trying to outrun the honeygold shape
you make of my tongue)

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

“For the people. For the parks, forever”

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Today I got to see the ledger in person that recorded the deaths of Maye, Emma, & Irene Hawes brutally murdered by their father/husband Richard Hawes in 1888. It was the first time Birmingham went under martial law as a mob stormed the jail for justice. www.bhamwiki.com/w/Hawes_murd...

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

It’s hawking season again and it won’t be long before I’m back in the field with my falconry friends. @storysouth.bsky.social published this essay last year about my first time with the sport. storysouth.com/stories/talk...

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Upcoming deadline for Brick Road Poetry Press’ contest. I and 4 other friends acquired Brick Road last month, and we’re excited to put books out into the world. @miriamcalleja.bsky.social is judge this year (and one of the co-owners!) send us your work! brickroadpoetrypress.submittable.com/submit

brickroadpoetrypress.submittable.com

Brick Road Poetry Press Submission Manager

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

BPR is on Bluesky now! Give us a follow and come join us at our annual zoom reading series.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

After a 53-day water crisis, Asheville, North Carolina finally has clean, potable running water again. Y’all, never take for granted access to clean water. If you have it, it can be taken from you in an instant.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Officially done with my first semester at Warren Wilson. Here’s the stack.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Encountered a wild albino deer yesterday. @ccs0082swiftiessoc.bsky.social says this means I’m fated to be ruler of something now. Currently taking suggestions for micro-kingdoms I should assume power of. First thought: hard cheeses. What say you?

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

The sassiest tea pot I’ve ever seen

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Go get you some aly national park service. Nature is punk rock.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Y’all expect me to just go about my days after the UAP hearing? We’ve completely lost the thread of this timeline. I’d like to just go ahead and negotiate my own alien kidnapping. I’ve tried for three decades with the fae and have been unsuccessful. Time to change tactics.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Back on my deviled egg bull$hit. The world is on fire. There are no rules. You can make deviled eggs any time you want to. Chase that dopamine, y’all.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Allowables by Nikki Giovanni for your morning.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

I awake this morning to find my friend and neighbor has been immortalized at the local park with a decidedly unauthorized sign. To be fair, it IS a massive bass. Thank you to @miriamcalleja.bsky.social for documenting this momentous occasion.

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H. M. Cotton @hmcotton.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Friends, remember in these times of fast-paced demands, loudness, and nowness, resistance so often looks like slowing down, being intentional, resting, and finding joy in the smallest of things. Sit with one another. Unplug for some moments. Sometimes stillness is great action.

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