iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

when Chappell Roan said "you can kiss a hundred boys in bars" that's praxis

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

A Gen Z cover band of the Killers called "The Unalivers"

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

How I think I look when I'm up on stage reading a poem about getting ghosted by another married man:

Chappell Roan at the 2025 Grammys holding a notebook

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Some exquisite footage of this picturesque little peninsula 🥺🥲 youtu.be/vjEWCwFJvZU?...

youtu.be

DISCOVERING | 4 Seasons of the U.P.

YouTube video by Discover the U.P.

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Ross White @rosswhite.com · 17/12/2024

Are you a great fiction writer with one book published or under contract? (Or do you know one?) There's a sweet one-year gig open at UNC-- a 1/1 load w/ one public lecture, $40k: unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/289...

unc.peopleadmin.com

Lecturer

The Creative Writing Program in UNC's Department of English and Comparative Literature seeks to bring an emerging talent to campus for a one-year teaching appointment as the Kenan Visiting Writer.The ...

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

What up, blue folk, my chapbook of essays is now available for pre-order from @bullcitypress.com !! All of my blurbers told me they couldn't put it down, and I hope you enjoy it too! bullcitypress.com/product/an-u...

Book cover for "An Unstable Container" by John LaPine shows an art installation of two figures falling

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Will Musgrove @willmusgrove.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Top text: Thank you for sending us your work. (Someone playing Subway Surfers) Bottom text: Unfortunately, we're going to have to pass.

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Richard Mirabella 🐝 @rpmirabella.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

@theplastickind.bsky.social interviewed me for my favorite literary magazine! Check out the last issue of @splitlipthemag.bsky.social for the year!! ❤️❤️❤️

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The Pink Poetry Club @thepinkpoetryclub.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Who are we? A brand new lil online poetry journal, just trying to get some queer Midwestern poems into the world 😍 Subs are always open! We have a few spots left before we can launch our first ever issue! Send us those poemsssss!!!

packaging and glittery shapes taped behind a piece of paper that has "Subs (always) open!" written upon it.

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Forgotten Poets @forgottenpoets.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

"I don't think I'm allowed to kill something because I am frightened." —Nikki Giovanni 💔 #poem #poems #poetry

I killed a spider
Not a murderous brown recluse
Nor even a black widow
And if the truth were told this
Was only a small spider
Sort of papery spider
Who should have run
When I picked up the book
But she didn't
And she scared me
And I smashed her

I don't think
I'm allowed

To kill something

Because I am

Frightened.

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

In case you missed it: I have a chapbook of essays coming out this summer! Get in on the ground floor, it's goin to the moon

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Zach Semel - "Skyrim, in Retrospect" in FreezeRay Poetry www.freezeraypoetry.com/zach-semel.h...

Skyrim, in Retrospect

You and I used to laugh / for hours sending our
level 70 Khajiit / slinking around the / low-lying plains / near Whiterun,
shooting deer in / the ass / with seemingly infinite Iron Arrows,
giggling at the irony / that the butt was a site / of birth, of exit / without entrance, ‘cause / really,
what’s one more unclean thing / thrown into that / mass of muscle / and digestive sludge / it just
makes no sense / to want to roll in the mud / to trade soft skin / for choking on boys’
body spray clouds / we know better / than anyone that men / are imperfect
but I love it / and I know cis-men / are so good at thinking / they have the answers
but this time, I’m sure / that I don’t want to marry / Ysolda for the hundredth fucking time; no
I want to kiss / Redguard swordsmen with faded face tattoos / to hold
hands with taut-muscled / elves who make sinister comments / to passersby
but never to me; I want / souls that wish / they could once start a goddamn character
by picking “Other” / would you think I was serious
if I told you I want bodies / that look like yours
and that don’t?
How have we spent / ten years hopping from stone to stone / over this flowing
part of me? / So many questions I never / beg you to ask—is it my fault / you don’t know
enough? All those times / that we’d game / all day and
my parents / would joke that we’d someday / get married
then laugh--
all those times
that I laughed too.

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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Stunning stunning stunning poem by @tagreathouse.bsky.social at @poetrydaily.bsky.social today.

Masturbating to Greek Myths torrin a. greathouse
I'm searching for porn with bodies like mine, but not made fetish-false idol for a stranger's violent desire. So, I'm masturbating to Greek myths & how they remind me of my chimera body. How almost every monster was just the best parts of other animals sewn together. Myth-a stitch threading together the best parts of woman & what I was given. I lie back against the sheets & Charybdis both this body's hungry mouths, let my fingers feel what wet wreckage, what good & greedy breaking these can make of any body.
Name this sometimes-unwanted part of me-Hydra how you sever the head of a snake & it grows again & it grows again & it grows again, how this blood-hardened flesh reminds me of its presence. & in this myth woman is still born from the severance of man. But not how you were taught. My hands slur semen and seafoam into one word. A sound like birth & drowning. In myself & these sheets. Body breaking the water's surface.
Mouth gasping for air

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

In case you missed it: I have a chapbook of essays coming out this summer! Get in on the ground floor, it's goin to the moon

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

The Florence + the Machine discography

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 04/12/2024

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Snap back to reality / Ope, defy gravity

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Welcome new followers! A little about me: 1) sometimes I run 2) sometimes I hide 3) sometimes I'm scared of you 4) all I really want is to hold you tight... 5) ...and treat you right 6) be with you day and night 7) baby all I need is time

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Search “concert” in your camera roll and post the oldest image: Zhu, 2018

Photo of a concert says "welcome to Ringo's desert"

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Cheryl Pappas @cherylpappas.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Do not miss this incredible book!

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Despite everything, I hope my ex-therapist is having a brat autumn 😌🙏🏾💚🍏

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chira 🎋 @artofchira.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

They followed me yesterday so I checked them out, saw they accepted genAI and use genAi in their submission call, and also hiding replies that point it out. I left a comment saying I will not be engaging with them until they take a hard line stance against genAI. Got blocked for it, seems like.

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Describe yourself using 5 things that are probably in your purse/backpack at any given moment: 1. Envelope full of anthrax 2. Dental dams 3. VHS of Lion King 1 1/2 4. Vial of the Substance activator 5. Toenail clippings (not my own)

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

This little piece was published in Rhythm N Bone but it looks like they're defunct now so it's looking for a new home!

Tabitha married young; at fifteen, her husband promised her a house, a farm, a lawn. Two years later, he would deliver; at their wedding, her parents promised them a goat, a handful of chickens, and Lydia, the pregnant sheep who’d die in childbirth the following spring, her body now persevered in the couple’s ice chest, which they refilled with each week’s ice delivery, slabs of ice cooling her pink, paper-wrapped flesh.

They planned to run out of Lydia by fall, when the oldest chickens would be ready for harvest and the twins would be born. Tabitha had lost her first last winter; her husband, fearing a lack of nutrition, encouraged her to eat and eat. Each week, he’d make a meal of slaughtered sheep; roast Lydia, side of corn on the cob, and potatoes, baked and slathered with white, hand-churned butter.

In August, they traveled into Lansing to visit her aunt, where Tabitha tried her first sorbet, an orange mound into which she’d chisel her spoon, carving the frozen treat like a marble monument, sticking the metal to her tongue, then lapping up sugar until she could no longer bear the cold. She’d let her mouth warm up, then repeat until she’d scraped the ceramic bowl clean. She’d never tasted anything so sweet. Her husband bought her seconds, then thirds.

But that night, she awoke, covered with itching hives. She suspected the sorbet, the Lydia, the twins, even the ice. She scratched herself in the dark; her squirming woke the babies, who kicked her from inside in protest, as well as her husband, who produced a match, struck it, and touched it to their bedside candle to discover her rashy, reddening flesh.

Palming her skin, he found a brown lone star tick had plunged its teeth into her calf, a brown body biting a brown body. His pale fingers felt, at once, clinical and strange. She pictured her softening flesh becoming chocolate sherbet, frozen cream laced with sugar. She imagined herself falling apart, melting under his hands.

On Wednesday morning, the doctor diagnosed a red meat allergy. Indeed, every time she’d feast on lamb, pork, or beef, she’d break out. Even milk made her itch. Her husband promised to throw out Lydia.

But something about the itching fascinated her. Soothed her, even. When her husband would excuse himself at dinners, she’d steal bites of pork or steak off his plate, and always wake up itching, cursing the kitchen who must have contaminated her poultry meal. She’d stay up all night, relishing her hives.

After the twin’s birth, while rummaging through the freezer for leftovers, Tabitha found a forgotten bit of sheep toward the back. She unwrapped the paper and felt her tongue move toward the frozen brick of flesh. She slid her teeth over the marbled rump, cold ribbons of meat peeling into her mouth. That night, the rash emerged; she scratched until her skin came loose under her nails, the first time, perhaps, she’d felt control in her life.

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Sam 🪼 @mythicalkat.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

My Twitter and my Bluesky account

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Boston Tom Levenson @tomlevenson.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Done and thanks and fuck you to every tech company and bro stealing my life to make a buck.

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Daniel Miller @danielmiller.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Bluesky is a little cloying for my tastes, so I will be helping tip the scale towards evil with posts about killing god with a flail and a homunculus i created in a lab as my trusty sidekick and bong hits in my garage.

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John LaPine @johnlapine.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Grad students: "unpack" or "myriad" Higher ed: too many to list

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Rachel Abbey McCafferty @ramccafferty.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

Ok, I think the best way to get back into this place would be to read and share a bunch of flash, so: send me your favorite piece that you’ve published?

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Nathan @nathanhatcher.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

the substance

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Damian Barr @damianbarr.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

As we’re all starting Starter Packs, here is whole shelf of lgbtqia+ writers to enrich your life and feed. Will be updating as more folk arrive. go.bsky.app/UD2Hf7W

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