iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 15/06/2026

I've seen errors like this in internal drafts, but I've never seen anything like this a published, for sale, book. A reviewer's comment was incorporated into the final text. @springernature.com needs a better quality control system.

A block of text from a book. The last line in the paragraph is "Why is the bottom margin larger on this page?"

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 15/05/2026

Little Cousins, "Called back." Emily. Last letter of Emily Dickinson, who died on this date in 1886.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 26/04/2026

I've read several articles on spotting "AI" generated text. I know there's software out to help. But I think I got this one on my own.

Screenshot of web news story:
I now have all the sources I need. Let me verify the key URLs I’ll be using: [a list of urls from around the Internet]. All confirmed real from search results. Now I’ll write the article.

Picture the smartest person you’ve ever worked with. Were they the loudest in the room? Did they fire off answers before you’d finished asking the question?

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 13/04/2026

My mom always told me I was special, but no one thinks more of me than the NYT Wordle bot! 317 out of 99! ☺️

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 09/04/2026

If you are anywhere near Appleton, WI tonight, make your way to the book launch for Melissa Ranges’s PRINTER’S FIST. The book is based on the history of the abolition movement, but speaks to our present historical moment. It's going to be an awesome event.

Celebrate the release of
PRINTER’S FIST
A new book of poems by
Melissa Range
Thursday, April 9th @ 7pm
Wriston Gallery 613 E College Ave, Appleton, WI
Reading, book signing & poetry fun for everyone.
FREE TO ATTEND
The poster is done in a variety of fonts in the style of a 19th century handbill. It features a picture of the author and “Printer’s Fists” (similar to the backhand pointing emojis)

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 29/03/2026

www.bicoastalreview.com/josephradke Here's my #PoemsAloud. I'm not a fan of my own voice, but I got a professional voice (Sarah Callinan) to raise the level.

bicoastalreview.com

Josephradke | Bicoastal Review

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 27/03/2026

Just finished my friend Melissa Range’s new poetry collection, Printer’s Fist. It’s an amazing book about the abolitionist movement. If you're interested in resistance to injustice and solidarity across class, race, and gender, read this book. www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/978082650011...

vanderbiltuniversitypress.com

Printer's Fist – Vanderbilt University Press

Melissa Range’s Printer’s Fist, awarded the 2025 Vanderbilt University Literary Prize, is a collection that tells the story of a political movement—its...

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Reposted by Joseph Radke

phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

after so long how to open again in the cold light of earliest spring— Louise Glück

SNOWDROPS

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again in the cold light
of earliest spring—

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 27/01/2026

My poem, Ice Fishermen of Oconto Falls, was selected and beautifully read by Catherine Young for the Landward podcast on WDRT. www.wdrt.org?post_type=po...

wdrt.org

January 22nd, 2026 - WDRT

Ice fishing requires a lot of waiting in Joseph Radke’s poem ICE FISHERMEN OF OCONTO FALLS.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 01/12/2025

Thanks so much! I'm honored by the nomination.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 23/11/2025

My life is beginning to repeat itself as my Wordle results echo the refrigerator magnet poetry of my youth.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 04/11/2025

I decided to try some actual revision exercises instead of just staring at a poem and asking it to get better. The results were gratifying.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 02/09/2025

I just found out I was a semi-finalist for the 2025 Richard Snyder Book Prize. Congrats to K.T. and Michael! I can't wait to read their books.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 23/08/2025

Here's my other poem, "Another Morning Poem," published in the latest Southern Poetry Review. Some days you just feel better...

Another Morning Poem
With the sun a spot of yellow through
the frosted window, I awoke not
quite thrilled by the strangeness,
like the day after a move. Just
hours ago, the last hollow brick
wall of grief collapsed, that levy
of sadness burst. No telling
how—unseen erosion, the hidden drip
of chaos toward a tipping point,
the wind that carries the weight
of the straw that breaks everything
eventually? And I won’t tell what
it was about. You'd only say
so little? or that again?

I’ll just tell you I stood again, showered,
got dressed. The kettle whistled. Breakfast
tea steeped in something different, toast spread
with jam. I walked outside and into something alive.
The sun a spot of yellow through the frosted winter sky.
Breath refusing to ghost, glasses unfogged.

I was struck by the first real snow
of January making good
on a threat the sky held
over us for weeks—flakes broken,
melted, and frozen back in
on themselves, hard
so they sounded when they hit.
It's true, and like so much that is

true, almost completely meaningless.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 20/08/2025

Here's my poem The Same Dog from the latest Southern Poetry Review. The Roman poet Horace is credited with using a dog as a metaphor for depression, but this is likely a mistranslation.

The Same Dog

I listen to the same dog
every night though I never
see it in the light. Neighbors
deny it’s theirs or even
hearing it. You know, I say, mostly
after sundown, sometimes early
morning? Part growl, part bark?
No, they say, no idea what you’re
talking about. Animal control
no longer responds.

On calm evenings, it seems
a distant howl. In the storm,
I hear its whine right under
my window between crashes
of thunder. Nights aren’t sleepless but
I dream of nails pounding
in irregular rhythms, horns
on beasts that shouldn’t
have horns, tails on people
who shouldn’t have tails. Eyes
everywhere.

Then one night (around mid-summer
when it never really gets dark, the light
only dims and simmers): the barking,
the growling, a whimper, silence.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 04/08/2025

Just got the latest issue of Southern Poetry Review. SPR was one of the first journals I saw at the local B&N when I began taking poetry seriously. Full of poetry, and with those B&W covers, it became my idea of what a poetry journal was and should be. I’m thrilled to have two poems in the issue.

The Cover of Southern Poetry Review featuring a black and white photo of the head and mane of a carousel horse titled Horse Through A Window by Brett Taylor.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 12/07/2025

Great reading and interesting discussion. Dawn's book is fantastic!

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 30/06/2025

Just finished Dawn Tefft’s Once Upon a Riot from matchfactoryeds.bsky.social‬ . It’s amazing. Acutely aware of our current historical moment but full of intimate humanity. Incredible stuff!!matchfactoryeditions.com/books/Once-U...77

matchfactoryeditions.com

Once Upon a Riot by Dawn Tefft | Books | Match Factory Editions

Once Upon a Riot explores resistance, parenthood, and beauty amid oppression, weaving protests, labor strikes, pop culture, and personal history into poetry.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 29/06/2025

I’m re-reading Eros the Bittersweet by Anne Carson. She discusses the significance of the edges in words and desire. This poem from Poetry Daily keeps coming to mind: poems.com/poem/sapphic....

Sapphic Dream by Mag Gabbert
(words at the end of lines are split between lines. For example, "hotel" is split between "hot" and "-el"
we’ve made the hot
-el room hum
-id from
our show
-er
you: lost
in a sea
-rch for me
-teors
as I was
-h as
-hore
—unraveling hem
-isphere, come
-t, light as a ball
-erina’s spin
-e—
once again im
-mersed in
the cove
-rs, then on
-ce again again
-st our sin
-k

in my heave
-n my
-th
this
port
-rait of
a decade
-nce: you
as we
both rot
-ate
the tow
-els get so
-aked, so we
-t
—make
me a vow
-el—
tell me no
-w those must
be us
-eless

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Reposted by Joseph Radke

Litbowl @litbowl.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Thanks to my hippie parents, I've always loved celebrating the solstices. Here's a poem for the longest day of the year. From Louise Glück's Collected Poems: bookshop.org/a/862/9780374534097 #books #solstice #writing

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 10/06/2025

I've been getting “encouraging” rejections (“admire your work,” “generated interest from our editors,” “please send more soon”) from some pretty good journals (Southern Review, Meridian, Adroit, Image). I must be doing something right. And something wrong.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 20/05/2025

Lawlss Coffee in Appleton is closed. A sad moment for the coffee and arts scene in Appleton. Lawlss was a supporter of and gathering place for local artists and writers. Thanks Stefan for great coffee and memories! www.postcrescent.com/story/money/...

postcrescent.com

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 04/05/2025

My poem in the latest issue of Bellevue Literary Review arrived last week. Great issue. Thanks to BLR!

Cover of Bellevue Literary Review Issue 48 displaying Las Tralaveritas 2015 by Aliza Nisenbaum next to the text of the poem:
WHEN YOUR BACKACHE RETURNS
Joseph Radke

The doctor, like a tour guide, pointed

to your X-ray and described points of interest—

the intervertebral space variability, features

of the sagittal and coronal plane. Like a weatherman,

he detailed the current conditions with broad

hand gestures and scientific confidence—

degrees of idiopathic curvature, the tilt

of various vertebrae. He gave the prognosis

like a forecast—no curvature progression,

your spine a stationary front. He prescribes

Ibuprofen, as much as you can tolerate, a heel

lift for one shoe. All like he’s done this

a thousand times before, which of course he has.

We hide so much from one another,

try to smooth out the imperfections

and dress up our faults. Yet, there you

were, the inside of you in the high-contrast

black & white. I was shocked to see

beyond what I could touch, what I liked

so much, to the little twist, one source

of your pain. That night, when the dull

ache kept you awake, I touched the surface.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 04/05/2025

These rush hours never fail to make me smile.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 28/04/2025

The audio file is up my poem at Bicoastal Review(www.bicoastalreview.com/josephradke). It turned out really well. Many thanks to Sarah Callinan (sarahcallinan.com) for the second voice in the reading.

sarahcallinan.com

Sarah Callinan

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 28/04/2025

My friend Meredith Mason has her first book out. If you have a kid, parent, or job (or know someone who does), you really should read this book. Link the reply.

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 03/04/2025

My friend Austin Segrest has a new book out from Unbound Edition Press. Buy it. Read it. Thank me later.

Groom by Austin Segrest. Mustard yellow and brown cover. "Segrest... explores the line between damage and desire, affection and manipulation." Mark Wunderlich

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Reposted by Joseph Radke

The Shore @theshorepoetry.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Joseph Radke in ISSUE 24! www.theshorepoetry.org/issue-24

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 10/03/2025

On Wednesday night, I'll participate in my first poetry reading since 2010. whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice — Louise Glück

Poster for reading 3/12/25 @ 6 PM at 918 N. Oneida Street, Appleton, WI

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 25/02/2025

I'll be reading as part of the new Breathing Room Poetry Series in Appleton, WI. 6 PM on Mach 12th.

Poster with cute character walking their dog.
Breathing Room Poetry Series.
Joseph Radke, Grace Rebekah Wiersma, Walden Holden.
6pm March 12
918 N. Oneida Street, Appleton, WI
Sponsored by fsm and Only Child

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 24/02/2025

We are like a lot of wild spiders crying together, but without tears. Robert Lowell, "Fall 1961"

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 23/02/2025

The poem that's currently haunting me... (originally in yalereview.bsky.social)

In Those Years
Adrienne Rich

In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 23/02/2025

I attended an amazing reading by paisleyrekdal.bsky.social on Thursday at Lawrence University. She presented poems from West: A Translation and read some stunning new work. If you have not yet experienced West: A Translation (westtrain.org), go now. Everything will still be here when you get back.

paisleyrekdal.bsky.social

Paisley Rekdal (@paisleyrekdal.bsky.social)

Director of the American West Center. Author and poet. See paisleyrekdal.com

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 15/02/2025

Just found out I was a semi-finalist for the uwiscpress.bsky.social Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes in Poetry. Disappointed not to have been selected for publication, but honored and encouraged to have been so highly considered. Thanks to the judge, readers, editors, and staff.

uwiscpress.bsky.social

University of Wisconsin Press (@uwiscpress.bsky.social)

Publisher of books and journals (scholarly, literary, and regional), at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. https://uwpress.wisc.edu. (We are not the UW news/PR office)

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 10/02/2025

I submitted a poem to Bellevue Literary Review’s poetry contest. It didn’t win, but they considered it for publication. After working with the editors on some revisions, it was officially accepted today!

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 08/02/2025

Two of my poems will be read on the podcast “Landward: Readings of Place and Season” (www.wdrt.org/landward/) in 2026 and 2027.

wdrt.org

Landward - WDRT

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 04/02/2025

I have a need of wilder, crueler waves; They sicken of the calm, who knew the storm. So let a love beat over me again. --Dorothy Parker

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 01/02/2025

My poem La Belle Epoque just went up in Issue 8 of bicoastalreview.bsky.social. It's a "trippy" (as one of my poet friends described it) little poem in two voices. Check out the other great poems in the issue and the wonderful site design.

bicoastalreview.bsky.social

Bicoastal Review (@bicoastalreview.bsky.social)

bicoastalreview.com Journal of poetry (with audio), nonfiction, interviews, art, and photography - particularly on themes related to the U.S. east and west coast. Submit to our poetry contest to win ...

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Reposted by Joseph Radke

The Shore @theshorepoetry.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

“tunnels once denser than steel. The guide put out the lights. For a moment, darkness was so complete I couldn't tell if my eyes were open or closed…” From “You Can’t Separate Absence from Presence by Distance Alone” by Joseph Radke in ISSUE 24! www.theshorepoetry.org/joseph-radke……

buff.ly

Joseph Radke "You Can’t Separate Absence from Presence by Distance Alone" — THE SHORE

POETRY

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 25/01/2025

"Windows give up their secrets, Not mirrors." -- Laura Jackson, from City of Cold Women

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 24/01/2025

“Poetry is memory become image, and image become voice.” — Octavio Paz #poetry

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 15/01/2025

Always there seems something ahead, the next poem or story, visible, at least, apprehensible, but unreachable... It’s like a lighthouse, except that, as one swims towards it, it backs away. - Louise Glück

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 03/01/2025

My latest poem is up at The Shore (@theshorepoetry.bsky.social): www.theshorepoetry.org/joseph-radke... It's always a thrill to my work in the context of such wonderful poems by other talented poets. Check out the entire Issue 24: www.theshorepoetry.org/issue-24

theshorepoetry.org

Joseph Radke "You Can’t Separate Absence from Presence by Distance Alone" — THE SHORE

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Joseph Radke @josephradke.com · 02/01/2025

Hello Bluesky! I’m new to this whole microblogging thing. About a year ago, after about a decade hiatus, I began to write and submit my poetry again. I’ve been fortunate to get work accepted by Permafrost, Southern Poetry Review, @bicoastalreview.bsky.social and theshorepoetry.bsky.social.

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