Sign in

kencraft.bsky.social

@kencraft.bsky.social
39 followers 34 following 51 posts

Maine poet, Pushcart Prize recipient, Associate Editor at Hole in the Head Review, educator. updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Colin Dickey @colindickey.com · 26/11/2025
Handing back student work that’s been written by ChatGPT with a 0 followed by the comment “This essay will never stand in authentic wonder before the Beauty of God’s creation.”
2095252600
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
A woman on IG has been making videos of immigrant lines at the U.S. Mexico borders…full of Americans standing in line to get affordable dental care in Mexico. It’s sublime counter programming.
151365263
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
Giving up on Christmas? So soon? You have company. updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/if-its-dar...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
"If It's Darkness We're Having, Let It Be Extravagant."
At What Point Does Christmas Overstay Its Welcome? (Hint: It's Before Eleven Lords-a-Leaping)
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
You Have Four Browsing Days to Read These Randomly Unimportant Christmas Thoughts... updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/random-tho...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
Random Thoughts, Encroaching Christmas Edition
From Homer to Holden Caulfield, From AI to M&Ms, From Work Parties to Invading Hordes of Ladybugs, What You Now Have Four Days to Figure Out
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
Is Denis Johnson's version of "the writer's life" anything like yours? updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/the-wisdom...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
The Wisdom of Jesus' Son
Gone Eight Years, Denis Johnson Still Speaks to Us
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Critiquing someone else's poem? There's a how to and a how not to... updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/how-to-cri...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
How To Critique a Poem
Hint: It's Not as Easy as It Looks, But What Is?
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
From the making lemonade from lemons department comes harvesting hate for writing success. updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/how-do-i-h...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
How Do I Hate Thee? Let Me Count the Ways
Hate. It's the Word of the Year, Color of the Year, and Trend of the Year
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 27/11/2025
Before going over the river and through the woods, before the playing the drumsticks, before sleeping in front of the football game, some thoughts... updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/random-tho...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
Random Thoughts on Thanksgiving Eve
You Just THOUGHT There Was Little To Be Thankful For...
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
If Ponyboy could do it, why can't you? updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/the-secret...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
The Secret Superpower You Don't Know About
If You Think You Hate Memorization, You're Kidding Yourself
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Writer's Block Is Well-Known, but Don't Discount the Perils of Reader's Block updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/the-tyrann...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
"The Tyranny of the Ignoramuses Is Insurmountable and Assured for all Time."
David Markson's Trove of Literary Trivia Is Catnip for Readers and Writers Alike
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
When the poetry submissions game is a losing one... updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/a-sure-sig...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
A Sure Sign That Your Poems Suck
Kim Addonizio Lays It on the Line
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
Some of Raymond Carver's favorite quotes by other writers. updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com/p/bon-mots-f...
updatesonafreeverselife.substack.com
Bon Mots from Raymond Carver's "On Writing"
The Poet and Short Story Specialist Found Inspiration in the Words of Isak Dinesen, Ezra Pound, Isaac Babel, Among Others
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
Ada Limón's 3-year stint as Poet Laureate may have ended, but we can still look back fondly on her book, The Carrying. substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
Ada Limón's Stretch Drive
How the Late Poet Laureate of the USA Hit Her Stride in 2018's "The Carrying"
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Sometimes poems that end in a question are the best kind. Exhibit A: Stephen Dunn's "The Inheritance": substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
Poems That End with a Question
Sometimes questions prove more powerful than answers
000
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Hole In The Head Review @holeinthehead.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Get those poems ready! The 2025 Charles Simic Poetry Prize will open for submissions on November 1st. This year's judge is Hole in the Head's founder and former editor, Bill Schulz. Full guidelines at www.holeintheheadreview.com 🐇
003
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
𝙒𝙖𝙮𝙣𝙚 𝙎𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙝 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇲🇽 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ @wayneesmith.bsky.social · 07/07/2025
An image with a black and white background and a Latin American immigrant and a title Schröinger's Immigrant. On the left, it reads, "Lazily collecting all the welfare." On the right, it reads, "But also somehow taking all the jobs."
505306117432
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Hole In The Head Review @holeinthehead.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
More coming very soon, we promise, including info about the next issue and our next reading period!
002
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Ezra Klein @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Today’s episode of The Ezra Klein Show. The Emergency Is Here. With @asharangappa.bsky.social. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/17/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Emergency Is Here (Gift Article)
Trump is disappearing people to a Salvadoran prison for terrorists. And he says he wants to send “homegrown” Americans there next.
48365143
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Ezra Klein @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/09/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | There Is a Liberal Answer to Elon Musk (Gift Article)
Right-wing populism thrives on scarcity. The answer is abundance. But a politics of abundance will work only if Democrats confront where their approach has failed.
3130458
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Tom Friedman in the NY TIMES just now: "My fellow Americans, we are in completely uncharted waters, led by a president, who — well, I cannot believe he is a Russian agent, but he sure plays one on TV.​" #Ukraine
110
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Ezra Klein @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social · 16/02/2025
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/16/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | The Republican Party’s NPC Problem — and Ours (Gift Article)
What happens when ambition no longer checks ambition?
22334100
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
“He said, you Americans are so naive. He said, you think that evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots and climb up the stairs—it begins in the language. Look to the language.” -Joseph Brodsky, as recounted by Marie Howe themillions.com/2018/01/tk-t...
I studied with Joseph Brodsky the great Russian poet and how do I say this, he thought we were lazy American students. We had to memorize 500 lines a week and come in and write them out for him. He
said, you Americans are so naive. He said, you think that evil is going to come into your houses wearing
big black boots and climb up the stairs-it begins in the language. Look to the language. He said, in the Soviet Union, nothing is permitted and everything is important. In the United States, everything is permitted and nothing is important.
530287
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
This A.M., a Mark Strand poem...
031
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
As a kid, "Are we there yet?" was a common refrain on long-distance road trips. Now "Are we there yet?" means a Constitutional Crisis.
010
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
As a subscriber of the NY TIMES, I used to enjoy reading the front page every day. But now that it's pregnant with 1930s-style bad news from Washington, reading it gives me the equivalent of morning sickness. The GOP Congress doesn't seem to realize that the prez will come for them some day, too.
000
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
David Rosenthal @davidrosenthalpoet.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Rust & Moth is just consistently very good. And they present things simply and elegantly. It’s a top-notch joint. Yeah, yeah, I’m in this issue, but skip my poem and read the rest. It’s a great issue (so far — they add more each week). Seriously, check it out.
082
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
"Unlike riding a bike, with poetry, you never quite know how." -- Phoebe Millikin
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
So, how good is YOUR town library? www.kencraftauthor.com/yes-you-can-...
kencraftauthor.com
Yes, You Can Judge a Town by Its Public Library – Ken Craft
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Thank you @rustandmoth.bsky.social for making me part of your latest issue! rustandmoth.com/work/morning...
rustandmoth.com
Morning Reflections | Rust & Moth
On morning walks, I’d see my nonagenarian neighbor on a small stool filling bird feeders with nyjer or sunflower seed. She’d smile but not speak, blue veins and bony rake on the back of her hand clutc...
091
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Rust & Moth @rustandmoth.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
New #poetry from Ken Craft: "Morning Reflections".
buff.ly
Morning Reflections | Rust & Moth
On morning walks, I’d see my nonagenarian neighbor on a small stool filling bird feeders with Nygerz or sunflower seed. She’d smile but not speak, blue veins and bony rake on the back of her hand...
081
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Sheila Foster @sheilarose.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Excellent by @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social "If you’re always consumed by the next outrage, you can’t look closely at the last one. The impression of Trump’s power remains; the fact that he keeps stepping on rakes is missed. The projection of strength obscures the reality of weakness. Don’t believe him."
35754308
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
When Adam Zagajewski couldn't write, he wrote about what he was doing while not writing...
030
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
What Danusha Laméris, earthworms, and memento mori have in common (other than good poetry)... www.kencraftauthor.com/a-garden-of-...
kencraftauthor.com
A Garden of Earthworm Delights – Ken Craft
010
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Resolution-wise, Plan A was to read a poem a day from my complete Emily Dickinson collection (a poet I've read little of, truth be told), but the poems are so short I've shifted to Plan B: Read them in bunches, catching the rhythm (she likes meter and rhyme, even when telling it slant)
010
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Just sent A.J. Brown a copy of my most recent book (though I changed the name to "Inner Excellence & Other Stimulants). Hope to see it in his hands on the sidelines (line of scrimmage may be asking too much). #Eagles
010
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
Led to www.truefood.tech by a NYTIMES wellness piece, I found surprises in just how processed a few of my favorite "foods" are. Turns out I am a highly-processed man! And even when I do the right thing (e.g. buy plain yogurt with very little sugar), I add maple syrup for flavor. Mea culpa.
010
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
Reading some Matthew Rohrer tonight when the last line of this poem spoke to me.
030
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
First walk through first snow brings that satisfying crunch of snow under foot. The sound brings you back to childhood. The only thing missing is the wax paper used on your heels to get your foot into the boot. (All-purpose wax paper was also good in other 3 seasons to make slides slippery-fast).
030
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 07/12/2024
December 7. I remember it for more reasons than one. In 5th grade, my teacher, Mr. Underwood, started the class by solemnly telling us, "Pearl Harbor was bombed today," to which I said, a little too loudly and a little too incredulously, "AGAIN?" Naive was my middle name. Sometimes still is.
020
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 07/12/2024
Odd how reading some poets generates ideas and inspires you to write yourself, while reading many others generates nothing and inspires nothing (your specialty), even if their work is good. Why is that?
120
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
In NYTIMES "By the Book" column this week, Billy Collins professes a dislike for poems about dead relatives. I once read that he stops reading poems if he sees the word "cicada," too. Clearly he once worked with Jeffrey at Curmudgeons R Us.
010
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Chen Chen @chenchenwrites.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
family—and maybe especially parents—is one of the great subjects of literature. imagine telling a novelist not to write about parents, about families
12858
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
See enough & write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do, which is write – on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook & there it will all be --Joan Didion
010
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
In a column about Kash Patel's FBI plans, NY TIMES columnist David French quotes former Peruvian president Óscar Benavides: “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.” Great quote and salient stuff.
010
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Dai George @daigeorge.bsky.social · 30/11/2024
Grateful to @poetrydaily.bsky.social for choosing my Dylan piece on Lit Hub as a pick of the day today. Nice to come across his 'nonchalant, slightly dumbstruck face' staring back at me when I opened their daily email!
184
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
According to Keats, the only thing necessary for good poetry: "a feeling for light and shade." Sounds easy, but go ahead and write it.
010
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
From David Markson's "Reader's Block": Not one of Thomas Hardy’s first three novels sold more than twenty copies. Walt Whitman more than once wrote anonymous favorable reviews of his own work. Robert Frost had exactly five poems accepted in the first seventeen years in which he was submitting.
000
Reposted by @kencraft.bsky.social
Rust & Moth @rustandmoth.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
New #poetry from Mike Bove: "Choose Your Own Adventure".
buff.ly
Choose Your Own Adventure | Rust & Moth
Poems aren’t puzzles. Disagree if you want & if you do see line nineteen where you’ll find my mom, drunk again the night she pitched a log through our kitchen window, scaring the shit out of five-year-old...
5318
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
Best part about late fall in Maine (post-summer people and post-leaf peepers): You can take a left onto Route 1 again.
000
kencraft.bsky.social @kencraft.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
From Mary Ruefle's "Madness, Rack, & Honey," a book I never tire of dipping into: “Paul Valéry, the French poet and thinker, once said that no poem is ever ended, that every poem is merely abandoned.” More of her poetry-centric quotes here: www.kencraftauthor.com/no-poem-is-e... #poetry
kencraftauthor.com
“No Poem Is Ever Ended…” – Ken Craft
000