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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his)

@mongibeddu.bsky.social
693 followers 679 following 419 posts

Poet, editor, scholar in Maine. Now available: Nice: The Collected Poems of David Melnick (nightboat.org/book/nice). Free 🇵🇸; end the genocide now!

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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Clerks at the local chain bookstore: one didn’t know where the history section is, the other, who rang me up without making eye contact, ignored my comment about the book being dinged (I was hoping for a discount), but did recite the loyalty program spiel. Yeah, no thanks.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
What a stupid, wasteful thing to have done. The nest I flew, my intellectual home away from home. So saddened by this.
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R.D. Pohl @rdpohl.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
What happened to the UB Poetics Program is nothing less than a scandal. Who stole the Gray Chair endowment money? As it turns out the Robert Creeley Centenary event in May will have been the last event sponsored by the program.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Holiday camaraderie in the long line at the grocery store
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Joseph Howley @illdottore.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
No email from a library system stirs the imagination like a notice my scan is ready to download through WORLDCAT. The great cat that surrounds the world? That nuzzles the roots of the world-scratching-tree? The great world cat who is and was and shall be? That cat???
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Annoying as hell when submitting a letter of recommendation requires ranking the student in numerous categories, but good god the school that has a drop-down menu for each one.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
Do kids still make crank phone calls? I haven’t received one in god knows how long. Not counting spam and robocalling—institutionalized crank.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
“deskilling students AND stealing their data” says it all and with the succinctness of Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro.”
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
I don’t understand a journal interface that only lets me print ten pages of an article but does let me download a PDF—which I can then print in full.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
Saying the unspeakable part out loud.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
Tying up loose ends on a long chapter isn’t impossible, but then neither is tying a cherry stem with your tongue.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
POST-CONSTITUTIONAL AMERICA Blank checks and imbalances.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
“‘The banana plant’…wears the autumn wind and is broken by the autumn wind”—Dōgen
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Edited an article with a long passage attributed to the wrong person (and much made of that misattribution). Didn’t even get an acknowledgment when it later appeared in a book.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
The Democratic Party: “When they go low, we go high. But when they go right, we follow.”
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
I managed to reserve ten pounds of sour cherries from what I thought was a local farm, but it turns out they’re in Ohio (not Maine). The search continues…
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
I’m going to start asking cashiers if they want to round down.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
The cat gets so mad when she musters all her cuteness and yet I still don’t bend to her will.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
The top ten movie lists aren’t convincing me to watch more movies. Has cinema become a mid art form?
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
A powerful flame has gone out but not the light it shared with us.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 27/04/2025
I thought I’d lost the thread but I see now it was the wrong metaphor: my thread’s been stripped.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Heard about an IRB request at my university turned down because it included the phrase “climate justice.”
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Sad news.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
I wonder what bookseller got the titles purged from the Naval Academy Library. I hope they sell at a premium, with part of it going to appropriate causes. He’ll, I’d buy from this list:
media.defense.gov
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
I started grad school in my thirties so it’s strange to think that many of the comp students I taught back then are already in their fifties.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
A book so awful I erased all traces that I’d read it.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
One of those days when I wish the students would meet me where I’m at, not the other way round.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
Is there an antonym for Schadenfreude? The pain you feel when good things happen to those you hate.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Mark Nowak has put together a celebratory reading for the one hundredth birthday of Theodore Enslin (1925-2011). DM for a zoom link.
Theodore Enslin Centenary Reading, March 25, 2025, 7pm, zoom, with John Taggart, Ben Friedlander, Denver Butson, John Phillips, Jonathan Skinner, Margaret Randall, Maria Damon, Mark Nowak, Michael Heller, Stacy Szymaszek, & others
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
So far as bad omens go—my hamantaschen went flat in the oven.
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Beth Popp Berman @epopppp.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
This isn't going to get the attention of Columbia, but it's at least as bad: the University of Maine is having its funding cut off because the governor of Maine dared to challenge Trump.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
Israel never spoils an opportunity to spoil an opportunity.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
My favorite mnemonic: “Jennifer Aniston is a dactyl”
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
“The fish stinks from the head.” No, the stink is everywhere.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
Divil Cisobedience
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Tim Watson @timwatson.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
My admiration for this astonishing, beautiful piece of writing by Peter Coviello is compounded by my amazement that he had the bandwidth and strength to write it while meeting the demands of a job he calls "a two-fisted engine of aggravation and despair" (as a former department chair: can confirm!).
nplusonemag.com
Memos of Blood and Fire | Peter Coviello
So if you ask me about the signature strength of the department where I work, I will tell you. It is world-caliber field-defining research, wedded to a fantastically dynamic practice of instruction, a...
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
It’s oddly reassuring that Canadians aren’t above the stupidity of “freedom fries.”
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
Midway the journey of my life I stopped to ask for directions—not my first mistake.
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Z Samudzi @zsamudzi.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
The Journal for Architectural Education’s Palestine issue — for which I was an issue co-editor — was cancelled by the board of Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture citing risks and “new actions by the U.S. presidential administration” 😐 www.archpaper.com/2025/02/acsa...
archpaper.com
ACSA cancels Fall 2025 Journal of Architectural Education issue about Palestine and fires its interim executive editor
ACSA announced this afternoon it has cancelled a forthcoming JAE edition about Palestine. The Fall 2025 issue was planned to be edited by Cruz Garcia, Nora Akawi, Omar Jabary Salamanca, Zoé Samudzi, a...
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
The master also composed a number of works, such as Words for Wishing to Investigate the Profound and A Selection of Ancient Sayings, which enjoyed a wide circulation. [Footnote: No longer extant.]
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
Searched the house desperately for an out-of-print book, a slim volume of verse, going through boxes as well as shelves and piles—no luck. Bought a replacement at no small price. A few days later, opening a different book by the same poet, found that missing one tucked inside. Oy vey.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
I’d like to think that the students who come to class unprepared and have trouble saying more than “I like the images” when asked about a poem actually wrote those incisive commentaries—but AI has poisoned that possibility. RIP Benefit of the Doubt. A lingering suspicion has replaced you.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
I really wish there was a recording of Charles Olson’s conversation with Frank O’Hara in Buffalo, 1964.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
The rocky beach was streaked with ice and snow and the wind made it hard to stay, but the coast was beautiful today.
View of winter beach
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All The Right Movies @alltherightmovies.com · 16/02/2025
The Sandford Police dog is named Saxon, played by a pooch called Sampson. He was once up for a job in the Police Force, but turned down for being too friendly. 13/46
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British Association for American Studies @officialbaas.bsky.social · 10/02/2025
BAAS remains absolutely committed to our principles of equality, diversity and inclusion, and we are not willing to compromise on these issues. As such, the Executive Committee agreed to cancel the grant with immediate effect. 4/7
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
The university’s home page looks increasingly like an advertisement for a timeshare.
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Ben Friedlander (he/him/his) @mongibeddu.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
It’s frigid and cloudy but the birds seem to know snow’s coming so they’ve come out of hiding to hop and sing. I’ll try to emulate them today.
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paideuma.bsky.social @paideuma.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Paideuma 50 is now available! “Poems We Live With,” 460 pages, 60+ contributors. Table of contents here: paideuma.wordpress.com/2025/01/24/p...
Cover of Paideuma 50. The image shows Izumi Shikibu, from an untitled series of female poets attributed to Komatsuken, 1765.Back cover of Paideuma 50, listing contributors
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Paul Ilechko @pilechko.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Benjamin Friedlander, from The Missing Occasion of Saying Yes
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