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Paul Guest

@paulmguest.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1.3K following 674 posts

Poet and memoirist. Published in Best American Poetry, The Paris Review, Poetry, and elsewhere. Whiting Award Winner and Guggenheim Fellow.

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Paul Guest @paulmguest.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Maurice White
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Simeon Berry @simeonberry.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
“What is the Greek word for mercy? / What is the capital of Kansas? / Who perished in the fire, / made anonymous by ash / but mourned all the same, in public?” — @paulmguest.bsky.social, “Hey Siri”
HEY SIRI. What is the Greek word for mercy? What is the capital of Kansas? Who perished in the fire, made anonymous by ash but mourned all the same, in public? Who grieves the dawn? Who wrote down the directions to the old farm and the haunted house and the mill which has been repurposed?  Who is the speaker of the pained jeremiad? The delicate ode whispered to the rain. This poem which should have been a riddle. A knock-knock joke. Who is there? Who is waiting at the door?
In the bright morning, where is the fire? And who squeezed the trigger? Who was inspired by safely pedestrian suffering? Enlivened, even. I should not exclude myself from this. At night it’s easy, nothing at all, to feel one’s chest ache with beauty because of the stars which keen throughout the vacuum. How long ago did John Keats die and was it raining then, as in a dream? I don’t understand beauty. How it insists. upon itself. You, this trembling day. Never mind. Paul Guest
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Paul Guest @paulmguest.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Thank you to Leah Umansky for snapping this photo of my poem in the October issue of Poetry.
My poem “Hey Siri”
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old roadside pics @roadside.xor.blue · 05/07/2026
gavin's golden hill, east durham, new york, 1977
gavin's golden hill, east durham, new york, 1977
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Paul Guest @paulmguest.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Please donate to my GoFundMe if you can. gofund.me/33cdc5d4e
gofund.me
Donate to Help me pay for my daily living expenses, organized by PAUL GUEST
Hi everyone, I’m raising funds for my nursing and personal care and other daily ne… PAUL GUEST needs your support for Help me pay for my daily living expenses
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MeidasTouch @meidastouch.com · 11/06/2026
To recap: Iran: There is no deal Israel: There is no deal Trump: Deal approved!
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Lauren Deschain @thatnerdchick.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Thanks, Vonnegut. 💜
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Paul Guest @paulmguest.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Excited for two poems from my next book to appear in American Poetry Review.
My poems in this issue of APR.Cover of APR.
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Paul Guest @paulmguest.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Excited for two poems from my next book to appear in American Poetry Review.
My poems in this issue of APR.Cover of APR.
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michael röbbins @alienvsrobbins.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
the school year just ended and I already miss indoctrinating students into cultural Marxism and extremist gender ideology
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Simeon Berry @simeonberry.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
“I pray for your career. / That you aren’t crushed by the stupid and the vacant. / For whatever is left / of imagined, impossible careers: / dyspeptic soda jerk dying in Frazier, Indiana; / a librarian in Pompeii” — @paulmguest.bsky.social, “I Hope for Everything”
I HOPE FOR EVERYTHING. All morning I have been thinking about disco—I was alive and aware of a lot: who was the President back then and what stations our television could receive and at the skating rink there was a strobing square of dance floor and everything glowed like a dime store afterlife. Because everything becomes about promise. What good there might be in the soft bark of a rare tree. What will almost certainly happen to every star running down like batteries in the always night; the souvenir baseball bat beside the bed. I should be inspired when a stranger tells me life is all about possibility. As if cancer isn’t a terrible kind of proof of concept.
As if wildfires aren’t a starving arithmetic and it won’t matter who you vote for, this year and the next and forever and ever. This sense of time: I can get down with it, not curl up in the darkness hoping to save my life. I hope for every thing I love to last and last. I hope for this river to sound like ringing. I pray for your career. That you aren’t crushed by the stupid and the vacant. For whatever is left of imagined, impossible careers: dyspeptic soda jerk dying in Frazier, Indiana; a librarian in Pompeii, before the subtle ash of a bad winter; For the abandoned mutt, unloved, forlorn on Instagram, I pray. Paul Guest
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Catbus @catbus.phd · 13/05/2026
LOGGING ON
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Prof Lisa Schipper 🌍🍉💪 @lisaschipper.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
This. 🎯
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michael röbbins @alienvsrobbins.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
I think all the time about Jack Kerouac heckling Frank O’Hara that he was ruining American poetry & O’Hara responding without a beat, “That’s more than you ever did for it”
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Manic Pixie Soccer Mom @meganc.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
I'm speedrunning my train of thought upon reading this, but I'm thinking about all of the pressure put on young people to work hard & get a good job & never do anything that might fuck up your employability & yet when you enter the workforce the assaults on your dignity never stop.
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Mark E. Quiet @markequiet.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Used bookstore score! @paulmguest.bsky.social
Picture of a book "My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge" by Paul Guest
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jesse @jesseltaylor.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
if you invented public libraries today, every opinion page in the country would be arguing for means tested subsidized Amazon Prime memberships
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ONLY POEMS @onlypoemsmag.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Know I told you it was okay to leave me. Why'd you believe me? You always believed me.
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Barlow Adams @barlowadams.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
This era and political movement have revealed beyond a doubt that many Americans simply don’t think non-Americans matter, or that they are actually even people. There is no way around this conclusion. As a nation, we must agree to accept we are part of a vibrant, larger world, not its master.
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Emily Nussbaum @emilynussbaum.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
It makes so much sense to put ALL these villains on TV, non-stop, for ongoing viral-video interrogations—to get them to slip up, to say something that pisses him off, to look weak— because the only thing that matters to this guy is what happens on the tube
media.tenor.com
a man in a top hat stands next to a child and says " goggles on please "
Alt: Mike TV from Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory
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Letitia Trent @letitiatrent.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
the internet is poison
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Amorak Huey @amorak.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
new poem in @oneart.bsky.social --
Gossamer

just when we believe our bodies
have adjusted to absence

comes a new season of smoke and wildness

take me now
in this unexpected heat

take me until I cannot help
but bleat your name in hunger

a horizon of geese
naming the sky
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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 22/06/2024
When AOL and Prodigy started taking off in the early 90s, our neighbor bought a bunch of cement slab and busted it up and sold it online as "Real Pieces of the Berlin Wall" and "Real Pieces of the Great Wall of China" and that guy realized what the internet was gonna be before everyone else
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Wickets Giroux @rigamarock.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity
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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
I say this three times a day and mean it more every single time, but what is going ON?????
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
one of my strongest beliefs is that we're in our situation right now bc some of the most prominent talking heads (e.g. joe rogan, andrew schulz) are learning about politics in their 40s and 50s, instead of their teens and early 20s, and we have to go along for the ride as they learn basic things
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Rebecca Fachner @rebeccafachner.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
In less than a week the Kennedy Center has effectively closed and our local DC paper has been gutted, both by billionaires. I don’t think immigrants are our problem in this country.
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Jahd Khalil @jahd.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Gov Spanberger has directed Virginia’s state law enforcement agencies to end 287g agreements with ICE, saying the agreements "improperly cede accountability and discretion over VA law enforcement" to the feds.
governor.virginia.gov
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Mary L Trump @maryltrump.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
I'm just waiting for Donald to tell Sean Hannity he'd be so much prettier if he smiled more.
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Ron Charles @roncharles.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
After 20 years, I've been laid off at The Washington Post. substack.com/home/post/p-...
substack.com
I’ve Been Laid Off. I’m Not Done.
After 20 years at The Washington Post, I’m suddenly on my own — and still writing about books.
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Chris Kluwe @chriswarcraft.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
No we don’t you worthless lump of campaign bribes, we want ICE abolished and every person who committed crimes, as well as those who allowed it to happen, prosecuted. Go fucking retire, you’ve done enough damage already.
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Dr. Taylor Loy @tayloraloy.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
The center-will-hold folks seem to understand very little about widening gyres and mere anarchy.
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
We are ruled over by thieves and murderers and rapists who are hellbent on taking everything from us. Evidence like the Epstein Files just makes abundantly clear what we already know and continually confronts us with a question we must answer: how much more of this are we willing to take?
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Lesley Wheeler @lesleymwheeler.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
I’ll be in conversation with these smart poets a week from today, Fri 2/6 starting 6:30 pm—& the temps will be above freezing! Free @PVCC campus in Charlottesville VA. Register & get a free book! piedmontgarden.org/event/a-poet... #poetrycommunity @paulmguest.bsky.social @haydensaunier.bsky.social
Fri 2/6 at PVCC Campus in Charlottesville Va: a poets panel, Guardians of Wonder: Writing What We Must Not Lose
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Paul Guest @paulmguest.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
This is wonderful
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BOA Editions @boa-editions.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
We are so thrilled that Aracelis Girmay has been selected as a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection for GREEN OF ALL HEADS! The winner will be announced live at the 2026 PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony, held at The Town Hall in New York City on March 31, 7:30pm.
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Gail Simone @gailsimone.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Also, the worst actor in every Quentin Tarantino movie? Always, always Quentin Tarantino.
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Paul Guest @paulmguest.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
Message me on Signal.
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Laurence H. Tribe @tribelaw.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Activists are calling for a “nationwide day of no school, no work and no shopping” across the U.S. on Friday, Jan. 30, to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown following the fatal shootings of two people by federal agents in Minneapolis.
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Bruce Springsteen @brucespringsteen.net · 28/01/2026
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free
youtu.be
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
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Jason Chavez @jchavezmpls.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Dear neighbor, It is not the time to let your guard down, nor is it the time to stop organizing. While Bovino will be leaving Minneapolis along with some U.S. Border Patrol agents, there is still no specific plan that has been communicated to the public. 1/
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
People who think we should wait until we win everything think we should win forever. Celebrate interim victories, partial victories, imperfect victories, small victories, because celebrating strengthens the resolve to keep on, reminds us of our power, and also is fun.
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bowie deschanel @raisingonebrow.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
How about these apples
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Do you understand they are weak and their violence comes from weakness? If we fight them together, if we link arms, if we say enough in one voice, they will crumble and we will be free to create something better, something we deserve. I’m begging. Please. See it. Know it.
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Governor Tim Walz @governorwalz.mn.gov · 26/01/2026
Damn proud of Minnesota.
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Barack Obama @barackobama.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
The killing of Alex Pretti is a heartbreaking tragedy. It should also be a wake-up call to every American, regardless of party, that many of our core values as a nation are increasingly under assault.
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Ilhan Omar @ilhanmn.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Another murder by immigration enforcement in my district. I am absolutely horrified that federal agents are targeting and executing our residents instead of protecting them. ICE and CBP must leave Minnesota immediately. Kristi Noem must be impeached. Enough.
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G Elliott Morris @gelliottmorris.com · 24/01/2026
Reminder: All it would take to end the murder of American citizens by an untrained government goon squad is 16 Republicans in Congress voting with Dems to defund ICE (or 23 to impeach and remove Trump — 3 in House & 20 in Senate). That’s it. 23 Americans can vote for the public and end all of this.
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