iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

"When I say I don’t know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it properly [....] When I say I don’t know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it painlessly." - Allison Thung, Swimming as Allegory for Living @poetrybyallison.bsky.social kithbooks.com/shop/p/reacquaint

Reacquaint
Allison Thung

cover:
the view of a sunset or sunrise out through an airplane window with fingers pressed to the glass

kithbooks.com

Swimming as Allegory for Living
Allison Thung

When I say I don’t know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it properly. That they tried to teach me, but gave up when I couldn’t figure how to turn my head just enough to breathe, yet not sink. I mean I can do some half-assed version of the front crawl in which my face stays submerged for as long as I can hold my breath, while my arms slice through water in unintended tandem, and my feet paddle relentlessly like a runner duck’s, propelling my body forward in small bursts, until it feels like my lungs will explode if I don’t allow my head to break through the surface that very instant to take in as much air as I possibly can, even if the lost momentum causes me to sink like a stone. When I say I don’t know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it painlessly.

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 08/09/2025

“There is thrill in feeling the rigid shatter against the soft” - Allison Thung, MOLAR @poetrybyallison.bsky.social Print: kithbooks.com/shop/p/molar eBook: kithbooks.com/digital/p/molar

MOLAR
Allison Thung

cover:
a nori flecked almond on a background of very pale grey

text:
“There is thrill in feeling the rigid shatter
against the soft”

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

Two of four new poems I have in @rfpress.bsky.social’s latest issue! “Maybe: Human” is for the girlies (gender neutral) who sometimes feel like they’re cosplaying Person rather than just being one; while “Hands” grieves death metaphorical into literal.

"Maybe: Person", "Poem in which I justify my unfounded yet fervent beliefs", "Waste" & "Hands" by Allison Thung

Maybe: Person

Last night I lost one of my three phones somewhere in the house, so I called it with one of the other two, and the call came up as being from Maybe: Person, and I think it’s because despite looking like, walking like, talking like one, I am always just shy of being one, always wearing my Personness like an oversized poncho hastily swiped from the back of someone’s chair on a rainy day, or an undersized hoodie reluctantly borrowed from a slighter classmate in a freezing lecture theatre, so that I am perpetually ill at ease, to the point that there is comfort in discomfort, and certainty in uncertainty, or maybe I just need to fix the settings on my phone, maybe.

Hands

I.

You are alive, but only in memory. Once cold of your hands magnified thousand-fold in some attempt to extinguish the now scorch of your decisions.

II.

You are alive, but only in imagination. Even in a land of eternal summer, the wind is always wintry, so that the heat of your hands is unceasingly essential.

III.

You are alive, and then you are not. Lilies in lap, I watch them lay you in the dirt. From where I sit, I cannot see your hands.

Allison Thung is a Singaporean poet. She is the author of Reacquaint (kith books, 2024) and Molar (kith books, 2024). Her poetry has been published in ANMLY, Sixth Finch, Cease, Cows, Gone Lawn, and elsewhere, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and Best Small Fictions. Allison is an Assistant Poetry Editor at ANMLY. Find her on Instagram and Bluesky @poetrybyallison, or at www.allisonthung.com.

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Roi Fainéant Press SUBS ARE OPEN, BAYBEE! @rfpress.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Are you ready for a poetry party hosted by the wonderful Allison Thung? @poetrybyallison.bsky.social “Maybe:Person” is in the 8/31 edition bringing to light personhood & how that concept sometimes lays just out of reach. There are a few more by this same author in this very edition out on Sunday!

Last night I lost one of my three phones somewhere in the house, so I called it with one of the other two, and the call came up as being from Maybe: Person,

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

Swimming as Allegory for Living Allison Thung @poetrybyallison.bsky.social 31 days of wim's favourite poems from kith books #SealeyChallenge 6/31

Reacquaint
Allison Thung

cover:
fingertips rest on the inside of an airplane window facing sunrise.

text:
Swimming as Allegory for Living

When I say I don’t know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it properly. That they tried to teach me, but gave up when I couldn’t figure how to turn my head just enough to breathe, yet not sink. I mean I can do some half-assed version of the front crawl in which my face stays submerged for as long as I can hold my breath, while my arms slice through water in unintended tandem, and my feet paddle relentlessly like a runner duck’s, propelling my body forward in small bursts, until it feels like my lungs will explode if I don’t allow my head to break through the surface that very instant to take in as much air as I possibly can, even if the lost momentum causes me to sink like a stone. When I say I don’t know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it painlessly.

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Wrote a #poem about (not) retiring, getting retrenched, and all that fun stuff. #poetry

Retirement

People laugh when I say my retirement plan is to die, as if I’m not as serious as my retirement plan. I once read a tweet that went something like (start italics) I could afford to retire right now if I passed away next Tuesday (end italics), and now I cite it whenever I am asked about the future. Why is it always Tuesday with these quips? Is it because it’s not one of the milestone options like the start, end, middle of the work week; or the weekend? If that’s the reason, I guess Thursday would work too. It was a Monday, though, when I was given the news—expediency over unpredictability, I guess. In the same breath they complimented my hair, they told me my role had been made redundant. My friend in London complains she couldn’t get tickets to a band she’s seen thirty-eight times over the past two years. She says she hates when people assume she has rich parents, and wishes she could tell everyone she earns more money than her father ever did. When I was a child, I wished I had a thousand dollars. Now I wish I had problems a thousand dollars could fix.

Allison Thung (@poetrybyallison)

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Wrote a #poem about (not) retiring, getting retrenched, and all that fun stuff. #poetry

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

Allison Thung’s poems are narrational and intimate. Peppered with questions and lines inviting introspection, Reacquaint tells one side of a story, leaving each reader to find their own You. @poetrybyallison.bsky.social

Reacquaint
Allison Thung

cover:
A photo of the sun rising above a layer of cloud as seen through an airplane window. The fingers of a right hand rest on the glass above 'Poems by Allison Thung' is written in white. In the blue sky above the sunrise, the title 'REACQUAINT' appears in all caps white.

text:
Swimming as Allegory for Living

When I say I don't know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it properly. That they tried to teach me, bur gave up when I couldn't figure how to turn my head just enough to breathe, yet not sink. I mean I can do some half-assed version of the front crawl in which my face stays submerged for as long as I can hold my breath, while my arms slice through water in unintended tandem, and my feet paddle relentlessly like a runner duck's, propelling my body forward in small bursts, until it feels like my lungs will explode if I don't allow my head to break through the surface that very instant to take in as much air as I possibly can, even if the lost momentum causes me to sink like a stone. When I say I don't know how to swim, I mean I never learned to do it painlessly.

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Fahmidan Group @fahmidangroup.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Check out our first review for April on Molar by Allison Thung Read here: rb.gy/lseokl

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

“Damage / on a Tuesday; / consequence / on a Saturday.” (Damage) Thus begins the story that leads us to Molar, Allison Thung’s micro collection of poems that center her fractured relationship with her tooth. @poetrybyallison.bsky.social

Molar
Allison Thung

cover:
a photograph of a nori flecked roasted almond just like the one that broke the poet's tooth spurring the writing of this micro collection.

[]

The cheek.
the (removed)
nerve of it all.

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

I want more, so I can patchwork it all into some monstrous tribute to/cheap clone of you. Build a screwed up, Calvin-and-Hobbesque snowman of you. - Spring Print: kithbooks.com/shop/p/reacquaint eBook: kithbooks.com/digital/p/reacquaint @poetrybyallison.bsky.social

kithbooks.com

kith in print

A fluid blend of poetic forms, Reacquaint urges the reader to look back at how far they have come. There is a clarity that becomes apparent as our earlier selves pass into the rearview, & Thung stands...

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

we can't wait to see you! trans, Crip, queer books forever!

kith & kith authors
@awp

find us near concessions in the book fair at T1058

Date: March 27-29
Time: 9am-5pm

kith
AWP 2025
event schedule

2/26

nat raum & luna rey hall out like a lamb
7pm @ Lilly Rose

3/27

kith
9am-5pm Book Fair T1058

Mac Crane -Queer Poems & Dance Party
6pm @ Melody, 751 N Virgil Ave

Allison Thing ANMLY Friends & Enemies -
6:30pm ONLINE

Andrian Dallas Frandle -Writer's Karaoke
7pm @ The Stowaway

3/28

kith
9am-5pm Book Fair T1058

3/29

kith
9am-5pm Book Fair T1058

Davi Schweizer w/ Troublemaker Firestarter - The Literary Auction
6:30 Village Well Books

kith AWP 2025
friends of kith

troublemaker firestarter
912

Alternative Milk/JAKE
T915

new words {press}
T1040

Querencia
1057

Abode
T848

21812

Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

Thung stands in the first light of distance, reflecting back on all that's been said and done. Reacquaint meets us in this moment and urges the reader to see how far they've come. @poetrybyallison.bsky.social

Reacquaint
Allison Thung
cover: the view of a sunrise through an airplane window with the silhouette of a hand coming, fingers on the glass

the cover sits in a white circle surrounded by the title repeated over and over in all caps black on white

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

Allison Thung’s Molar centers her fractured relationship with her tooth. These poems are at once visceral and reflective. Floss in the gap between canine and incisor, Molar slips past the crown and exposes the bone. @poetrybyallison.bsky.social

Molar
Poems by Allison Thung
cover: a single glossy roasted almond flecked with nori on a background of pale grey

the cover image sits in a white circle surrounded by the book's title repeated over and over in black all caps on white

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Happy first birthday to my first book baby! If you have supported Reacquaint in any way at all this past year, thank you. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s available in both print and digital formats via @kithbooks.bsky.social here: www.kithbooks.com/shop/p/reacq... I hope you’ll check it out!

In the foreground, a hand holds up a copy of Reacquaint by Allison Thung. The text on the book cover says “Reacquaint” in all caps at the top and “Poems by Allison Thung” in sentence case at the bottom. In the background, out of focus, is a collection of vinyl records situated in a Kallax shelving unit, with a vinyl copy of Lord Huron’s Long Lost and a rosewood turntable placed side by side atop said unit.

A hand holds up a copy of Reacquaint by Allison Thung, with the book open to pages 36 and 37. Page 36 features the poem “Road Trip”, which goes as follows:

There is an inimitable kind of invincible you are at 19, making promises you cannot keep to friends you will not keep. Because hubris is not deception, and it's not a lie if you believe it. And at 19, there is no reason to disbelieve the plans you make with Sarah and Ed over McDonald's hashbrowns to road trip across California right after graduation, even though you paid with loose change in currency from a country 8,610 miles away. While Ed nods off in his seat from yet diagnosed narcolepsy, Sarah tells you how the best breakfast potatoes are always from diners attached to gas stations in the middle of nowhere, and you nod sagely as though you are in on the secret. For the rest of college, hashbrowns and gas stations alternate as shorthand or your grand plan, symbols of an unbreakable promise. But after comes 20, and after 20, 21. And one day you are suddenly a 30-year-old liar, Sarah is a text message from 6 years ago you never responded to, and Ed is Edmund or maybe Edward again. And though you will meet other people, go other places, and have other adventures, every so often you will think about the time you never pulled up to the gas station-diner combination at which Sarah had the best breakfast potatoes of her life, only to discover the entire place had long been abandoned for ruin, and the only lights you thought you saw incandesced from Sarah's memories and your imagination.

Page 37 is the subtitle page for the fourth and final section of the book. It says “IV. Release”.

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

Touching on embodiment, illness, burgeoning adulthood, and the emotional detritus of loves lost and found, Thung’s poems are peppered with questions prompting introspection. Reacquaint tells one side of a story, inviting each reader to imagine their own. @poetrybyallison.bsky.social

Allison Thung
Reacquaint
cover: photo of fingers pressed against the glass of an airplane window, a sunrise beyond

"In this deeply personal debut chapbook, Thung stuns, raising her voice with an uncanny lyricism all her own. 'with abandon, without regrets'."
- Sarah Clark

Available in print & eBook

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

If someone started a brand of eye drops called “House of Eyedration”, they’d have the perfect tagline in “Not a dry eye in the house”.

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

“Damage / on a Tuesday; / consequence / on a Saturday.” (Damage) Thus begins this micro collection centering Allison Thung’s fractured relationship with her tooth. Floss in the gap between canine and incisor, Molar slips past the crown and exposes the bone. @poetrybyallison.bsky.social

Allison Thung
Molar
a single glossy almond flecked with flakes of nori on a background of grey

"There is thrill
in feeling the
rigid shatter
against the
soft"

available in print and eBook

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · 16/01/2025

Call for Work: Until You Get Here, Queer Epistolaries Deadline: March 15, 2025 "Queer folks have been keeping each other company on the page for as long as we’ve existed—to practice solidarity, extend generosity, resist, wonder, flirt. The queer epistolary is a reverent space..."

medium.com

Call for Work: Until You Get Here, Queer Epistolaries

For six years and counting, we — Jody and Zoë — have been sending each other love notes: epistolary poems, long form emails with subject…

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

I’ve a poem in the latest issue of the inimitable @sixthfinch.bsky.social! Read “Second Nature” below, and be sure to check out the full issue here: sixthfinch.com/mainwinter25...

sixth finch
Winter 2025

Allison Thung | Second Nature

Life thus far but an exercise in fleeing from failure disguised as pursuing perfectionism and precision. To succeed in the least time and fewest attempts possible, and so always seeking to capture the perfect shot in no more than three presses of the shutter button, or finalise a poem in just two rounds of edits, or even determine on first encounter that those eventually loved will be worthy of that affection. And in each such endeavour, find propensity turn instinct, until no environment nor person however indulgent could ever be the safety needed to fail without fear.

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

I’ve a poem in the latest issue of the inimitable @sixthfinch.bsky.social! Read “Second Nature” below, and be sure to check out the full issue here: sixthfinch.com/mainwinter25...

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Stanchion @stanchion.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Anyone want to receive new books & exclusive goodies in the mail every other month? The 2025 Stanchion Book Club is on sale for $10 off this week! Ladies, Ladies, Ladies e-reader PDFs going to members soon! And you can use Klarna to pay in installments! www.stanchionzine.com/product-page...

stanchionzine.com

2025 Stanchion Book Club Membership | Stanchion

When you become a member of the 2025 Stanchion Book Club, you will receive the 6 physical books Stanchion will publish in 2025, but this is just the start of what's in store for you. You will also rec...

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

ANMLY @anmlymag.bsky.social · 03/11/2024

ANMLY: Friends & Enemies, an online reading March 27th, 6:30pm EST w/ sterling-elizabeth Arcadia, Rita Mookerjee, JL Moultrie, Allison Thung, Levi Cain, jonah wu, Aylli Cortez, & Temperance Aghamohammadi Add us to your calendar! More info coming soon!

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Thrilled to be kicking off the new year with new work in a longtime dream pub! Check out “Second Nature”, a prose poem about fear of failure: sixthfinch.com/thung1.html Full, gorgeous issue this way: sixthfinch.com/mainwinter25...

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 01/01/2025

Thrilled to be kicking off the new year with an acceptance from the incredible @sixthfinch.bsky.social! Looking forward to sharing my new poem with you all. 🩵

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

tell me I loved you like a renegade The Magi Come to Toronto by E.G.N Lafleur @egnlafleur.bsky.social Reacquaint by Allison Thung @poetrybyallison.bsky.social exit wound (no point of entry) by aera rege Propositions on Being Alive by Lilia Marie Ellis kithbooks.com/shop

tell me I loved you like a renegade

The Magi Come to Toronto by E.G.N Lafleur

a red and gold brocade depicting angels and fleur de lis

Reacquaint by Allison Thung

a photo of a hand on the glass of an airplane window looking out at a sunrise or sunset

exit wound (no point of entry) by aera rege

a purple tinted photo of two people curled into each other on an airplane. a strip is torn out across their faces to reveal a grey background bearing the title

Propositions on Being Alive by Lilia Marie Ellis a head with hair on fire in front of a sky of blue above a carpet of cloud with another cloud above

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

kith books @kithbooks.bsky.social · 28/12/2024

I have a permanent toothache and a cut in my cheek Book of Extraction: Poems with Teeth by Adrian Dallas Frandle @adrianf.bsky.social Toothache by Ozzy Welch Molar by Allison Thung @poetrybyallison.bsky.social

text reading 'kith' and 'I have a permanent toothache and a cut in my cheek' alongside the covers of the following books:

Book of Extraction: Poems with Teeth by Adrian Dallas Frandle

a black cover with gold text. the T in 'extraction' is replaced by a sword piercing a molar

Toothache by Ozzy Welch

a close up photograph of pale skin with white text

Molar by Allison Thung

a photo of a candied almond dotted with flecks of nori on a pale grey background

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

Such a particular affection I have for this time of year, by which I mean 26-31 December. There is a charm to every meal being leftovers made over, time having no real meaning, and not knowing if I truly exist.

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Love unexpectedly cracking a poem on which I’ve all but given up. We’re back on track with the fifth manuscript, baby.

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Last publication of the year, and how cool is it that it’s with the brilliant Gone Lawn! Huge thanks to Owen and Amy for giving the perfect home to “Foul” and “Fair”, two prose poems characterised by water and ire. Read them here: gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Gone Lawn Journal @gonelawn.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

The cold moon is here, and would you look at it? Such magical company, a darling of spheres, and it has lots to share with you! gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

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Chen Chen @chenchenwrites.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

i’ve got 2 new poems in Quarterly West!! here’s one of them, “12 Questions,” which is inspired by Bhanu Kapil’s questions from The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, a book i remain completely obsessed with for both poems: quarterlywest.com/issue-113-chen

12 Questions
after Bhanu Kapil

Who are you and whom do you
wish would text you back already?
What do you remember
about the umbrellas you’ve lost?
How will you begin
to forget the sound of your father’s sneeze,
once he is gone?
Can you describe a morning you woke
with utmost oomph?
What do you know
about disregarding all the decorum
of badminton?
Where will you one day go/In what forms
will you return?
Who was responsible for the suffering
of your mother’s mother?
What is the shape of your booty?
How would you live, if you had to live forever,
as a melodramatic vampire?
What are the consequences of reading
the world’s saddest poems?
How will you/have you prepared
for your friends’ deaths?
What would you keep secret if you could?

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

How I know I've been submitting work a while: a journal with which I have a pending submission followed me on social, and my first instinct was not "omg a positive sign" but "I sense a rejection on the horizon". (Still hope it's gonna be an acceptance tho)

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Decided to treat myself again this year and bought a membership! New tradition?

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Finally got around to opening mail that arrived while I was away on vacation, and was happy to find amongst the bills and notifications the Autumn 2024 anthology by @querenciapress.bsky.social. Check out “Poem about”, one of two poems I have in this gorgeous publication!

Photograph of a print copy of Querencia Press’s Autumn 2024 anthology, as edited by Emily Perkovich.

The text on the cover of the book says:

Querencia Press
Autumn 2024
Edited by Emily Perkovich

Poem about - Allison Thung (she/her)

1. No one

All I have remaining of you is the belief that I have anything remaining of you.

Il. Nothing

Perhaps the only time there was a point at all was at the very start, but only for an instant, before it meandered into a perpetual line that ends only when I stop drawing it out.

IlI. Nowhere

The worst part is not the never-ending chase itself, but the lack of clarity on the purpose of the chase, such that all it becomes, is a run, from or to what also unknown, and god knows l'd rather miss a bus from no-where to now-here than run.

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I’m jet-lagged and up at nearly 6 am, so here’s a piece published earlier this year with Corporeal lit mag entitled “Hair as”. Two more poems from that issue here: www.corporeallitmag.com/volume-14/al...

Hair as

another’s inconvenience to solve, so that bob becomes a dirty word, haircut a threat, and every longhaired girl my age the embodiment of envy.

Hair as object of scorn; length, parting, accessories all gateways to mockery couched as harmless little jokes.

Hair as first instance of femininity, left untied in attempt to retain salon’s costly efforts, but intentionally misunderstood as challenge to authority.

Hair as grounds for experimentation, which is to say bob is still a dirty word, but then what teenager doesn’t venture the occasional cuss?

Hair as symbol of semi-requited love, snipped and braided and mailed eleven thousand, two hundred, and forty kilometres northwest, alongside candy five dollars too pricey.

Hair as assertion of unique identity, from medium brown, to light brown, to red, to red, to red, to copper, to violet, to ash brown, to sometimes wishing it was red again.

Hair as source of frustration, bluntly cut in the bathroom with a pair of kitchen scissors, as the rest of the world fell away.

Hair as sacrifice to illness and cure, littering the ground like leaves of brown and red and copper, grief made inaudible first by gratitude for being alive at all, and then the low roar of vacuum running daily.

Hair as source of comfort, in all its glory once more, only signs of its rigours the just in case cloth caps still in the cupboard, and the always insistence on shoulder length and beyond.

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Todd Dillard @toddedillard.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

one of two new poems in @ex-puritan.bsky.social today among so many, many friends! "...she says a poem where nothing impossible happens in it, just the truth, and I say OK and put her in this poem and she sprouts forty two robin wings down her neck and back and legs..."

My Daughter Asks Me to Write an Honest Poem

And when I ask what she means she says a poem
where nothing impossible happens in it, just the truth,
and I say OK and put her in this poem and she sprouts
forty two robin wings down her neck and back and legs
and she says why would you do that, that’s not true
and I say OK I say Sorry and I put an orchard
in her arms, a huge orchard, with rows of pear trees,
and it’s spring and a million white blossoms fur her skin like snow
and she says DAD she says THIS ISN’T REAL and
I say I am sorry my love I didn’t mean to it’s just that
but it’s too late, she’s gone upstairs, I hear her feet
march across the floorboards, soft claps
like a dozen cages closing in a bird shop that specializes
in songless birds, and once more winter settles softly
in my mind, I walk my orchard’s empty rows and remember
how full my arms used to be when my daughter was young,
how busy my hands, my sad, empty hands
reaching for this liar’s pen.

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

sarah clark (they) @sarahclark.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

Sundress Publications is open for submissions for grant applications from Palestinian writers with a chapbook or full-length book in progress. All eligible authors are welcome to submit during our application period which closes on December 31st, 2024. www.sundresspublications.com/submit#pgrant

sundresspublications.com

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Rogue Agent Journal @rogueagent.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Congratulations to our Pushcart nominees! Christy Lee Barnes, Andrea Janelle Dickens, Karol Olesiak, Kevin Roy, Jennifer Saunders (@magpiedays.bsky.social), and Allison Thung (@poetrybyallison.bsky.social).

A red image with a skeleton statue with a bird on its shoulder. The words "Pushcart Prize Nominees in poetry. Christy Lee Barnes 'In full sun,' Andrea Janelle Dickens, 'Feeling the pulse in,' Karol Olesiak, 'Sick haibun,' Kevin Roy, 'The lightning whelk,' Jennifer Saunders, 'Fermentation,' and Allison Thung, 'For now.'"

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Absolutely flipping out! Huge thanks to @rogueagent.bsky.social, both for nominating and initially publishing this piece so close to my heart. Check out my poem “For Now” below 🖤

Allison Thung

FOR NOW

In this lifetime
spent primarily
pursuing pleasure
and avoiding
harm—amidst
sheets impossibly
silken, easily caught
buses missed due
to a refusal to run,
voices so soft they
require a gradual
lean towards
to catch every
word—so that
the senses are
smoothed almost
to dullness, I
ground myself
back into the
body with the
smallest and most
controlled of pains.
Every so often,
too-long fingernails
to the palm when
the fist is clenched,
or calculated
carelessness near
the mouth of a
cooling oven.
Which is to say,
afford me the
most minute of
consequences
accompanied by
absolutely no
permanence, a
sharpness so
blunted it is
metaphorical, if
only until I find
some better way
to recall that I am,
beyond soul and
sentience, also
embodiment.

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Travelling as a poet is scary, because what if I come home without inspiration for at least five poems, if not a chapbook?

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Reposted by Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now

Todd Dillard @toddedillard.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

if you're ever worried a poem is boring just swap every period in it for an exclamation mark and add "(While Falling Down a Hill)" to the title

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Allison Thung | Reacquaint & Molar out now @poetrybyallison.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Turns out, all I needed to actually read the books I have, was a nice armchair in the corner of my living room. Finished Yellowface in just a few sittings, and on to Convenience Store Woman now.

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