Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I haven’t made one of these since I was a teenager, though I put this image through some filters on my iPhone. 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Sometimes, rejection, even rejection without comment, is clarifying in a way that even the best editorial feedback is not, making it possible to move forward with a writing project in a direction you’d never before considered that has far more potential than the one you’d been pursuing.richardjnewman.com(Untitled)Sometimes, rejection, even rejection without comment, is clarifying in a way that even the best editorial feedback is not, making it possible to move forward with a writing project in a direction you’... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 06/09/2026One Who Came Back One Who Came Back I can't be sure why we should want you among us ... so I'm out here in the moonlight pounding nails in your footprints as if that could make you stay. ... To read the whole poem, click the link.richardjnewman.comOne Who Came BackI am fascinated by this poem by David Young. 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 28/08/2026The poem I read to my wife at our wedding, four women artists you probably haven’t heard of, music by Alice Coltrane and others, and more are collected in this month’s Four by Four. Check it out!richardjnewman.comFour by Four #58Four Things To Read, Four Things To See, Four Things To Listen To, and Four Things About Me 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 24/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 24 I like it when my friend has lovers, their happy moans, unrestrained, fill the house with the glee of her prowess. —from “For Every Heart,” in Perpetua, by Olga Broumas #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 24The Sealey Challenge Day 24 I like it when my friend has lovers, their happy moans, unrestrained, fill the house with the glee of her prowess. —from “For Every Heart,” in Perpetua, by Olga Broumas ... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 23/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 23 ...and the globe might shake us off its flank like quarry dust and start again with something less free, less wrecked by greed but it suffers us on its blue cetacean patience like festered barnacles. from “The Massacre,” in Perpetua, by Olga Broumas #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 23The Sealey Challenge Day 23 ...and the globe might shake us off its flank like quarry dust and start again with something less free, less wrecked by greed but it suffers us on its blue cetacean patie... 010
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 20/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 20 By day, I ask of those who come to me for answers, what would you say, asked by a poet whose tongue and nails have been removed, whose nipples are cratered with ash, to account for your freedom? —from “Evensong,” in Perpetua, by Olga Broumas #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 20The Sealey Challenge Day 20 By day, I ask of those who come to me for answers, what would you say, asked by a poet whose tongue and nails have been removed, whose nipples are cratered with ash, to a... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 19/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 18 To spite, to tease, to be and not be his look-alike, his twin. I hid the woman in his heart so long I had forgotten. Face I’m forever about to know. —from “Body,” in Pastoral Jazz, Olga Broumas’ third book #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 18The Sealey Challenge Day 18 I cut it off myself both times I married, veiled the attentive temples, the long spine. To spite, to tease, to be and not be his look-alike, his twin. I hid the woman in h... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 18/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 17 To love the body to love its work to love the hand that praises both to praise the body and to love the soul that dreams and wakes us back alive against the slothful odds... —from “Sweeping the Garden,” from Soie Sauvage, Olga Broumas’ second book #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 17The Sealey Challenge Day 17 To love the body to love its work to love the hand that praises both to praise the body and to love the soul that dreams and wakes us back alive against the slothful odds.... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 17/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 16 "In the gazebo-like café, you gave me food from your plate, alert to my blood-sweet hungers double-edged in the glare of the sun’s and our own twin heat." “Amazon Twins,” from Beginning With O, Olga Broumas’ first book #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 16The Sealey Challenge Day 16 In the gazebo-like café, you gave me food from your plate, alert to my blood-sweet hungers double-edged in the glare of the sun’s and our own twin heat “Amazon Twins,” fr... 010
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 16/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 15 Now I know less, and better. I’ve grown less lean, less easily pleased: I’m tenderer, harder, angry at all I’ve not become; I’m more worn, more generous, more strengely myself. And more horny. “Snapshot,” from Selected New Poems #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 15The Sealey Challenge Day 15 Now I know less, and better. I’ve grown less lean, less easily pleased: I’m tenderer, harder, angry at all I’ve not become; I’m more worn, more generous, more strengely my... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026Wrestling with yourself like that, if you’re honest about it, is to court what can be a very frightening vulnerability, because it means by definition having the audacity to lay claim to a readership’s attention...richardjnewman.comTo Write Is To Sit In Confrontation With YourselfWrestling with yourself like that, if you’re honest about it, is to court what can be a very frightening vulnerability, because it means by definition having the audacity to lay claim to a readership’... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 14/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 14 Beyond naming names, nothing can help. I learn my limits, I write what I can: I didn’t become a poet for nothing. from Before Sleep, Philip Booth’s sixth book. #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 14The Sealey Challenge Day 14 Beyond naming names, nothing can help. I learn my limits, I write what I can: I didn’t become a poet for nothing. from Before Sleep, Philip Booth’s sixth book. #theseale... 010
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 13/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 12 It is being offshore: nothing that’s not horizon. It is, beyond beacons, sailing alone. Nothing, beyond one’s compass, to point or warn. from “It Is Being,” in Available Light, Booth’s fifth book. #TheSealeyChallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 12The Sealey Challenge Day 12 It is being offshore: nothing that’s not horizon. It is, beyond beacons, sailing alone. Nothing, beyond one’s compass, to point or warn. from “It Is Being,” in Available ... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 12/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 11 ...we grope, for clothes and coffee, our selves woken by waking beside each other: who climb back down from separate sleep and are, by morning, married. from “Native to Valleys,” in Margins, Booth’s fourth book. #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 11The Sealey Challenge Day 11 ...we grope, for clothes and coffee, our selves woken by waking beside each other: who climb back down from separate sleep and are, by morning, married. from “Native to ... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 11/08/2026That moment when you’re rereading a poet who was important to you when you were learning to be a poet and you recognize, viscerally, a lesson you learned from them that you are still learning in your own, when your lineage becomes inescapably visible to you in the felt power of a master’s work. 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 11/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 10 ...the poem, the poem that must map the bottom of here, would be some sort of base to start out from. from “Heart of Darkness,” in Weathers and Edges, Booth’s third book. #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 10The Sealey Challenge Day 10 ...the poem, the poem that must map the bottom of here, would be some sort of base to start out from. from “Heart of Darkness,” in Weathers and Edges, Booth’s third book.... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 10/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 9 "I love you by the terms/I make to give you." from “Adam,” in Letter from a Distant Land, Booth’s first book. #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 9The Sealey Challenge Day 9 I love you by the terms/I make to give you. from “Adam,” in Letter from a Distant Land, Booth’s first book. #thesealeychallenge 010
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 09/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 8 She never knew what to expect from her furtive trysts with death And much to her amazement, She realized that had made her husk of a life worth living. —from “The Cancer Chronicles,” in No Surrender, Ai’s eighth book. #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 8The Sealey Challenge Day 8 She never knew what to expect from her furtive trysts with death And much to her amazement, She realized that had made her husk of a life worth living. from “The Cancer Ch... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 08/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 7 A woman is not a horse you can trade, sell or shoot when you get tired of her. I realize now that it’s too late a man can learn from his mistakes. A few good women is all it takes. from “The Saga of Charlie Smith,” in Dread, Ai’s seventh book. #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 7The Sealey Challenge Day 7 A woman is not a horse you can trade, sell or shoot when you get tired of her. I realize now that it’s too late a man can learn from his mistakes. A few good women is all i... 020
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 07/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 6 I don’t want the truth, I want the lies, so look this way, say something nasty. Don’t be shy. from “The Paparazzi,” in Vice, Ai’s sixth book. #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 6The Sealey Challenge Day 6 I don’t want the truth, I want the lies, so look this way, say something nasty. Don’t be shy. from “The Paparazzi,” in Vice, Ai’s sixth book. #thesealeychallenge 020
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 06/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 5 When the police come, I’m sitting at the table, the cup of coffee that I am unable to drink as cold as you body. I shot him, I say, he beat me. I do not tell them how the emancipation from pain leaves nothing in its place. from “Finished,” in Greed #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 5The Sealey Challenge Day 5 When the police come, I’m sitting at the table, the cup of coffee that I am unable to drink as cold as you body. I shot him, I say, he beat me. I do not tell them how the e... 010
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 05/08/2026The Sealey Challenge - Day 4 “You tricked me,” he gasped as he poured himself into my glass and I drank him like grappa made from grapes I'd picked with my own hands. from “Capture” in Fate, Ai's fourth book #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 4The Sealey Challenge Day 4 from “Capture” in Fate, Ai's fourth book “You tricked me,” he gasped as he poured himself into my glass and I drank him like grappa made from grapes I'd picked wit... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 04/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 3 Manhood, a dream, an illusion, I think, as I lay down the photograph and stand still in the anemic glow of the darkroom lights, my body giving off the formaldehyde smell of the unknown. from “The Journalist,” in Sin, Ai’s third book. #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 3The Sealey Challenge Day 3 Manhood, a dream, an illusion, I think, as I lay down the photograph and stand still in the anemic glow of the darkroom lights, my body giving off the formaldehyde smell of... 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 03/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 2 #thesealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 2God. The boot heel an inch above your head is mine. God, say your prayers. —from Killing Floor, Ai’s second book 020
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 01/08/2026The Sealey Challenge Day 1 For this year’s Sealey challenge, I'm reading the collected volumes on my shelf, starting with Ai’s. I first learned from her about immersing yourself fully in a poem’s voice. Her first book was Cruelty. #sealeychallengerichardjnewman.comThe Sealey Challenge Day 1For this year’s Sealey challenge, I'm reading the collected volumes on my shelf, starting with Ai’s. I first learned from her about immersing yourself fully in a poem’s voice. Her first book was Cruel... 010
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 23/05/2026Thank you to the editors of these three journals, each of which recently published a poem from 2020, my new collection of poems, that will be out in 2027 from Fernwood Press. 020
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 17/05/2026In a world that seems more and more troubled by disruption, It All Connects is where I work out for myself how to live in, with, and through the identities that define me. If you find yourself struggling with that same unsettling sense of discontinuity, this newsletter is for you.richardjnewman.comIt All Connects...I'm a poet and essayist. I write about poetry, writing, and translation; gender and sexuality; Jewish identity and culture; and the politics of higher education. 020
Reposted by Richard Jeffrey NewmanDave Bonta @davebonta.bsky.social · 05/05/2026Diamonds aren't forever & other truth-bombs with @lesleymwheeler.bsky.social @renee-emerson.bsky.social @kristybowen.bsky.social @saudaminideo.bsky.social @robmclennan.bsky.social @emmalee1.bsky.social @kimmoorepoet.bsky.social @richardjnewman.bsky.social 3/3 www.vianegativa.us/2026/05/poet...vianegativa.usPoetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 18A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere. 153
Reposted by Richard Jeffrey NewmanDave Bonta @davebonta.bsky.social · 31/03/2026This week in the poetry blogs with @jntod.bsky.social @loriaustex.bsky.social @richardjnewman.bsky.social @billymills.bsky.social @mayacpopa.bsky.social @dominicrivron.bsky.social @victoriamoul.bsky.social @suefinch.bsky.social 1/3 www.vianegativa.us/2026/03/poet...vianegativa.usPoetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 13A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. 286
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 27/02/2026I am happy to say that three poems from my manuscript called 2020 have been published on Unlikely Stories. “Since You Asked” is written in elegiac couplets and “The Coming Storm is a ghazal, each of which presented its own, very interesting challenges.unlikelystories.org"Making It Up As I Go Along 2," "Since You Asked," and "The Coming Storm"Making It Up As I Go Along 2 Sipping club sodawithout his usual twist of lime,watching the flatscreen TVmounted on the wallwhere four owners agodart-playing patronsate Buffalo wingsand drank imported ... 010
Reposted by Richard Jeffrey NewmanDave Bonta @davebonta.bsky.social · 27/01/2026This week in the poetry blogs with @shawnalemay.bsky.social @katiemanningpoet.bsky.social @emmalee1.bsky.social @richardjnewman.bsky.social @billymills.bsky.social @kent-nj.bsky.social @robin-gow-poet.bsky.social 1/4 www.vianegativa.us/2026/01/poet...vianegativa.usPoetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 4A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. 2147
Reposted by Richard Jeffrey NewmanRebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 17/01/2026I write for the pretty left Guardian which has five front-page pieces about Iran up right now, which is an interesting version of silence, but what kind of noise exactly what category of person is supposed to make to beat the Bureau's charges would be nice to know. 623417
Reposted by Richard Jeffrey NewmanRebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 17/01/2026Is there a bureau of exactly how much everyone should care about each thing and does the Atlantic run it and how does it measure that care and who exactly is the left anyway, and here we are in the US of A where the right regards human rights violations unto death with grisly enthusiasm, hello? 50885144
Reposted by Richard Jeffrey NewmanRebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 17/01/2026Will add that there were three left solidarity w/Iran protests in the Bay Area so far & some very useful voices still publish in the Atlantic, so maybe people could save the word "Nazi" for the abundant actual Nazis now. 4907
Reposted by Richard Jeffrey NewmanRebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 17/01/2026Also protests in NYC and L.A., which seems like non-silence, but maybe the authors of the above pieces checked and no one in any of them was The Left? 4825
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 14/01/2026Wise words. If you’re a poet, click through. 010
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 13/01/2026This is so true and so easy to forget. 010
Reposted by Richard Jeffrey NewmanMayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 09/01/2026As I said earlier today, chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city. We will continue to ensure New Yorkers’ safety entering and exiting houses of worship as well as the constitutional right to protest. 1401383190
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 19/12/2025I don’t know why nights three and four burned faster than the others. 000
Reposted by Richard Jeffrey NewmanJoan Stavo-Debauge @jostavodebauge.eurosky.social · 08/12/2025Le GOP est aux mains de la droite chrétienne, qui apprend à ses ouailles à se méfier systématiquement de l'expertise scientifique et historique, au moins depuis la croisade anti-évolutionniste des années 1920. L'enseignement de la Shoah est une victime collatérale de cette méfiance 🤷♂️ 12914
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 24/11/2025"Men denounce the negro for his prominence in this discussion; but it is no fault of his that in...conquering Rebel armies as in reconstructing the rebellious States, the right of the negro is the true solution of our national troubles." —from Frederick Douglass' "Reconstruction," in The Atlanticrichardjnewman.comFour by Four #50Four Things To Read, Four Things To See, For Things To Listen To, and Four Things About Me 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 07/11/2025Personally, I have no use for the kind of binary set up by the idea of “the true poet”—what, then, is a false poet?—and I would prefer to call “the first person impersonal” an invitation rather than permission, but everything else Hamill says in that quote rings true for me... #writing #poetryfernwoodpress.comThe Kind Of Courage These Times Call ForAll men and women are to each other the limbs of a single body, each of us drawn from life’s shimmering essence, God’s perfect pearl; and when this life we share wounds one of us,&nb… 020
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 28/10/2025[T]his was in large measure why I didn’t get very far in The Screwtape Letter: I found it hard to take the Christianness of the material very seriously. I had a similar issue with the The Lord of The Rings, in which Frodo "suffers for the sake of us all.”richardjnewman.comFour by Four #49Four Things To Read, Four Things To See, For Things To Listen To, and Four Things About Me 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 19/10/2025From my Scrapbook:richardjnewman.comFour FlowersI'm a poet and essayist. I write about poetry, writing, and translation; gender and sexuality; Jewish identity and culture; and the politics of higher education. 000
Richard Jeffrey Newman @richardjnewman.bsky.social · 12/10/2025For me, the spiritual practice of writing poetry locates itself in the moment that the language in which I am immersed opens up into possibilities I neither predicted nor consciously desired and the decision I have to make about whether to trust where that language will lead me. #writing #poetryrichardjnewman.comPoetry Versus Propaganda: When a Poem Devolves Into RhetoricThe difference between poetry and rhetoric is being ready to kill yourself instead of your children. —Audre Lorde, “Power” Back in 2019, I was asked to review a book of poems by Steven Sher called C... 020
