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Sam Rasnake

@samrasnake.bsky.social
1.8K followers 1.2K following 5.3K posts

Scribbler of words... Fallen Leaves (Ballerini Book Press, forthcoming), Like a Thread to Follow (Cyberwit), Cinéma Vérité (A-Minor Press), World within the World (Cyberwit), Inside a Broken Clock (Finishing Line Press).

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Sam Rasnake @samrasnake.bsky.social · 9h
#174: REM, “Radio Free Europe” A track from Murmur, one of the strongest recording debuts ever. youtu.be/njoIPDlA7gs
youtu.be
Radio Free Europe (Remastered 2006)
YouTube video by R.E.M. - Topic
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Kathy Fish @kathyfish.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Went on a bit of a submission tear this afternoon! Been some time since I've done this. Aimed high. Felt very good. 🤞
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Dan Crawley @danbillyc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Very cool! 🎉🎉🎉
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Jenny Wong @jenwithwords.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“You say: One day.” Get lost in this beauty by @pdforan.bsky.social in @lit-namjooning.bsky.social
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Rose Knapp 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @roseknapp.bsky.social · 22h
Mau by Insolate music.apple.com/us/album/mau... #techno
music.apple.com
Mau - EP by Insolate on Apple Music
Album · 2026 · 4 Songs
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Rose Knapp 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @roseknapp.bsky.social · 22h
Krux by VRIL music.apple.com/us/album/kru... #techno
music.apple.com
KRUX by VRIL on Apple Music
Album · 2026 · 13 Songs
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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I tried to find words for what enchanted me in Helene Bessette’s TWENTY MINUTES OF SILENCE. thetorontoreview.ca/twenty-minut...
thetorontoreview.ca
First as Fact, then as Fiction | Toronto Review
Alongside dramatic theories of motivation, true crime builds up a set of templates for “recognizing” the criminal in our neighbours. But the frisson of the blame-and-shame cycle doesn’t offer a soluti...
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Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
today for #twopageplustuesday, another poem by Carl R. Martin: “Poe ambling through streets of Baltimore in the drunk election crowd/ or the donkey whose tail stands up, his profile that belies the moon. […] I have no promises to keep except to love & die & dream,/ to tend the dryads in the trees…”
PERCHANCE
"Ambling with intent not pursuant to criminal acts."
Poe ambling through streets of Baltimore in the drunk election crowd or the donkey whose tail stands up, his profile that belies the moon.
In a rooming house for single girls Poe's silhouette is on the block.
Winter is cold, protectors scarce, "romance" is not in command.
Milk is pay. With heads unshorn the poor are "beastly dead" whom horse-drawn hearses ferry out among the witching trees.
The donkey's head is on the block, resurrection is his fate.
Branches drift within the sky; bloomers are hanging in the trees softly blown in wild, earthy directions home.
The woods are gentle, dark, and deep, and I'm forever half asleep since I discovered midnight's seams where truth's awry.
I have no promises to keep except to love & die & dream, to tend the dryads in the trees who are far lovelier than leaves and do not hold to chopping wood.
I know these ethics seem at fault, but think of such adventurers that made the ruddy Hudson seem like some dense Amazonian stream in oils that may yet amaze, somewhat restored, a bit less crazed.
Even the dream must suffer art, a meticulous eternity through privileged forays of the brush where wild birds treat the canvassed slough with soothing chemistry and song (excuse the Brit vernacular) and grant it lasting threads of life.
Mark Twain became the white-haired cigar-wielding swainwho preferred his Hartford sitting room, exclusively by Tiffany, and did not hold to chopping wood.
Perchance to dream: fleetingly obscene and thoroughly American.Rogue Hemlocks by Carl Martin
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Eunoia Review @eunoiareview.bsky.social · 19h
A True Amen Reading a dead poet arguing that there's no god seems to at least prove something about the way ghosts can be born from words and a true amen might be the silence between turning pages. Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He writes poems. His last…
eunoiareview.wordpress.com
A True Amen
Reading a dead poet arguing that there's no god seems to at least prove something about the way ghosts can be born from words and a true amen might be the silence between turning pages. Richard LeDue (he/him) lives in Norway House, Manitoba, Canada. He writes poems. His last collection, Existential Drunk, was released from Alien Buddha Press in May 2026.
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Stone Circle Review @stonecirclereview.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I depend on serendipity. I pray for what may be referred to as the angel of chance. -- Sally Mann
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 11h
poem from my little chap with @the-ethelzine.bsky.social
Dialogue

Judith and her Maidservant (1613-14)

Where shall we put the head?

It drips through the basket.
Put your hair in braids tonight, my love.
Set pearls in your ears.

We have tasks. Tasks that require 
a weapon. Tie your laces. Bring

a basket. Bring your mother's 
basket, the one that could hold

a pig's head. Bring a white cloth.
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Sam Rasnake @samrasnake.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Osip Mandelstam, “Nowhere Air” Like water trickling from the highest ice Its bracing ache, its brain-shard sweetness, Its nowhere air of utter now, So my sigh has lost its source, And I live by meanings I cannot comprehend, For every instant I must taste the instant that I end. [Tr. C Wiman]
Osip Mandelstam, “Nowhere Air”

Like water trickling from the highest ice
Its bracing ache, its brain-shard sweetness,
Its nowhere air of utter now,
 
So my sigh has lost its source,
And I live by meanings I cannot comprehend,
For every instant I must taste the instant that I end.

[Tr. C Wiman]
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Sam Rasnake @samrasnake.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
From Rolling Stone’s list (2021): The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time… #178: Billie Eilish, “Bad Guy” youtu.be/xpRxgwO00Kg
youtu.be
Billie Eilish - Bad Guy
YouTube video by Ladex Online
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Dave Bonta @davebonta.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Ghost pixels, locoweed & more with @jntod.bsky.social @johnglenday.bsky.social @victoriaspires.bsky.social @johnsiddique.bsky.social @emmalee1.bsky.social @samrasnake.bsky.social @sallythomasnc.bsky.social @coastalpoet.bsky.social @susanrich-poet18.bsky.social 2/3 www.vianegativa.us/2026/09/poet...
vianegativa.us
Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 39
A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere, including Substack, with a commitment to following a somewhat haphazardly chosen selection of poets, poetry lovers, literary cr…
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Veronika Fuchs @veronikafuchs.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
@minorfracas.bsky.social
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DeMisty D. Bellinger @demisty.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Getting ready to talk about sugar in my intro to African American studies class today, and was looking for artifacts of Kara Walker's awesome exhibit. This particular video is interesting in that two white men are preparing this sculpture for a showing. But interesting how? (There may be a poem?)
youtube.com
Behind the Scenes with a Kara Walker Sculpture
YouTube video by Museum of the City of New York
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Pat Foran @pdforan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
“Because of all the raggedy people in our unfinished house smelling of sawdust, cigarettes, and beer, I loved you best.” @nbrogdonwrites.bsky.social in @lit-namjooning.bsky.social
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RobertFredeKenter @rfredekenter.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
An incisive miniature; health care, work, vision. Greg Mulchay at Ice Floe Press w/art by yours truly. #prose #writing #precisoin #healthcare #anomie #USwriting #art @icefloepress.bsky.social Christ could write, but he wrote in the sand. icefloepress.net/2026/09/28/p...
icefloepress.net
PITY  – Prose by Greg Mulcahy
PITY              He was at the clinic looking to solve the moment’s limp with magic nonsurgical intervention to abate the bad knee.…
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Ice Floe Press (OPEN for Subs June - July 2026) @icefloepress.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New at Dis/enchantment/Anomie/Spectacle series a new prose work: unique, precise, magical by noted American #author Greg Mulcahy #prose #GregMulcahy #Art @rfredekenter.bsky.social If I could tell the dead so the dead would listen, I would tell the dead to shut up. icefloepress.net/2026/09/28/p...
icefloepress.net
PITY  – Prose by Greg Mulcahy
PITY              He was at the clinic looking to solve the moment’s limp with magic nonsurgical intervention to abate the bad knee.…
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Melissa Ostrom @melostrom.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Congratulations, @susanlleary.bsky.social!💙📚🎉
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Rose Knapp 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @roseknapp.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
EB004 by Estella Boersma music.apple.com/us/album/eb0... #techno
music.apple.com
EB004 - EP by Estella Boersma on Apple Music
Album · 2026 · 4 Songs
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Rose Knapp 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @roseknapp.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Wet by Black Meteoric Star & Gavilan Rayna Russom music.apple.com/us/album/wet... #electronicmusic
music.apple.com
Wet by Black Meteoric Star & Gavilán Rayna Russom on Apple Music
Album · 2026 · 9 Songs
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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Linda Gregg
THE WIFE
My husband sucks her tits.
He walks into the night, her Roma, his being alive.
Toward that outer love. I wait in the hotel until four. I lurch from the bed
talking to myself, watch my face in the mirror.
I change my eyes, making them darker.
Take it easy, I say. It is a long time to wait in, this order of reality. My presence stings.
I grow specific without consequence.
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Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Lorine Niedecker
We are what the seas
have made us

longingly immense

the very veery
on the fence
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Eunoia Review @eunoiareview.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Violets We both sink into quicksand, unsure of who dragged whom. You struggle free, while I cave in, down into the marbles & shells. Deeper, now bumping coccyx bone on the longshore trough. Body molding in a fetal position, a daring sun would mummify & carve. You don't stretch your hand out to…
eunoiareview.wordpress.com
Violets
We both sink into quicksand, unsure of who dragged whom. You struggle free, while I cave in, down into the marbles & shells. Deeper, now bumping coccyx bone on the longshore trough. Body molding in a fetal position, a daring sun would mummify & carve. You don't stretch your hand out to save me, from your own pool of tears, sorrow from nowhere,
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is such a heartbreaking story, and so deeply relatable. Have been thinking about it all day…
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Stone Circle Review @stonecirclereview.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I remember my Thanksgiving poem being pinned to the school bulletin board, where everyone could see it, and leaves cut out of orange construction paper were stapled all around it. It is the one poem I am still trying to write. -- Mary Ruefle, Madness, Rack, and Honey
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Sam Rasnake @samrasnake.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Cristina Peri Rossi
Cristina Peri Rossi

Which home is mine?
Where do I live?
My home is writing
I dwell in her like the house
of the errant daughter
the prodigal
who always returns to see familiar faces
the only fire that never dies.
My home is writing
house of one hundred doors and windows
alternately opening and closing
When I lose one key
I find another
when a window closes
I break down a door

[Tr. Elizabeth Rose]
Cristina Peri Rossi
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Lisa @lisasass.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
‘Nite, peeps. Ste-Colombe. Tombeau “Les Regrets” Viola da gamba: Alison Crum, Elizabeth Liddle, Susanna Pell youtube.com/watch?v=2hNn... #ClassicalMusic
Portrait of Mario Benedetti.
Text:

"IF EVERYTHING YOU OFFERED WAS NOT ENOUGH, OFFER YOUR ABSENCE"
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Veronika Fuchs @veronikafuchs.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
"I would say this landscape Too is a document. But What is landscape? A procession Across the soul that thinks It's entering something? Then the cold, dunk withdrawal. It's something that can never be read again Or even once." John Ashbery, from "The Foggiest"
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Kathy Fish @kathyfish.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
"Parents and teachers give scary lectures about strangers in cars, strangers in parks, strangers in malls. They seem to believe you have the power to prevent your own kidnapping." A really well done segmented flash by @janstinchcomb.bsky.social Read it!
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Dan Crawley @danbillyc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
"But there ain’t no law in boomtown." Wow, this extraordinary micro by @tomljanovic.bsky.social in @ellipsiszine.bsky.social 💙💙💙
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Dan Crawley @danbillyc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
This is so cool! Congrats @sherrieflick.bsky.social 🎉🎉🎉
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Vikki C. @vikkicwrites.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
'To the earth's edge, where difference ends' From The Maybe-Bird (The Song Cave) by Jennifer Elise Foerster 🤍 #poetry #poetrycommunity
'To the earth's edge, where difference ends'

From The Maybe-Bird (The Song Cave) by Jennifer Elise Foerster
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Rose Knapp 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @roseknapp.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Hotel Room by Claire Rousay & Martyna Basta music.apple.com/us/album/hot... #experimentalmusic
music.apple.com
hotel room by claire rousay & Martyna Basta on Apple Music
Album · 2026 · 6 Songs
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Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Joseph Donahue
Something somewhere
is eclipsing something else.
Now, suddenly, looking up,
the sky is different. Some
great joy may be about
to transform your life.
The moon glows red.
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Eunoia Review @eunoiareview.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Sunday Dinner in Jackson County She is taking the china from the cabinet, Its creaking oak softly groaning out the name of Years, and years, and people you won't ever know. She is laying each plate on the table, And then she is smoothing the folds below each piece of tender silver, Each fork, each…
eunoiareview.wordpress.com
Sunday Dinner in Jackson County
She is taking the china from the cabinet, Its creaking oak softly groaning out the name of Years, and years, and people you won't ever know. She is laying each plate on the table, And then she is smoothing the folds below each piece of tender silver, Each fork, each spoon, each lightly tarnished knife. She is lining the table with napkins folded…
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The chickens are circling and blotting out the day. Kay Ryan
poets.org
Home to Roost
The chickens
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Stone Circle Review @stonecirclereview.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Best of the Net noms have been sent in! I'll be announcing the names later this week.
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Stone Circle Review @stonecirclereview.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
In case you missed it this morning...
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Sam Rasnake @samrasnake.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
From Rolling Stone’s list (2021): The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time… #179: Pink Floyd, “Comfortably Numb” Aahh. Pink Floyd, The Wall youtu.be/eoGXqpaAxJY
youtu.be
Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb - Remastered
YouTube video by Brian Martens Music
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Sam Rasnake @samrasnake.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
From Rolling Stone’s list (2021): The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time… #181: The Temptations, “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” youtu.be/Jzly6jrepRU
youtu.be
The Temptations - Papa was a rolling stone (high sound quality)
YouTube video by Fernando Labrador
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Sam Rasnake @samrasnake.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Psychological dramas, 1990s Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Stanley Kubrick, dir. Photo: Kubrick directing; stills
Psychological dramas, 1990s

Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Stanley Kubrick, dir.

Photo: Kubrick directing; stils

Stanley Kubrick’s final film is either well loved or thoroughly hated. There’s little to no middle ground. An analysis of the film by Sven Mikulec in Cinephelia & Beyond states, “Kubrick relied on psychology in the process of preparing his lead actor and actress for the shoot. Kidman and Cruise were Hollywood’s hottest couple, but during filming Kubrick demanded complete honesty from them, leading them to confess and discuss things they would most likely have liked to keep for themselves. The usually fine line between reality and fiction became oblique, with more than a little help from the filmmaker, who made his stars sleep in their character’s bedroom. These tricks resulted in magical on-screen performances spurred by palpable chemistry. At the same time, the stretch was a bit too much for the couple, as it would soon turn out. Exhausted and tortured, they still remained faithful to their visionary leader, defending him to the public with regard to the prolonged shooting.” 25 years after the release, Peter Sobczynski  writes, Eyes Wide Shut is a “strange, unsettling, and provocative exploration of marriage and sexual jealousy as defiant of expectations as anything that Kubrick ever made. It can also be seen as the culmination of an era in screen history: just before American cinema became almost entirely dominated by sequels, remakes, reimaginings and adaptations of comic books…” Upon the film’s initial release, it was met with heavy criticism by the film community and audiences. Time and multiple viewings, however, have produced a wider acceptance. It’s not an easy film to watch. Jaimie Rebanal, writing in Cinema from the Spectrum, believes Eyes Wide Shut is Kubrick’s “most frightening film for its exposure of the truth behind what fuels the human desires”. For me, it’s a strong final work by a master filmmaker.
Psychological dramas, 1990s

Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Stanley Kubrick, dir.

Photo: Kubrick directing; stillsPsychological dramas, 1990s

Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Stanley Kubrick, dir.

Photo: Kubrick directing; stillsPsychological dramas, 1990s

Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Stanley Kubrick, dir.

Photo: Kubrick directing; stills
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Sam Rasnake @samrasnake.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Po Chu-i Ten thousand threads of thought, two sheets written: before sealing them, I read them over, wonder if they’ll do. The palace water clock has just sounded the fifth watch, the lamp in the window, my one light, about to go out. [Tr. Burton Watson; Painting by Wu Ynan Zhi]
Po Chu-i

Ten thousand threads of thought, two sheets written:
before sealing them, I read them over, wonder if they’ll do.
The palace water clock has just sounded the fifth watch,
the lamp in the window, my one light, about to go out.

[Tr. Burton Watson; Painting by Wu Ynan Zhi]
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Kathy Fish @kathyfish.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Today's the day! Find your link (sent to you from WEBEX) and have it ready at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and be ready to write! Thanks, everyone! 💙
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Dan Crawley @danbillyc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
"I shove the earbuds in and Blaze Foley’s 'If I Could Only Fly' almost helps me forget my trash bag-cardboard-box-life...." Big love for this amazing piece (the voice!) by @tracieadams.bsky.social in @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social 💙💙💙 www.cowboyjamboreemagazine.com/safe-enough....
cowboyjamboreemagazine.com
Safe Enough
Safe Enough by Tracie Adams Author’s Note: This story is part of a collection I’m currently writing called Stories from the Lighthouse Motel. The narrator is a teenager on the run with her mother...
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SmokeLong Quarterly @smokelong.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
We are beside ourselves with glee to bring you Issue 93 of SmokeLong Quarterly. 12 amazing flash narratives by 12 amazing writers and cover art by Victoria Ojo. www.smokelong.com/issue-ninety...
Cover for SmokeLong Quarterly Issue 93. Journal title in light red. Names of contributors, date, logo, artist name, and Issue number in white. Image: shadow image of a young person or child with hair tied back raising their hands open in front of their face. Their shadow is in a pool of pale light surrounded by darkness.
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Matt Kendrick @mattkendrick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"In this New Zealand, I felt the fidelity-for-shit moon, and I heard, felt and heard, a little night music" Oh wow. This piece by @patforan.bsky.social in @lit-namjooning.bsky.social A must read: literarynamjooning.wixsite.com/litnam/post/...
literarynamjooning.wixsite.com
This New Zealand by Pat Foran
I didn’t see the loneliest tree in the world reaching out to me that morning, remember the conceptual popsicle stand the color of then that afternoon or hear the lo-fi moon static-crackling on my radi...
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RobertFredeKenter @rfredekenter.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Ty V. means so much. A book still very close to me. avail at 🎸@icefloepress.bsky.social website @vikkicwrites.bsky.social #canada #reads #books #hybrid #collaboration #prosepoem #poetry #fragments #juxtaposition #longpoem #photo #art "when you care for someone you live in a very heightened way..."
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Vikki C. @vikkicwrites.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Honoured my poem "Survivorship" has been nominated by The Ilanot Review for the @sundresspub.bsky.social 2027 Best of the Net Anthology🔥 My thanks to Managing Editor Marcela Sulak and the team at The Ilanot Review. What a lovely gift! Congratulations and best of luck to all the nominees! #BoTN
The Ilanot Review 2027 Best of the Net Anthology nominations.
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