iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 04/05/2026

“[P]oems might help us do one simple thing: Pay Closer Attention.” — Ada Limón @adalimonwriter , from *Against Breaking: On The Power of Poetry* (Scribner, 2026) #poetry #attention #presence

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.” — Wisława Szymborska, in her poem “Possibilities”, translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. Photo of the poet by Mariusz Kubik, October 2009, Krakow, Poland. #szymborska #poetry #absurdity #writeanyway

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

“Nature will bear the closest inspection; she invites us to lay our eye level with the smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. She has no interstices; every part is full of life.” — Henry David Thoreau, “Natural History of Massachusetts” in Excursions, p. 7 #thoreau #lunamoth #walking

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

The rhythmic clink and clank of the Golding Pearl No. 3 as it inks up makes me smile. Made in Massachusetts in 1910, this printing press is powered by a foot treadle. Which is why this video is short — I gotta keep pumping so that it will keep printing. #letterpress #printingpress #exercise

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 12/04/2026

“There has been, I think, a narrowing of relatedness. To be *is* to be related. We must hugely widen the space of relations.” — Yuvan Aves (educator, naturalist, writer, activist) in *Is A River Alive* by R. Macfarlane @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social (Pic: Gull tracks along the tideline in N.C.)

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I cranked the hollow cylinder of the printing press and a bunch of neatly-emptied sunflower seed hulls and a half-gnawed hickory nut fell out. Print shop life! It's a rural community, and most of my neighbors are other-than-human — including the occasional mouse. #letterpress #printshop #rurallife

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.” — Henry David Thoreau, *Walden* Photo: Morning moon-set over the mountain here. #thoreau #mountains #blueridgemountains

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

I missed being in the print shop today, but at least managed to write three poems and replace the tractor’s busted radiator hose. #gratitude #rurallife #nelsoncounty #poetry #poetryisnotaluxury #poemsandtractors #johndeere #shadetreemechanic

Left side of image shows a small tractor engine with black rubber hose. Right side of image shows an orange notebook and blue mechanical pencil.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” — Henry David Thoreau, *Walden* (1854) #thoreau #walden #castlesintheair #foundations #blueridgemountains #julymorning

A view of distant mountains and a wide open sky of clouds and blue, all surrounded by deep green trees.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

One of the unsung heroes of the print shop is the dehumidifier. Our summers are always humid, & increasingly hot. And humidity is no friend to the cast-iron presses & lead-alloy metal type that fills the space. #blueridgemountains #virginia #printshop #shoptalk #letterpress #castiron #metaltype

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

Late afternoon at the type case… Shop Dog Linji-the-Aussie is exhausted from herding little metal letters all day… #aussie #letterpress #metaltype #shopdog #printshop

A wooden letterpress type case full of metal letters. A black and white dog is sleeping nearby on the floor.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

Happy birthday, Henry! “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite only a sense of existence....My wealth is not possession but enjoyment.” HDT, December 6, 1856 #thoreau #contentment #otd #americanhistory

Happy birthday, Henry David Thoreau! Born on this day in 1817. “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite only a sense of existence....My wealth is not possession but enjoyment.”

Henry David Thoreau, from his journal on December 6, 1856

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

What to with bold, old metal type with the disconcerting name of “Empire”? Well, one solution is to beat swords into ploughshares. So I printed up some 72pt Peace with Morris Fuller Benton’s 1930s design. #peace #ploughshares #typedesign #metaltype #printinghistory

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

“To know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are a part of a part and that the whole is made of parts, each of which is whole. You start with the part you are whole in.” — Gary Snyder, “The Place,The Region,&The Commons” in *The Practice of the Wild* (Counterpoint, 1990) #garysnyder #place

Purple cone flowers blooming in a green sea of field grasses.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

“Find your place on the planet, dig in, and take responsibility from there.” — Gary Snyder, from a footnote in “Four Changes” (1970) #garysnyder #homeplace #blueridgemountains

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Reading Gary Snyder this evening —

“Practically speaking, a life
that is vowed to simplicity, appropriate boldness, good humor, gratitude, unstinting
work and play, and lots of walking brings us close to the actually existing world and its wholeness.”

— Gary Snyder, “The Etiquette of Freedom” in *The Practice of the Wild* (Counterpoint, 1990)

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Clint Smith @clintsmithiii.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Toni Morrison is one of the greatest writers to ever live. What many don’t know, is that she was also the first Black woman to become a senior editor at Random House. I wrote about a new book that discusses how she edited by day, wrote by night, and ushered in a new generation of Black writers.

theatlantic.com

How Toni Morrison Changed Publishing

At night, she worked on her novels. By day, as an editor at Random House, she championed a new generation of writers.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

“Big wheel[s] keep on turnin’”… The 1914 Chandler-&-Price printing press coming back to life this morning. After a back injury a couple of years ago, I retired the foot-treadle & now let the motor do the work of keeping this 1500+ pound beast rolling. #letterpress #printing #printshoplife

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Have you ever seen the underside of a metal type forme? The bottom of all the letters and spacing material has its own fascinating structure and pattern. (Just make sure it’s locked up tight before taking a look ;-) #letterpress #metaltype

The shiny metal undersides of all the individual letters and spacing material in a forme of text locked with wooden furniture in a printing chase.

The top of a metal type forme, showing the letters to be printed and the spacing material surrounding.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Slowly & carefully distributing the type back into its case, breaking up the clods of words & spacing material & fingering language’s newly-friable ground again. These little silver seeds will sprout something new, in time. #letterpress #language #metaltype #distributing #decomposition #bookmaking

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

~ creek talked all night long — so smooth, even the moon drowned in that silver tongue ~ (From *Soundings: haiku & carvings* by Emily Hancock, St Brigid Press, 2014) #poetry #creeks #blueridgemountains

Black and white photograph of a silvery creek amid dense foliage.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

~ what is new is tender — gently take the white oak’s hands in yours ~ (From *Falling Into Place*, poems by Emily Hancock, St Brigid Press, 2024) #oak #Quercus #leaves #tenderness #spring #poetry

My pink hand holding a sprig of soft young white oak leaves in afternoon sunlight.

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Daegan Miller @daeganmiller.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Jamestown is sinking. I got to spend some time with the photographer Greta Pratt's new project, thanks to @placesjournal.bsky.social and the often misremembered line from Heraclitus: “We step into and we do not step into the same rivers. We are and we are not.” placesjournal.org/article/jame...

placesjournal.org

Jamestown Is Sinking

In the Tidewater region of Virginia, history is slipping beneath the waves. In the Anthropocene, a complicated past is vanishing.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

Sewing tiny books in the print shop bindery (with shop-dog Linji at my side). #sewing #sewingbooks #handsewing #printshop #printshoplife

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

“My life as essentially belongs to the present as that of a willow tree in the spring.” — Henry David Thoreau A willow tree or, in this case, a Japanese magnolia. The present moment is vast but fleeting; let’s not miss it. #thoreau #spring #magnolia #japanesemagnolia #presentmoment #now

The large pink blossoms of a Japanese magnolia tree.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

A poem for St Brigid’s Eve, which was last weekend. This and other published poems of mine are offered freely each Sunday on my Substack page emilyehancock.substack.com . #stbrigid #poetry

POEM:

St Brigid's Eve
mid-winter's sharpened sickle, the moon cuts cleanly through all absence, harvests stars
with one slow sweep of heaven while we sleep, dreams rising and falling away like chaff
come morning, for a moment the fields will gleam
with what darkness emptied new stars alight upon every stilled blade

From The Open Gate: New & Selected Poems by Emily Hancock (St Brigid Press, 2017)

The moon, a planet, and a sprinkle of stars in dimming night-blue sky above black mountains.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

Together, personally and communally, we can undo the causes and conditions of harm, of violence, of war in speech and action. #unlearnwar #unlearnviolence #donoharm #peacework #together #woodtype

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Hello from the frozen tundra just outside the print shop door. I’m taking one sip of steaming coffee, and heading back inside to print. #blueridgemountains #rurallife #january #cold #coffee #gratitude #print #letterpress

Photo of myself, all bundled up, holding a cup of coffee, with a snow-covered landscape behind me.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Milosz this morning: from “In Warsaw”, collected in *Selected and Last Poems 1931-2004* (Ecco, 2011) #poetry #writing #warsaw #milosz

Excerpt from a poem:

I did not want to love so.
That was not my design.
I did not want to pity so.
That was not my design.
My pen is lighter
Than a hummingbird's feather. This burden Is too much for it to bear.
How can I live in this country Where the foot knocks against The unburied bones of kin?

— Czeslaw Milosz, from
"In Warsaw" (1945)

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

“Suppose we did our work / like the snow, quietly, quietly, / leaving nothing out.” — Wendell Berry, "Like Snow" from Leavings #snow #work #goodwork #quiet #wendellberry #poetry #writing

Snow covering plants, half-barrels, ground, and a grey garage.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Some new poems are slipping into the world now. They’ll fit into your hand. Maybe heart. *Falling Into Place* — 44 short-form poems by moi, with 5 Sumi-ink illuminations by Nancy Maxson. Offset printed interior with a letterpress jacket; handsewn. $16. #poetry #writingcommunity #writing #booksky

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Giving myself wide latitude this morning for poetry and lemon cookies washed down with coffee and woodstove warmth. #poetry #milosz #czeslawmilosz #writingcommunity

Book jacket: CZESLAW
MILOSZ
SELECTED
AND
LAST POEMS
1931-2004
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SEAMUS HEANEY
With a coffee cup upon which rests a lemon cookie.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

“Secret” — a poem for this winter weekend by yours truly. #poetry #writing #writingcommunity #winter #secret

Secret, a poem by Emily Hancock—

I told the snow.
It went on
stepping softly through the pasture.
I told the holly, and every one
of its thousand red bells tolled silently, brightly as before.
Even the owl, as I whispered it into the dusk,
did not alter a syllable of her ancient haiku.

Poem from The Open Gate: New & Collected Poems by Emily Hancock (St Brigid
Press, 2014)

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Just in time for holiday reading by the woodstove here — the collected poems of Hannah Arendt, translated and edited and introduced by @samantharhill.bsky.social with @genesegrill.bsky.social . #arendt #poetry #writing #hannaharendt

The cover of the book “What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt,” translated and edited by Samantha Rose Hill with Genese Grill.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Happy Winter Solstice Eve from the Blue Ridge Mountains

Winter sky of pearl and soft pink and blue-grey over distant dark grey mountains.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

“The angels aren’t coming for us— / I just wanted to tell you what happened.” — poem by Aman Rahman #poetry #writingcommunity

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Linji, the Print Shop Dog, with #BlueSky eyes. She hangs out with me as I work, waiting for this most boring of jobs to be over for the day. #aussie #letterpress #printshop #dogsofbluesky

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

“It was night and when we ran into the street, / Mother forgot the cake in the oven, / the bomb smoke mixed with the burnt chocolate / and strawberry.” — Mosab Abu Toha @mosababutoha.bsky.social , from *Forest of Noise* #writing #poetry #gaza #palestine

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mosababutoha @mosababutoha.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Mawasi Khan Younis. The moon overhead is not the Moon.

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

“Troubled places often look to writers in the hope that imagination can see beyond the divisions that ideologies enforce; the writer's job, after all, is to dismantle the very notion of an Other by showing how your hurts belong to me, as my hopes do to you.” — Pico Iyer, *The Half Known Life*

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

"The secret of life is paying absolute attention to what is going on. The enemy of life is distraction. If you're not present in the present, where the hell are you?" — William Gass #williamgass #thetunnel #payattention #writing #writingcommunity #wordsofwisdom

Tiny orange-capped mushroom growing out of a bed of browned leaves.

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Lesley Wheeler @lesleymwheeler.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

The first time I took my kid to a poetry reading, it was the amazing Nikki Giovanni. I gave her a note pad, told her to write down anything she wanted to discuss later, & saw her taking notes busily. Turned out she was tallying swear words (91)—who knew poetry could be so funny and fierce?

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

“…commuter-abacus of main drag strings its headlamps…” I look forward to each day’s vibrant prism of words and images from Dave Borthwick. #poetry #abacus #writingcommunity #writing #naturewriting

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

I think this is the second thing I ever letterpress printed, some 13 years ago — a favorite from today’s Birthday Girl, Emily Dickinson, who is 194 years young. #emilydickinson #dickinson #livinglanguage #poetry #otd #letterpress #writingcommunity

A poem by Emily Dickinson:

A WORD is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just Begins to live
That day.

EMILY DICKINSON

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St Brigid Press @stbrigidpress.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Happy Publication Day to *What Remains* — the collected poems of Hannah Arendt, translated and introduced by @samantharhill.bsky.social with @genesegrill.bsky.social #poetry #writingcommunity #hannaharendt #arendt

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

Although Odesa, Ukraine was attacked multiple times this month & there are ongoing issues w/ electricity & heat—Poetry Studio for Kids continues its work —you can find more information at: www.poemsnotbombs.org

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