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W. Todd Kaneko

@toddkaneko.bsky.social
2.3K followers 596 following 172 posts

Author: This Is How the Bone Sings & The Dead Wrestler Elegies. Co-author: Slash / Slash, Poetry: Writers Guide & Anthology. Writing teacher. he/him/dad linktr.ee/toddkaneko

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Reposted by W. Todd Kaneko
HAD @havehashad.com · 04/06/2026
was just reminded of this @toddkaneko.bsky.social shortie, the first thing we pubbed (post launching w/ something by myself) and wow it's still so so good "My mother was an alien once, until she was naturalized, from Canada and not allowed to come to America because her grandmother was from China."
havehashad.com
Say It For Sour Patch Kids by W. Todd Kaneko
Another word for father is worry. —Li-Young Lee, “Words for Worry” In the late 70s, Mars Men was a candy made in Canada, soft sweet-and-sour gummies shaped like alien beings. If you can’t say...
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
I get to be online with all these cool people on Tuesday evening (4/7, 7pm CT) for the launch of the March Xness anthology Hit Repeat Until I Hate Music from Split Lip Press. I can’t promise that my kids won’t barge in and wreak havoc. Register at: tinyurl.com/hitrepeat
tinyurl.com
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Hit Repeat Until I Hate Music: The March Xness Anthology Launch. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.
Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Hit Repeat Until I Hate Music: The March Xness Anthology Launch. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.
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Chiara Di Lello @chiaradilello.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Poet mutuals -- can I get a roll call of Michiganders??? I know I know two lovely Michigan-based poets (@mitchnobis.bsky.social and @janezwart.bsky.social) and yes it's a huge state BUT... kinda possibly dreaming of a midwest poetry roadtrip. Show of hands?
media.tenor.com
a man wearing glasses is standing in front of a blackboard and says `` anyone ? '' .
Alt: Anyone? from Ferris Bueller
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Mitchell Nobis @mitchnobis.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
I always forget who's currently in Michigan v. who *was* and what the Venn diagram is with who's on bluesky. I know @toddkaneko.bsky.social, @1andrewcollard.bsky.social, @dlassell.bsky.social, @mspencerpoet.bsky.social, @britrogers.bsky.social, @moonsatdusk.bsky.social are on here. Who else?
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Happy to have two poems in this big, beautiful, double anniversary issue of Sugar House Review—AND is has eight book reviews MY HEART! 🩷🥰📚🎉🎉🎉 @sugarhousereview.bsky.social
Sugar House Review Sweet Sixteen Anniversary  issue. Pink balloons and frogs on cover, adorbs
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
I don’t believe in New Year Resolutions but tonight I went to a roller rink and watched my kid figure out how to skate the hard way, then came home and started picking up some toys the twins left out including this little ball with a message written on it. Happy new year everybody.
A little ball with the words “don’t give up” written on it.
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
I haven't published many poems this year (kids, work, kids again), so seeing this poem "White Hot Star" featured on @slowdownshow.org today is a special honor to close this year out. Thanks to @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social for selecting and to the Cincinnati Review for 1st publishing. link in coms.
Cover image to the Slowdown 1424.White Hot Star by W. Todd Kaneko

The knife my father kept in his car was gone
by the time I got to his house—nothing
but proof of insurance and the gas tank

half-empty. I claimed a different knife I found
in his desk because every boy should inherit
his father’s knife—I tell my son this

when he looks at the old black-handled
blade I have hidden in the utility drawer
at our house. This morning he told me

how a black hole is born when a star dies,
life collapsing and leaving a blank space
that swallows the light, the comets,

the street, the station wagon—everything
extinguished, lost. Neither of us understands
the science of gravity, but I know how it feels

to live without a knife: tear what you can
with your hands, rip everything with your teeth,
and when the lights go out, feel nothing

and imagine someone else’s fingers
tracing the glint of your father’s knife,
its keen edge against their thumb.

When my son and I talk about courage,
he claims the dark is the only thing
he fears and I want to tell him, one day

the darkness will swallow everything
and someone who loves you will leave you
something bright to keep you safe.White Hot Star by W. Todd Kaneko

The knife my father kept in his car was gone
by the time I got to his house—nothing
but proof of insurance and the gas tank

half-empty. I claimed a different knife I found
in his desk because every boy should inherit
his father’s knife—I tell my son this

when he looks at the old black-handled
blade I have hidden in the utility drawer
at our house. This morning he told me

how a black hole is born when a star dies,
life collapsing and leaving a blank space
that swallows the light, the comets,

the street, the station wagon—everything
extinguished, lost. Neither of us understands
the science of gravity, but I know how it feels

to live without a knife: tear what you can
with your hands, rip everything with your teeth,
and when the lights go out, feel nothing

and imagine someone else’s fingers
tracing the glint of your father’s knife,
its keen edge against their thumb.

When my son and I talk about courage,
he claims the dark is the only thing
he fears and I want to tell him, one day

the darkness will swallow everything
and someone who loves you will leave you
something bright to keep you safe.
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
I got this newest one by Jack Bedell, FIGHT NIGHTS, about boxing and fathers and sons and more. Man I love this book.
Cover to FIGHT NIGHTS by Jack B. Bedell. Full text of “Foreman-Frazier II” about the narrator looking with his kids for the fight on YouTube and remembering watching fights with his father.
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
I always say that only cops and crooks call me by my first name and I got this letter today, a scam that targets people with Asian last names offering to split a nonexistent inheritance. Sharing it so my friends with vulnerable relatives can be on alert. Too bad because I really could use the money.
Scam letter offering a fake inheritance to me based on my Asian last name and assumed “nationality”
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Chiara Di Lello @chiaradilello.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
📢 ANNOUNCEMENT TIME: We're less than three months away from pub day for my debut chapbook, CHILDLESS MILLENNIAL. Tell your friends, your English teacher, and of course all your favorite non-biological aunties. 📚 Pre-order details coming soooon Brought to you by @gameoverbooks.bsky.social 🕹
Ultrasound showing a book titled CHILDLESS MILLENNIAL. Below the image, Chiara Di Lello Game Over Books. In the top corner, Expected Jan 2026
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Jesse Lee Kercheval @jesselkercheval.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
One week left to submit your poetry manuscript, translators! $1500 prize, publication by University of Wisconsin Press in their prestigious Wisconsin Poetry Series. You can submit more than one year (different judge) and more than one manuscript.
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Bethany Black @bethanyblack.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
Alan Moore knows the score
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
Meta suggests this AI version of an old photo of mine but in addition to it’s inability to render fingers, Facebook seems unable to comprehend the crucial detail.
Two photos, one of my middle finger pointed at Trump tower, the other an AI render without Trump Tower.
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phillip crymble @phillipcrymble.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Edward Hirsch
Devil's Night

He saw teenagers carrying flammable cans
of kerosene and boxes of wooden matches, torching 
the discarded carcasses of Fords and Chevys, 
spreading flames through abandoned buildings 
and unused factories, lighting one-story houses 
on narrow lots in small neighborhoods. He saw 
old men standing on their front lawns in bathrobes, 
holding shotguns and green garden hoses to stave off 
the burning. A night of TV cameras and wailing 
sirens, an hour of reckoning, moment of judgment.
He saw gas stations exploding like tinderboxes
and party stores being looted, and He understood
a new ritual of autumn, an annual reaping, 
a fury that gathered night after night, until 
it burst forth like a fever in late October. 
He was one of the bystanders who waited
on the sidewalk passing a thermos of steaming 
coffee and a bottle of whiskey, watching fire- 
fighters wading into a furnace of buildings. 
He was there when the blaze finally calmed 
and the radios quit bristling with static,
when the exhausted crowd dispersed and drifted 
toward home. And He was one of the few 
who were still awake to witness the sunrise, 
to observe a smoky disc flaring over the river, 
charring the rooftops, glistening in the ruins. 
He closed his eyes and saw darkness visible. 
Yellow flames brimmed over cinders and ashes. 
A broken skyline smoldered in the distance.
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
So y’all know about the ring doorbell and partnerships with flock and thus ICE, right? Get these devices off your homes.
techcrunch.com
Amazon's Ring to partner with Flock, a network of AI cameras used by ICE, feds, and police | TechCrunch
Agencies that use Flock can request that Ring doorbell users share footage to help with "evidence collection and investigative work."
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Remember back in the day you wrote your own emails, took your own photos, and thought your own thoughts. The only difference nowadays is that big tech wants you to believe you never could and still can’t, so should have AI do it for you. I believe in you way more than I do big tech. You should too.
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
Thanks to the guy on YouTube with the advanced toilet plunger technique, because now I don’t have to buy a toilet auger and a shop vac and spend the day taking out my kids’ toilet.
Rey Mysterio action figure on the rim of a toilet.
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Maureen Langloss @maureenlangloss.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
It's a very important time to support queer and trans authors. I hope you will read this collection of truly stellar work by our talented contributors. 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
This king. Fight fascism.
Martin Luther king jr.
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
This king. No others.
King Harley Race, pro wrestler.
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Nicole Tallman @natallman.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
💔💔💔
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Another broadside, this one I made for GVSU Poetry Night with Tyehimba Jess this week.
Broadside for “Mercy” by Tyehimba Jess, the poem with a heart, some vines and flowers.
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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
My book comes out today! It’s sad and funny and a little spooky and a lot mysterious and very weird, and you can buy it wherever fine books are sold in indie stores bookshop.org/p/books/happ...
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Today in Intro to Creative Writing, we are starting to talk poetry, which means that between Richard Blanco’s “Translation for Mamá” and Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club,” I can’t promise not to weep in class.
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
I made this limited edition broadside of one of my favorite stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell for her reading and craft talk at GVSU today.
Broadside for “The Solutions to Brian’s Problem” by Bonnie Jo Campbell. White text over a picture of a drill and some construction debris.
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
Send me your students’ poems! 🌸💫📖 Nomination details at link below.
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Lambda Literary @lambdaliterary.org · 04/10/2025
🎉🎉🎉 Congratulations to the 2025 Lambda Literary Award Winner for Transgender Poetry: Girl Work by Zefyr Lisowski! 🎉🎉🎉 @zefrrr.bsky.social @noemipress.bsky.social #Lammys2025 #LammyAwards
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
the secret is that your poems get better because you had/have to keep working and success is a spirit & craft blunter (you don’t want folks lining up to to publish everything you write 💙)
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
What a blast, getting to visit BGSU to see my old friend and poetry co-conspirator Amorak Huey and his amazing students (championship edition) to talk about poetry. Now driving back to Michigan where I am going to hug my kids until they tell me to stop.
Two poetry books and the BGSU sign. A poetry book and the Waffle House sign.
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Brian Spears @briankspears.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
News outlets should be saying in every story about the coming shutdown that Republicans control both Houses of Congress. Senate Republicans can end the filibuster & pass the bill if they want to. What Republicans want is for Democrats to share the blame when the cuts in this bill kill people.
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Split Lip Magazine @splitlipthemag.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
Did you know we accept simultaneous submissions? Yes, we do! But ✨ please✨ withdraw your piece immediately if it’s accepted elsewhere. It makes our process easier!
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Texas Conference of the AAUP @texasaaup.bsky.social · 27/09/2025
“I’m emotionally shellshocked right now,” said one professor in the Texas Tech system. “What does it say about academic freedom? It says we don’t have it.” The professor spoke by phone from the inside of a car to avoid being overheard by colleagues. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...
nytimes.com
Texas Tech Moves to Limit Academic Discussion to 2 Genders
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Donna Vorreyer @djvorreyer.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Are you thinking about treating yourself to a book today? Here is my weekly reminder that Unrivered is now in pre-orders at @sundresspub.bsky.social - on sale for the price of a couple of fancy coffees - AND if you order soon, this little broadside swag included. tinyurl.com/4pj96v59
Blue ombre backgrouns with white wavelike lines and a collaged image of a woman's robed figure with haloes at her head and feet and streams coming from her outstretched hands in shades of blue, white, grey, red and black. Text reads: "I salvage a self, unrivered" from "Bloodline"  Unrivered by Donna Vorreyer/Sundress Publications 2025
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Dr. Matthew E. Henry (MEH) @mehpoeting.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
Teachers, parents, and people who know high school aged creative writers, The Weight Journal is open for submissions! www.theweightjournal.com
theweightjournal.com
The Weight Journal
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Jared Beloff @readinstead.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
Subbing my 2nd MS to University and Indie presses...what are your suggestions...preferably not prizes
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Dan Crawley @danbillyc.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
"...and why am I not doing the things I need to make me happy, and better yet, now that I think of it, why am I not just a dog?" Big love for this piece of writing by @mczyzniejewski.bsky.social in @lit-namjooning.bsky.social 💙💙💙
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scare-ah 👻 @sarahmillswrites.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
“the kind of beauty you have to pretend not to see” Seth Landman in Diagram
APPEAL
Seth Landman
I said yes but I felt this no in me
I heard a train and it was gone
I was waiting to talk and a voice said are you ok
I said yes
but there was a crying buzzing
I am not I said
and I explained the train and the hills behind it subtle nature painting everlasting love pouring rain blurring the world sometimes it is so clear you ask
how many things are living in the fields I am all alone here
I explained how everyone is
and there was so much concern and crickets everywhere in Kansas City and Northampton, Massachusetts in the air in the folds of travel passing a flask
in the white noise of the river at night
I made a shape with my hands approximating the action of a popping seed a fern that folds
the kind of beauty you have to pretend not to see hold your hand out move your feet
everything is equalizing in the fields in the cellar settling in blood
I'm not really here right now though I remember it was nice to walk with you
hmmm
it's so quiet out here tonight
did I fail you in some way
I asked
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Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
Guys, I could NOT be more excited to have a story published at Short Story, Long, and I honestly really love this story in a way that I think you love just a few stories you’ve written. Maybe it’s the encroaching nostalgia, maybe it’s just the fun I had with the form, but I hope you’ll read it!
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
25th U.S. Poet Laureate, first Asian American to hold this honor. A big hell yeah for Arthur Sze today! www.npr.org/2025/09/15/n...
npr.org
Arthur Sze named 25th U.S. poet laureate
Sze is a poet with a lot of acclaim — he's won the National Book Award, was a Guggenheim fellow and was a finalist for the Pulitzer. He aims to promote interest in translated poetry in his new role.
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Maureen Langloss @maureenlangloss.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
It's so hard to concentrate on the good in these overwhelmingly bleak times, but this new Split Lip Issue is truly one of our best ever. It arrives this Monday morning like a balm. Thank you for reading, supporting, and sharing this incredible work ❤️
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Simeon Berry @simeonberry.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
“He let me drive the winding canyon to Malibu. I let him unwind. I loved being alive the winter I lay so close to loving I thought I’d die.” —Jessica Abughattas, “Love Lyric” @uarkpress.bsky.social www.tupeloquarterly.com/editors-sele...
tupeloquarterly.com
Love Lyric by Jessica Abughattas - curated and introduced by Victoria Chang
I loved the lie    I loved   lying next to   the winter    I lived   beside the lie    lying   thin & white. I loved lying      beside the tides.   He let me drive      the winding canyon to Malibu.  ...
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~ Alison Peace @irishali13.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
Caring for each other is a form of radical survival that we don't always take into account. ~ Ada Limón
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Mitchell Nobis @mitchnobis.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
We're between innings, so here, have the first page of my book.
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Black Lawrence Press @blacklawrence.bsky.social · 11/09/2025
The Fall 2025 Black River Chapbook Competition is now open for unpublished chapbooks of poems or prose, 16-36 pages long! Open to writers at all stages—the winner receives publication, $500, and ten book copies. For submission details and past winners, visit our site: buff.ly/SwRgCtH
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Hannah Grieco @writesloud.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
DC friends: Last chance to register! Come hang with me and Amber Sparks tomorrow night! www.oldtownbooks.com/events/30770...
oldtownbooks.com
Building Your Short Story Collection with Hannah Grieco and Amber Sparks | Old Town Books
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Breezy (they/them) @abitchislive.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
Ok so in case yall missed the memo like I did. David Lehman, series editor of Best American Poetry is a Zionist ass. Literally feel embarrassed that I wound up in this situation. I was literally the only person of color in a room of 50+ people. It was terrifying. #poetry #bestamericanpoetry
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W. Todd Kaneko @toddkaneko.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
For the longest time being selected for Best American Poetry has been a great honor for so many poets but I think it’s time we acknowledge that not being selected for Best American Poetry is probably just as big an honor. Free Palestine.
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Dr. Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · 06/09/2025
David Lehman is staunch & vocal, anti-Palestine Zionist and I won’t be touching his projects or supporting his new book and yes you should definitely search Best American Poetry blog post controversy and read about it yourself. I’ve posted one of his blog posts, now deleted, below.
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