What a chockful, excellent Digest! There is so much great writing here, from around the blogosphere. Thank you, Dave. Here's to the renewal of Spring!

Sir Ian McKellen performing a monologue from Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas More on the Stephen Colbert show. Never have I heard this monologue performed with such a keen sense of prescience. Nor have I ever been in this exact historical moment.TY Sir Ian, for reaching us once again.
#Pinks #ProudBlue

Every American needs to watch this:

It's a pleasure to read the circuit of poets' thoughts as I gradually come out of the ditch of recuperation (laid up for a coupla weeks). Not only is it helping to tug me back up, I'm glad everyone is still there, still pondering, still laying down words though we can't figure it out.

It's only week 3 of the year, but we're deep in the trenches of witness via language. That's what poets do. Join us.

Is this only week 3? I did a double take. But as I read the digest, it reaffirmed the truth that being together via language lifts, consoles and creates better realities that the malign ones being foisted on us. Thanks as always, Dave.

January 2026 Poetry Feature #1: U-topias JILL PEARLMAN <br> One of us sleeping, one of us dreaming with open eyes / strands of your hair in the silver light / when I rubbed the hair in the small of your back, / you awoke to a dog’s sharp nai...

The dark irony of being in a French town named "By-the-Sea" yet there was no sea! We wandered in search of home/paradise. Post-apocalypse? Post-Eden? The imperative to "see like the grass sees"? Utopia means No Place - the poem's shimmering absence/presence.
www.thecommononline.org/january-2026...

Poetry Blog Digest 2025, Week 51 A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond.

This deep into holidaze I will not be linking anyone tonight but here at least is a not-at-all-rushed edition of the poetry blog digest for your reading pleasure. I think it's a particularly good round-up. But then I think that every week. www.vianegativa.us/2025/12/poet...

Trump’s ‘Warrior Dividend’ Might Be His Scariest Idea Yet In this week’s Elie v. US, The Nation’s justice correspondent explores the authoritarian threat beneath Trump’s bonuses for military families. Plus, a case for getting rid of the Second Amendment.

In this week’s newsletter, I explain how Trump’s $1,776 payments is actually one of the most dangerous things he’s ever done. Armies loyal to a paycheck and not the government is how you get authoritarian overthrows of republics.

To quote Churchill, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Sam Zurier, State senator in RI, representing #Providence has it right...we've been through a lot already. Still we're in for a rough ride. Be gentle.

Steve isn’t here anymore, but he always posted this picture on Hanukkah so I thought we could carry on his tradition and remember him.

The "reality" that X pushes as "real life" would make anyone sick, despondent, violent, paranoid. Turn a village into a crime scene.

Helicopters are circling again over the Brown campus and College Hill. After whirring for hours and hours on Saturday night, they stopped -- let's now call it a pause - the killer hadn't been caught, the goal hadn't been met. Anxiety runs high; the choppers whirr. #BrownUniversity #massshooting

Wot? This is insane, Dave. After all that work, to be invaded and raided. Unbelievable.

Helicopters have been circling overhead #BrownUniversity, shining searchlights down onto the Green, gardens and contorted streets looking for today's horrid perpetrator. Circling circling, light shining off my windows in my darkened house (all neighbors darkening our houses). Peace to the students!

Helicopters have been circling overhead for the past two hours, with searchlights shining down into the Green, gardens and streets of this close neighborhood. Lights reflecting into my kitchen, sound circling circling circling. Obviously, they haven't caught the suspect.

Are AI Bots Knocking Cultural Heritage Offline?

This is what @thepoetslizard.bsky.social and I are facing at Via Negativa, a literary blog with nearly 15,000 posts. We might have to password-protect our archives just to keep the site from being taken offline www.glamelab.org/products/are...

A round of applause for the French is in order! 👏👏👏

Beautiful thought and writing. I feel so good after reading the Digest. Giving thanks to Dave!

Poets...canaries in the mind. It's always a bellwether whether it's change of season or radical reorientation. Another great digest, Dave!

A young artist, Julia Lion, sat at the back of my reading at Lange Studio for “Diaspora of Things,” jotting down her favorite phrases. She sketched me on her IPad. I love the image she created! It is so much fun!

Trump’s Marie Antoinette Moment: asked for Trump’s response to #NoKingsDay massive protest for fairly priced bread, a spokeswomen conveyed his concern: “Who Cares?” WHO CARES? #Trump, Ask your fellow celeb monarch how that turned out!

Screenshot of a Facebook post featuring three of the Portland protesters wearing inflatable frog costumes with the following text: Episcopalians on Facebook Elizabeth Rose Elrod • 22h • Exodus 8:2-6 "But if you refuse to let them go, I will plague your whole country with frogs... The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your officials."

you fucked around and now the Episcopalians are doing memes. are you happy now. are you

I braved the war-torn streets of Portland to pick up dinner at Panera. Tragically, I accidentally ordered two tomato soups instead of one tomato and one squash as I planned. I appreciate your thoughts and prayers during these difficult times.

Poetry’s “Winged Words” I’m becoming a real fan of poetry read aloud.  I love to hear words animated.  Silence falls, and the voice, with its hypnotic or musical or walking tones, steps in. Now that I’ve had the chance to…

On Homer's Winged Words and the Life of Poetry blog.jillpearlman.com?p=3586

Note left on our typewriter.

The totality of David Byrne’s art piece- ie his massively conceived conceptual concert — is inspiring in its daring and overstuffedness. No minimalism here. One of the reasons I loved it. Like he’s back at #RISD, having rolled up a lifetime of curiosity & sensory experience. #DavidByrne #concert

Yehuda Amichai from Open Closed Open. So felicitously said! The point is as universal as it gets— we have to fiercely guard hope. And particular for Yom Kippur — be strong and strengthen your heart. Life isn’t for the weak hearted.

A taste of my chapbook, “Diaspora of Things.” Every poem could be accompanied by a sad monkey, though this one is particularly apt. Launch: 9/27, 6pm, Riffraff, 60 Valley St, Providence, RI.

Thinking about our commandant-in-chief, who loves to mock but can’t bear being mocked