My Heart: A Forced Epiphany Why was the poem so shitty? And was mom teasing me about my shaved chest from the great beyond?

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Literally a bird feeder poem. I just can't anymore.

DOE sees bigger role for climate contrarians, records show A small team of researchers who dispute mainstream climate science may play an outsize role in the next National Climate Assessment.

NEW: I obtained internal emails from the Department of Energy's climate working group. They show the group plotting to produce a second misleading climate report, DOE officials avoiding public disclosure laws, DOE peer reviewers stating they weren't qualified: www.eenews.net/articles/doe...

Joe Biden wrote the Violence Against Women Act. Donald Trump says domestic violence should not be considered a crime. Can the two parties find common ground?

Just up on Substack, after a months' long writer's block: "Process Notes: I Know How You Plagiarized That Semester," which draws from more prompts in my old notebooks.

Come for self-doubt. Stay for the zany flashes of absurdity!

danielnester.substack.com/p/process-no...

Fun to be included in @pinehillsreview.bsky.social special issue on (what else?) The Mall pinehillsreview.com/2025/09/01/a...

Make sure you subscribe (it's free!) to Here's Where the Story Ends, the Substack where ex-professor Daniel Nester (that's me!) writes about starting over. danielnester.substack.com

Just up on Substack: "Process Notes: Moments of Being (Sort Of)."

Read it here: danielnester.substack.com/p/process-no...

Dispatches from the desk, the notebook, and post-academic life in progress.

let me give you this background story, because I love it and people usually only know this screenshot

Not certain if this has already been cited, but I found a citation while reading into this for a book called How to be Inappropriate by Daniel Nester. I bought the book (thank you for the weekend reading!). Here is what he says:

Just up on Substack: "Once More to the Campus Center."

Read it here: danielnester.substack.com/p/once-more-...

what a gorgeous incorporation of natural science terminology into poetry 🙉🪱

Send work!

I have at long last shown up on bluesky, for poetry reasons (among others), so here is a poem I wrote (among others).

The fine people at @pinehillsreview.bsky.social published my poem, "Blue Linoleum." Thanks to Dan Nester and his crew for everything they do. ♡

New poem up today with @pinehillsreview.bsky.social!

“The Priest Comes Over for Pasta” by Lexi Pelle I’ve always had a thing // for pulling from the base, / collapsing into the next // wrong thing.

"The Priest Comes Over for Pasta" by Lexi Pelle

In this Ohio diner, it was a tradition: steak with ketchup, a can of diet coke, then go on camera to scream at an ally for being "disrespectful" on tv. But now the woke mob is taking all of that away.

“Cinnamon” by Conor Gearin Incapable of physics, / I’m a naturalist of our love, describing the shape, / but wanting to tell you how it was made.

“Cinnamon” by Conor Gearin

“Viva Zapata” by Camila Valle you could have sang anywhere put the soul back into anything all eyes on you a rewinding tape

“Viva Zapata” by Camila Valle

Kanye West is selling T-shirts with Swastikas on them. But what is he really trying to say?

The Chiefs can still be named Super Bowl champions if Mike Pence has the courage.

Today's horrific Elise Jordan opinion: Musk's destruction of federal institutions "reminds me a lot of the Biden Administration's Afghanistan withdrawal. It needed to be done; it was done terribly... What we're seeing here, though, is a long-overdue correction."

Just up on Substack: “Fuck it, I’m leaving early.”

"I don’t have to be the one talking. I don’t have to have anything to add. I can just be here, figuring it out."

More at danielnester.substack.com

“The Winter Drive” by Kelly Gray The spiders come, hanging spectacular banners. Imagine all the words / they could spell out, // if only snatched from our mouths as we hurt on by.

“The Winter Drive” by Kelly Gray

“Retracing Our Steps” by Michael Robins There are / mirrors of long silences, months without a single visitor.

“Retracing Our Steps” by Michael Robins

“Chickens in 1998” by Ren Wilding I couldn’t stop / thinking about the sun / expanding / into a red giant. / I saw myself consumed / by a star.

“Chickens in 1998” by Ren Wilding

I couldn’t stop / thinking about the sun / expanding / into a red giant. / I saw myself consumed / by a star.

“Omen” by Sara Iacovelli I lock the door and cover the window / and huddle twenty-three kindergartners

"Omen" by Sara Iacovelli

Welcome, sir. Longtime fan and admirer.

Amazing video that Questlove and Maya Rudolph put together to showcase all of the music artists that have appeared on SNL. Here’s a clip of Duran Duran mixed with …