(Jumping in from another field to add that no one can honestly be invested in changing any field if preparation for that field also requires perpetuating cruel historical practices.)

I agree wholeheartedly. Friend it is fundamentally nonsensical and rooted in an unhealthy and unexamined desire to form a malformed kinship by making someone else suffer they way one has suffered.

Not everything needs to be a trail by fire 🔥.

Cruelty is not a rite of passage but an aberration. We need not need to adopt the rhetoric and praxis of the military to educate and inspire young and emerging writers.

And it before any “grit” is possible, what that hazing creates is an immense erosion of trust which is deadly to the imagination of the artist. We don’t need to be mean or harsh to prepare students for a harsh world. We need to be honest and supportive (which doesn’t mean pollyannaish).

No matter how much we may have suffered under certain harsh, toxic, or oppressive forms of art education (creative writing ✍🏾 in this case) it is cruel to “haze” our students, thinking it prepares them for the “industry”. Suffering is not the only road to resilience.

!!!! It was such a great poem and I very much i enjoyed it. I hope i did it some modicum of Justice 💜

Elizabeth Sylvia, Preeti Vangani, J.D. Ho, Zoe Ryder White, Beth Gilstrap, Jameela F. Dallis, standing in a row and laughing/smiling together

River River Books authors at the co-reading with Blair last night! Many thanks to @stevenleyva.bsky.social and University of Baltimore for hosting us!

Praise for Mouth The voice of Mouth is confident in its moves, sometimes breath-stopping in its leaps, by turns despairing and lusty, deeply funny, and-always— restoratively human. -Sandra Beasley, author of Made to Explode: Poems Amorak Huey's Mouth is an exploration-sometimes gentle, sometimes raucous-of one of the fundamental forces of nature: desire.... If we must crave and end, and if we must do it in this particular moment of human and geologic time-and, of course, we must-how lucky we are to have Mouth as our companion. -Molly Spencer, author of Invitatory If it is possible to make a guitar amp for the soul, to hear what moon, river, barn, and paramour all desire of each other, Amorak Huey has done it in Mouth. Each line is electric, illuminating poems that extend their metaphors, believing to endure in language is to make love endure. —Steven Leyva, Author of The Opposite of Cruelty

Thank you so much for highlighting my poem. Glad you enjoyed it

A quick morning Lair Poetry Corner!
Ode to Lando Calrissian by Steven Leyva
#booksky #poetry #blacksky #nerdypoems #blerd #staynerdy

Ugh 😩 . With so many good books out there too

On Poetry: February 2026. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-... @stevenleyva.bsky.social @riotinyourthroat.bsky.social #booksky

Come talk book reviewing with us at the University of Baltimore TONIGHT at 6 p.m.! www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/the... @stevenleyva.bsky.social @hsmithwrites.bsky.social #booksky

New Poem published today

www.pergolalit.com/poetry/steve...

IYKYK

Let’s go!

Absolutely 💃🏾

So, I’m thinking about writers who run running routes for @awpwriter.org with literary landmarks. When we run by University of Baltimore I’ll say, “your favorite poet’s favorite poets went here: Steven Leyva, Tonee Mae Moll, Tafisha Edwards…etc etc etc.”

The cover of the book of poems Mouth, by Amorak Huey. Cover depicts a red-lipsticked mouth open in water.

Praise for Mouth The voice of Mouth is confident in its moves, sometimes breath-stopping in its leaps, by turns despairing and lusty, deeply funny, and-always— restoratively human. -Sandra Beasley, author of Made to Explode: Poems Amorak Huey's Mouth is an exploration-sometimes gentle, sometimes raucous-of one of the fundamental forces of nature: desire.... If we must crave and end, and if we must do it in this particular moment of human and geologic time-and, of course, we must-how lucky we are to have Mouth as our companion. -Molly Spencer, author of Invitatory If it is possible to make a guitar amp for the soul, to hear what moon, river, barn, and paramour all desire of each other, Amorak Huey has done it in Mouth. Each line is electric, illuminating poems that extend their metaphors, believing to endure in language is to make love endure. —Steven Leyva, Author of The Opposite of Cruelty

Mouth comes out this week.

#Poetry: Doesn’t it teach us how to mourn so that we’ll value having lived?

@stevenleyva.bsky.social asks in his stirring review of Rara Avis by
@blasfalconer.bsky.social
in @wirobooks.bsky.social

HoCoPoLitSo Let there be lit.

Very excited to be doing my first Wilde Readings event, with Steven Leyva, on Tuesday, January 13, 7:00-8:30 PM, at Queen Takes Book bookstore in Columbia, MD! There's also an open mic after our readings, if you're BOLD. :) More info and a fun interview here: hocopolitso.org #HoCoPoLitSo

Why middle age is the perfect time to revisit Middle Earth. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/a-m... @stevenleyva.bsky.social #booksky

On Poetry: December 2025. www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-... @stevenleyva.bsky.social #booksky

Steven Leyva reading at Motor House in Baltimore on Dec 7, 2025

Steven Leyva reading at Motor House in Baltimore on Dec 7, 2025

I saw poet @stevenleyva.bsky.social and several other Cave Canem poets this afternoon at Motor House here in Baltimore. Check out Steven’s incredible new collection - “The Opposite of Cruelty” - here: blairpub.com/shop/p/the-o...

Han VanderHart and Steven Leyva, on a cool April morning after brunch at The Boot Room. Han is wearing aviators (no light, no light) and a Leaf Village sweatshirt and Steven is wearing a red and blue adidas jacket and black avatar cap with a single white (pale blue?) arrow down the front

The Opposite of Cruelty by Steven Leyva, surrounded by hot pink azaleas in Han’s front yard

Larks by Han, with yellow forsythia blossoms, last month in March

The poets / the poems 🌸 🌼

@stevenleyva.bsky.social
@blairpub.bsky.social
@ohiounivpress.bsky.social

blairpub.com/shop/p/the-o...

www.ohioswallow.com/978082142591...

Flyer for a reading at Fadensonnen. A pink bunny in the foreground, yllow background. The type: MESS AND FRICTION: BALTIMORE READING SERIES + DEC. 4 7PM FADENSONNEN UPSTAIRS TAVERN 3 W 23RD ST, 21218 STEVEN LEYVA JAMEY GALLAGHER PAIGE PASSANTINO TONEE MAE MOLL @MESSANDFRICTION @FADEN. SONNEN • ARTWORK BY EVANGELINE GALLAGHER

On Dec 4, I'll be part of this reading at Fadensonnen in Baltimore. I hope people will come. No word on whether the pink bunny will show yet.

Poem and the poem that inspired it

Poems are enough to move a human soul

Thanks so much

Big News!