Station Sharon Olds

Oh, how I love Sharon Olds

HERE ARE MY BLACK CLOTHES I think now it is better to love no one than to love you. Here are my black clothes, the tired nightgowns and robes fraying in many places. Why should they hang useless as though I were going naked? You liked me well enough in black; I make you a gift of these objects. You will want to touch them with your mouth, run your fingers through the thin tender underthings and I will not need them in my new life.

You liked me well enough / in black

Another by Louise Glück

On Reading Brecht

On Reading Brecht
Jane Hirshfield

🖤

TORN Witness the wet dead snake, its long hexagonal pattern weaved around its body like a code for creation, curled up cold on the newly tarred road. Let us begin with the snake: the fact of death, the poverty of place, of skin and surface. See how the snake is cut in two—its body divided from its brain. Imagine now, how it moves still, both sides, the tail dancing, the head dancing. Believe it is the mother and the father. Believe it is the mouth and the words. Believe it is the sin and the sinner-the tempting, the taking, the apple, the fall, every one of us guilty, the story of us all. But then return to the snake, pitiful dead thing, forcefully denying the split of its being, longing for life back as a whole, wanting you to see it for what it is: something that loves itself so much it moves across the boundaries of death to touch itself once more, to praise both divided sides equally, as if it was easy.

Ada Limón

What a perfect poem for right now.

From Ada Limón's book, Bright Dead Things: bit.ly/adabright

#poem #books #writing

A Construction Worker’s Suicide Highlights a Wider Crisis

I was reporting another story about the construction industry when I came across a startling dataset: the industry has the second highest suicide rate and the highest rate of drug overdoses. I wanted to know why. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/r...

After Minor Surgery this is the dress rehearsal when the body like a constant lover flirts for the first time with faithlessness when the body like a passenger on a long journey hear the conductor call out the name of the first stop when the body in all its fear and cunning makes promises to me it knows it cannot keep

some Linda Pastan for #smallpoemsunday

To Myself Franz Wright

A Sunday evening Franz Wright.

Everything's going to be fine...

Poem called “The Loved Ones” by Wendell Berry in the current New Yorker.

We are the absent ones
#smallpoemsunday
@tomsnarsky.bsky.social
#poetry

Six Poems, by Traci Brimhall Color Theory Before Newton used a prism to break light into color, Aristotle said everything was white and black. What could be simpler? The air— white. Water—white. Black was the color of t…

Published today: a superb suite of poems by Traci Brimhall!

bigother.com/2025/11/12/s...

Cc: @tracibrimhall.bsky.social

Obamacare Prices Become Public, Highlighting Big Increases The government website now shows consumers how much their health insurance costs will increase next year, as Congress remains at an impasse over the plans’ subsidies.

Breaking News: All Americans who buy health insurance through Obamacare can now get a first look at how much prices will increase next year.

REAL ESTATE My mother married a man who divorced her for money. Phyllis, he would say, if you don't stop buying jewelry, I will have to divorce you to keep us out of the poorbouse. When he said this, she would stub out a cigarette, mutter Motberfucker under her breath. Eventually, he was forced to divorce her. Then, he died. Then she did. That man was not my father. My father was buried down the road, in a box his other son selected, the ashes of his third wife in a brass urn that he will hold in the crook of his arm forever. At the reception, after the funeral, I got mean on four cups of Lime Sherbet Punch. When the man who was not my father divorced my mother, I stopped being related to him. These things are complicated, says the Talmud. When he died, I couldn't prove it, I couldn't get a death certificate. These things are complicated, says the Health Department. Their names remain on the deed to the house. It isn't haunted, it's owned by ghosts. When I die, I will come in fast and low. I will stick the landing. There will be no confusion. The dead will make room for me.

I Do Know Some Things by Richard Siken held by white hand, over teal blanket, bookshelves in background

“When I die, I will come in fast and low. I will stick the landing. There will be no confusion. The dead will make room for me.”

Richard Siken

#poetry #booksky @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social

What We Talk About When We Talk About Cancer

It broke my heart to write this poem, and I would give it back if I could reverse my brother's death or my mom's diagnosis. But it doesn't work like that. So I'm trying to open my hands to the joy of having a poem in @thenation.com. Thank you, Kaveh Akbar, et al.
www.thenation.com/article/cult...

BREAKING: The NYT fights back!

“Two years ago today, Hamas carried out a horrific war crime, killing more than 1,100 Israelis and kidnapping 250 more. I mourn these lives and pray for the safe return of every hostage still held and for every family whose lives were torn apart by these atrocities. In the aftermath of that day, Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government launched a genocidal war: adeath toll that now far exceeds 67,000; with the Israeli military bombing homes, hospitals, and schools into rubble. Every day in Gaza has become a place where grief itself has run out of language. I mourn these lives and pray for the families that have been shattered. Our government has been complicit through it all. This must end. The occupation and apartheid must end. Peace must be pursued through diplomacy, not war crimes, and our government must act to end these atrocities and hold those responsible to account. These last two years have demonstrated the very worst of humanity. We must answer it by modeling the very best: a relentless pursuit of our higher ideals and an unwavering commitment to universal human rights.”

My statement on the two year anniversary of October 7, 2023.

Today's the day! Unrivered is available for pre-orders from @sundresspub.bsky.social! The first 75 pre-orders receive a mini-broadside as a thank you.
Grateful to those who believed in this book. I'll be sharing the kind words of those who wrote blurbs over the next few days.

tinyurl.com/4pj96v59

The World Doesn't End by Charles Simic
open.substack.com/pub/onlypoem...

Jon startles @davidfaris.bsky.social and @timmiller.bsky.social with his vision of what Trump’s imperial powers might look like when Democrats take back the government.

Federal troops are trampling business at D.C. bookstores. Loyalty Bookstore, in the northwest D.C. neighborhood of Petworth, has experienced a downturn in sales since federal jackboots hit the capitol pavement, as NBC’s News4 recently reported. The …

Overall, D.C.’s bookstore workers are noticing a shift in energy. “The vibe is bad.”
lithub.com/federal-troo...

ode to the flute A man sings by opening his mouth a man sings by opening his lungs by turning himself into air a flute can be made of a man nothing is explained a flute lays on its side and prays a wind might enter it and make of it at least a small final song

Ross Gay —

#smallpoemsunday

Arthur Sze : The Glass Constellation : New & Collected Poems - Tin House Arthur Sze, winner of the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry for Sight Lines, joins David Naimon to discuss his latest book, The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems. Together they step back t...

I'm over the moon that Arthur Sze has been named our 25th U.S. Poet Laureate. Arthur was on the show for his new & collected The Glass Constellation and we looked back across his life as a poet in honor of it.
ICYMI: 📻 tinhouse.com/podcast/arth...
@coppercanyonpress.bsky.social

See a more accessible version at https://www.threepennyreview.com/being-and-time/

Thank you to Wendy Lesser for making a spot for "Being and Time" (my poem, not Heidegger's treatise) in Threepenny Review.
Extra happy because my poem gets to hang out with one by @toddedillard.bsky.social.

Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Best, poems by Jane Zwart | Orison Books Oddest & Oldest & Saddest & Bestpoems by Jane Zwart *available for pre-order* Orison Bookspaper / $18.00ISBN: 978-1-949039-68-9Publication Date: March 3, 2026 ABOUT THE BOOK As its title...

I don't know how to untangle joy from all the rest. But here's a joy: my debut poetry book is coming out with Orison & it has a cover & I'm pretty sure my mom beat you all to pre-ordering it. But if you'd like a copy, that'd mean the world to me. Here's the link:
www.orisonbooks.com/product-page...

Sheila Heti on the Profound Influence of Jane Bowles on Her Writing—and Life When I first read Two Serious Ladies in my early twenties, it instantly and forever changed the way I wrote. It influenced me more than any book I can think of. I imagine it’s because I had not bef…

How Jane Bowles’ Two Serious Ladies influenced Sheila Heti to write (and live) sincerely.

Song in my heart If there's pee on the seat it's my pee, battery's dead I killed it, canary at the bottom of the cage I bury it, like God tromping the sky in his undershirt carrying his brass spittoon, raging and sobbing in his Hush Puppy house slippers with the backs broke down, no Mrs. God to make him reasonable as he gets out the straight razor to slice the hair off his face, using the Black Sea as a mirror when everyone knows the Black Sea is a terrible mirror, like God is a terrible simile for me but like God with his mirror, I use it.

Diane Seuss

#ReleaseTheCuomoList

Very much with @jacquiwine.bsky.social on this one 👇

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet @mosababutoha.bsky.social emphasizes the importance of hearing directly from Palestinians about what’s happening in Palestine.

'Aubade as Fuel' from LOVE PRODIGAL by Traci Brimhall (Copper Canyon Press)

"You know / I always need to save something, to control it."

'Aubade as Fuel' from LOVE PRODIGAL by Traci Brimhall (Copper Canyon Press) @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social

Sheer brilliance 🤍

#poetry #poetrybooks #poetrycollections