I've missed a few days for #12DaysOfPoetry, so here are two poems I want to highlight for the final day, each published in one of @sfpoetry.bsky.social's poetry journals.
🪶👁 Eagle-Eyed 🦅🍃
🌿🌹 Beauty's Captor 🧱🩸
1/3
The #12DaysOfPoetry are over, but you can read all mine in this thread! Fully EIGHT of the twelve were published in 2025; I don't expect that acceleration to continue, but it was very gratifying to line them all up and see what I've accomplished since Baby's First Poem coming out in 2023.
Thank you to each poet for being a part of our 12 days of poetry. Our final performance is by the wonderful Kate Fox with ‘Joyful Autistic’.
Let us know who you’d like to perform at this year’s festival in the comments!
#BradfordLitFest #12DaysOfPoetry #SpokenWord #LyricalMehfil #PoetryWithAPunch
Day 12 of #12DaysofPoetry, which means it's time for me to link to "Care for Lightning," which was published by Uncanny Magazine in January 2025 - that is, almost exactly a year ago!
www.uncannymagazine.com/article/care...
Thank you to everyone who participated in #12DaysOfPoetry, whether by posting their own poetry, linking to others', or reading. I know the political shit has hit the fan and we need to do something about that, but taking a moment for art is part of how we maintain our strength for that struggle.
Here endeth the #12DaysOfPoetry! My final piece is all too timely, as "The Great Undoing" (a sonnet published by @zoeticpress.bsky.social) is about rolling back the apocalypse . . . read or listen to it here!
www.zoeticpress.com/an-08-ancien...
And finally, on the 12th day of #12DaysOfPoetry, I offer a poem from my chapbook, Whiles Changing Lanes, which came out last year from Bottlecap Press.
"Riddles of the wind" is a bleak and unsparing free verse poem (even moreso than "Homecoming" was), but sometimes we find variation in greys.
I missed the 11th day of the #12DaysOfPoetry, because Reasons. So let's make up for lost time. "Homecoming" appeared in @analogsf.bsky.social last year, and it was on their poetry page for a while.
Now it's gone. Which is on-theme for the poem, honestly.
For the last day of #12DaysofPoetry, I want to share the best poetry collections I read this year!
🕊️ Larks by @hanvanderhart.bsky.social
⛪️ If I Were God I Would Also Start With Light by @gardnerdorton.bsky.social
🪦 Kingdom Animalia by Aracelis Girmay
🌱 For the New Year by Eric Pankey
I just have to say, that I would never have gotten through #12DaysofPoetry with everything that happened in the world recently if I hadn't decided to pre-compose all 12 days. I decided to keep posting hoping silliness may help. Hang in there.
Thank you @swantower.bsky.social for suggesting this.
#12DaysofPoetry Day 12:
twelve lords a-leaping
sounds good, I say, let them leap
right into my bed
Gifts for a Dry Country We came down from the mountain and found the rain starting. Grass between stones. The weight of wet wool. Oranges bursting when peeled. The clouds hanging blue against the gray sea. I gave you an iris, petals curved down like the fall of your hair. I gave you a star, rays scratched in the mud, trailing out. Trailing out. Iris sharp in the dusk. A star low, between leaves, bright like the oranges. Close to your hand.
For the final day of #12DaysOfPoetry, here is "Gifts for a Dry Country," which was secretly always about this time of year.
roughcutpress.com/issue-17/
And on another fairy tale note, "After Midnight," originally published in Mythic Delirium back in 2016:
#12DaysOfPoetry
mythicdelirium.com/featured-poe...
Day 11 of #12DaysOfPoetry, and I think it's time to post "Ever Noir," which was a finalist for the Hugo Award last year:
www.havenspec.com/ever-noir
On Day 11 of #12DaysOfPoetry, a math-bio poem, "Three Facts About Sperm":
web.archive.org/web/20210507...
The #12DaysOfPoetry are almost over! "Cutting the Cord," published by @smallwondersmag.com, is about as close as I get to science fiction -- it's even got a space elevator and aliens in it:
smallwondersmag.com/piece/cuttin...
#12DaysofPoetry Day 11:
eleven dancers
one singular sensation
it's a chorus line
Difference Equations for Sara There is a smallest step that you can take, embarking on a journey. Skips and hops exaggerate the lurch we always make when setting into motion. Though you shake at the beginning, do not seek to stop before the smallest step that you can take. Pile changes onto changes, as a rake collects dry leaves, or elsewhere steady drops from rainclouds shape a puddle. Always make your starting into stories. No mistake exists except assuming you can swap a safe choice for the steps that you must take. A lack of motion is a choice that slakes no thirst except a petty urge to shop for other people's faults. So, let us make our jerky, small attempts together wake the power for a longer climb. The top of this long hill is reached by steps we take in union, in this work that we all make.
For a belated Day 10 of #12DaysOfPoetry, a mathematical villanelle for @saraluckelman.bsky.social . You can find a copy in the Bridges 2020 anthology:
www2.math.uconn.edu/~glaz/Bridge...
#12DaysofPoetry Day 11: “On Tuesday, We Take a Trip to Saturn” in @smallwondersmag.com. A sweet poem about a sapphic road trip in space 💕💫
smallwondersmag.com/piece/on-tue...
For day 10, we have the wonderful Maria Ferguson performing “Reunion.”
Check out more poetry on the Bradford Lit Fest YouTube channel.
#BradfordLitFest #12DaysOfPoetry #SpokenWord #LyricalMehfil #PoetryWithAPunch
Third, "Horsemen."
Because everyone loves biscotti.
#12DaysOfPoetry
medium.com/@marikness/h...
Second, "The Indifferent Song of C. Acer," which, ok, yes, another take on a considerably more famous poem, with rockets:
#12DaysOfPoetry
speculativecity.com/poetry/the-i...
For Day 10 of #12DaysOfPoetry ....
....we need a lot of poems. So, three from me, all of which seem to fit today's mood for one reason or another.
First up, "The Stained Oak Leaves" (Umbel and Panicle, February 2017) kinda about poets and dragons:
umbelandpanicle.weebly.com/issue-one-ma...
On the 10th day of #12DaysOfPoetry, I return to “wind through a long-forgotten outpost,” published by @penumbricmag.bsky.social in 2023, and demand of the world a day for when it’s neither pertinent nor applicable.
For Day 10 of #12DaysOfPoetry, we go back to free verse with "Hallucination" in @mergansermagazine.bsky.social, wherein I indulge in some linguistic games while being angry about AI:
mergansermagazine.com/story/halluc...
#12DaysofPoetry Day 10: “Gods from Machine” in @psalteryandlyre.bsky.social. A summery poem to beat the cold this week. Also *checks notes* another grief poem…? I think I’m sensing a theme.
psalteryandlyre.org/2024/12/02/g...
#12DaysofPoetry Day 10 (in which I get silly):
ten pipers piping
I think I can handle that
if they're piping hot
The incredible Akeim Toussant Buck performed 'The Mission' at Poetry with a Punch 2025. Check out the Bradford Lit Fest YouTube channel for even more spoken word performances.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/uqRR9gUHK4U
#BradfordLitFest #12DaysOfPoetry #SpokenWord #LyricalMehfil #PoetryWithAPunch
#12DaysofPoetry Day 9: “The Skeleton Cafe” in Orion’s Belt. Another speculative grief poem, this one centered around the quirky visitors (inhabitants?) of an afterlife cafe.
www.orions-belt.net/archives/the...
Day 9 of #12DaysOfPoetry - and the first of two days of dancing in the song. (I'm counting the leaping lords as dancing lords, though we could certainly think of other interpretations.)
So, "After the Dance," which originally appeared in Uncanny in 2015:
www.uncannymagazine.com/article/dance/
