round-up: 8/25
recommendations, a prompt, a gift, & tweets
Happy Thursday, all!
Here’s what I have for you today:
Housekeeping
A gift
Call to action
Tweets
Housekeeping:
I finally set up a Bookshop profile to share literary recommendations. If you don’t know, Bookshop’s mission is “to help local, independent bookstores thrive in the age of ecommerce.” That means that the proceeds benefit small bookstores as opposed to big corporations like Amazon. You can even decide which specific bookstore to support, if you have a local favorite.
Love that. Love these books.
The newest issue of The West Review…
comes out in September!
I’d love to include a few more poems, so please consider submitting. Pay is $10/poem, which is not nearly as much as you deserve, but it’s out of my own pocket, so it’s the best I can do—and I figure it’s better than nothing.
Recent antics:
A gift:
I published On Heaven & Holiness in 2021, and it’s been popular, so I thought I’d do a little ~giving back~ and offer y’all a free PDF of the zine.
If you like it, you might also enjoy Quarantexts, Poems About Lesbian Sex, & Lust Empire. If you hate it, that’s okay, too.
Call to action:
Write a poem inspired by Hanif Abdurraqib’s “For the Dogs Who Barked at Me on the Sidewalks in Connecticut.”
Here’s the poem in full:
For the Dogs Who Barked at Me on the Sidewalks in Connecticut
Darlings, if your owners say you are / not usually like this / then I must take them / at their word / I am like you / not crazy about that which towers before me / particularly the buildings here / and the people inside / who look at my name / and make noises / that seem like growling / my small and eager darlings / what it must be like / to have the sound for love / and the sound for fear / be a matter of pitch / I am afraid to touch / anyone who might stay / long enough to make leaving / an echo / there is a difference / between burying a thing you love / for the sake of returning / and leaving a fresh absence / in a city’s dirt / looking for a mercy / left by someone / who came before you / I am saying that I / too / am at a loss for language / can’t beg myself / a doorway / out of anyone / I am not usually like this either / I must apologize again for how adulthood has rendered me / us, really / I know you all forget the touch / of someone who loves you / in two minutes / and I arrive to you / a constellation of shadows / once hands / listen darlings / there is a sky / to be pulled down / into our bowls / there is a sweetness for us / to push our faces into / I promise / I will not beg for you to stay this time / I will leave you to your wild galloping / I am sorry / to hold you again / for so long / I am in the mood / to be forgotten.
Tweets:
That’s all for today!
Please buy things so that I can pay my rent. Love you.