I’ve recently gone back to writing my first drafts of essays with pen and paper. It’s so pleasant. It’s a break from keyboarding, which is blowing out my elbow. Plus it has raised the quality of the digital final draft. Just trying to be less engaged with the world inside the screen.

Ha! Thanks for the block recommendation.🥰

One of the most disconcerting moments of living in this timeline of the world in the U.S. is that A LOT of people in this country keep acting like there's a special line that needs to be crossed for fascism to *arrive.* The reality is that we are CURRENTLY living under Federal fascism. NOW.

Scrapin' bottom.

Today is Unrivered's first birthday! Thank you to all of you who have read or shared or allowed me to read its poems at you. I appreciate you all. You can still find it through your favorite local bookstore or on the @sundresspub.bsky.socia website.

The R&M Autumn 2026 issue is now available in print! Everything here is broken, everything is out of control, and when the charioteer falls, he falls like a missile, through branches wet and heavy with snow. While you're at it, check your voter registration too, friends. (Sic semper tyrannis.)

More Zagajewski

All they know how to do is kill. But as long as I use all these electronics, I’m party to it.

Wrapped in amethyst, a supermassive black hole bends spacetime into an eternal dance, where matter approaches the event horizon and the universe begins to surrender its secrets.

Bind me to your will, bind me with these threads of sorrow, and gather me out of the afternoon where I have torn my soul on twenty monstrous altars, offering all things but myself. ~Leonard Cohen (Book of Mercy)

Thanks—best to read it on a laptop—line breaks incorrect on the phone even when held horizontally. Oh well…

I trust NONE of this crop of initiatives. All seem very manipulative. Any good ones?

My poem, "Babylon's Daughter" is in the new issue of Mount Carmel Magazine. The issue is dedicated to St. John of the Cross, and my poem is a riff on John's riff of Psalm 137 💙 St. John's mentor was my girl, St. Teresa of Ávila. @carmelitespirit.bsky.social

Once November rolls around, the schedule clears up.❤️