Literary Mama (@literarymama.bsky.social)

@havehashad.com Oct 14, 2026, 3:23 PMReposted by @literarymama.bsky.social

"Godspeed, ends your reply. God slow, they write back, if there is a god, it is slow. I reply this is a good line of poetry, joke that I would like to steal it. I am welcome to steal it, they reply..."

a knockout today from @sophieklahr.bsky.social

www.havehashad.com/hadposts/on-...

On Cost

A former student writes you a note about sadness. They want to know how to write poems in which sadness does not “overpower the main message.” The sharing of sadness, they say, has a cost. You think about this a long time, think a snake shedding skin, the skin being found months later, after the rain, alongside a drift of new fall leaves, the bright scent of disintegration. This is what you will tell your former student. Godspeed, ends your reply. God slow, they write back, if there is a god, it is slow. I reply this is a good line of poetry, joke that I would like to steal it. I am welcome to steal it, they reply, but they will, maybe, steal it back. When my father died, I began to shoplift from a close-by store, a cheap chain. I put things into my canvas bag—avocados, vegan cheese, dark chocolate—thinking-without-thinking: I deserve this. I felt that when or if I was caught, I would simply burst into tears before security. My father died, I would wail aloud, inconsolable, he

@literarymama.bsky.social Oct 14, 2026, 2:09 PM

"mother, say sycamore, foxglove, princess,
a purple candelabra in springtime
we keep circling back
to these scenes of our loss"

Read @dehm000.bsky.social's beautiful poem, "baby blues," in our Sept/Oct issue:

@literarymama.bsky.social Oct 13, 2026, 12:03 PM

"In a previous incarnation I aptly alchemized ether into matter" - from Ellen Rawley's poem, "23 Months," in our September/October issue:

@lauragraceweldon.bsky.social Oct 13, 2026, 11:58 AMReposted by @literarymama.bsky.social

AI Cannibal Diet

A student tells me I should teach
how to write using AI as a tool.
I tell him we don’t use forklifts in the gym.
Some tools can weaken us.
This is less profane
than what I really want to say to him:
If you don’t learn how to do
the heavy lifting of thinking and writing,
you will become an animal
that survives eating only its own shit.
Our words are what feeds the machine.
AI becomes our mirror.
When we only ever look at our reflection,
the mirror becomes the meal.
Soon we are eating what we already ate,
chewing yesterday’s language
and calling it a new recipe.
We harvest our own manure,
dress it up as knowledge,
and feed it to the system
that feeds it right back to us.
Mama and baby birds passing
chewed worms from beak to beak.
Never swallowing or digesting a thing,
but calling it sustenance.
A strange new carnivore.
Not flesh eating flesh,
but thought eating thought,
until the words become marrow—
I mean narrow.
It’s the new fad diet. All the rage.
Consume everything. Digest nothing.
Intellect becomes thin. Translucent.
AI anorexia. Outsource appetite.
All thoughts pre-digested for you.
No need to chew on a single thing.

Samantha Bise

@literarymama.bsky.social Sep 29, 2026, 1:10 PMReposted by @literarymama.bsky.social

After years of amazing editing, our audio editor, @joannagarbutt.bsky.social, is stepping away from This Mama Is Lit!, and we're looking for a new team member:

@literarymama.bsky.social Oct 12, 2026, 1:30 PM

"And so her sister—this child’s aunt—applies the paint which captures and preserves the scene" - from Jane Blanchard's poem, "The Cradle," in our September/October issue:

@beaconpress.bsky.social Oct 12, 2026, 1:13 PMReposted by @literarymama.bsky.social

No matter how difficult it may be we must confront the uncomfortable history of racial violence in America. @drstaceypatton.bsky.social’s STRUNG UP is a vital read that does just that.
@draftingthepast.bsky.social

@literarymama.bsky.social Oct 9, 2026, 7:05 PM

"These days, every little thing is a terror even though I go nowhere and that is a problem because I think the fury must be me." - from Tiffany Baker's poem, "Bundle of Joy," in our September/October issue:

@beaconpress.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 6:26 PMReposted by @literarymama.bsky.social

What is the role of the artist? @marcusrediker.bsky.social, David Lester, and Paul give voices to people of the past (and future!) with their graphic novel THE BLACK SCHOONER

buff.ly/FSei3kR

@literarymama.bsky.social Oct 8, 2026, 12:15 PM

"I live in my certainties with no evidence, while, just days ago, astronomers released our first picture of planetary birth:" - from Celisa Steele's poem, "Witness, a Lullaby for the Mother" in our September/October issue:

@literarymama.bsky.social Oct 7, 2026, 2:37 PM

"Mom brought up the topic more explicitly: 'I’m not afraid of dying; I’m only afraid of growing old.' I couldn’t wrap my mind around that refrain. Old age and death felt far removed from us both." - from Audrey Markowitz's essay, "My Mother's Voice Lost and Found," in our September/October issue:

@sheshellwrites.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 12:25 PMReposted by @literarymama.bsky.social

So pleased to have a chance to share this seriously good book by Sarah Sentilles with LM readers. It stays with you long after you finish reading it!

@literarymama.bsky.social Oct 6, 2026, 12:02 PM

@sheshellwrites.bsky.social reviews Sarah Sentilles's Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn’t Ours in our September/October issue:

@aniking.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 2:10 PMReposted by @literarymama.bsky.social

Many thanks to the folks at @literarymama.bsky.social for nominating “It’s Not Called a Miscarriage if It‘s a Horse” which is part of the Horsegirl set, and you can read it here: literarymama.com/articles/dep...

@literarymama.bsky.social Oct 5, 2026, 2:03 PM

@oliviabrochuwrites.bsky.social profiles Julie Swendsen Young, author of Rules for Mothers, in our September/October issue:

@helenrye.bsky.social Oct 2, 2026, 7:35 PMReposted by @literarymama.bsky.social

www.alphaxiv.org/abs/2607.14729

@literarymama.bsky.social Oct 1, 2026, 12:21 PM

***NEW EPISODE!!!*** Sam Field and Tiffanie Drayton talk with @mcrane12.bsky.social, author of Perverts, about challenging the concept of perversion, finding connection, and exploring parenthood & the creative process. Listen here or wherever you get your podcasts:

@literarymama.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 5:48 PM

"Sometimes I swear I can hear flowers drinking. Their root hairs absorb a precious portion." - from Angela Sucich's poem, "No Word for a Mother Who’s Lost an Unborn Child," in our September/October issue:

@literarymama.bsky.social Sep 30, 2026, 12:52 PM

Our 2027 Best Small Fictions nominations: