NOTED šŖ
poet-in-residence of the astral realm / fog aficionado / Toska (Deep Vellum, 2023) / š„Ø Philly IG: @alina_pleskova alinapleskova.com
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NOTED šŖ
yesss I'd love to extend beyond poets & fiction writers if you're down (& if you can suggest out-of-town guests from graphic novel/comics realm to pair you with)!āI'll hit you up about early/mid 2026 once I get there in planning (I booked thru Dec but if it goes well at P&P, will continue next yr!)
šļø forgot to say, i made a newsletter for this, tooā for announcing lineups, sharing guest playlists & mine, etc. in a way that isn't reliant on social media posts: track-changes-series.beehiiv.com
this section of Patricia Highsmithās wiki is the ultimate let women have hobbies
The thing the mainstream media is not remembering about Hurricane Katrina is their own lethal, racist contribution to treating rumors as facts used to demonize the stranded in New Orleans, turning them from victims to be aided to enemies to be contained.
Exciting news !!!
I luv Philly and can't wait to do this event!
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philly is the center of the known universe & i missed hosting a reading series, so here we are š„ very excited to share the first event for the TRACK CHANGES series ft. special visitor @niina.bsky.social + local fave @olgamikolaivna.bsky.social on Oct. 7! šļø tickets & info: bit.ly/45RFbxM
judging by how often it inexplicably jams up even from having one (1) piece of paper in it, my printerās death drive is soooo strong
ā¤ļø awwe thanks Reuben, i will pass on the compliment!
frank oā hara would like a word (!)
a sludgy, sludgy dirge for the Moment
apropos of not much, except that it's certainly a mood for these times, my sweetheart killed it on this Lou Reed cover www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsty...
if you draw a smiley face on something, is it basically sentient?!??!!
when my printer has a paper jam, does it yearn for deathās sweet embrace??? when my fitbit says i passed 10,000 steps, does its heart swell with pride??? when my vibrator glitches out, is it mad at me????
āWestern media outlets have made possible the killing of more journalists in two yearsā¦than in WWI, WWIl, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine combined, to say nothing of starving an entire population, shredding its children, and burning people alive.ā
The Poetry Foundation invited me to write an essay remembering Alice Notley (1945-2025). I'm grateful for the space to remember her in this way. www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/171...
I also recommend this doxcare guide. Even if you think you might not be at high risk of being doxed, the information hygiene advice in here is good. crimethinc.com/2020/08/26/d...
Crush was soo formative for me, but i really liked WOTF too! wonder if the decade-long gap between books created near-impossible expectations, tho. but thatās not on him! i admire how he moves against the current of The Market (& super glad he survived his stroke & is here & writing books at all!)
the Pinterest-quote-ification of lines from Crush, followed by the not-at-all-viral reception of War of the Foxes, followed by the later, meta-aware online presence... what a journey. anyway i'm excited to read I Do Know Some Things
i want to say "Richard Siken you will always be famous" in a winky meme way, but actually can't think of many contemporary poets who've had a wilder ride of their work escaping then folding back into poetry contagion in a way that must've been so disorienting lol
"I guess I fell in love with poetry when I realized that I could use the tools of conversation for not-conversation. I guess I fell in love with Gertrude Stein, with the idea of surface delight, that we could evoke instead of mean." lithub.com/richard-sike...
š„² ayyy i feel so seen!!!
when i imagine the ānation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the Administrationā, i can only envision AI slop art of like, a weirdly muscular bald eagle carrying a bunch of (white, able bodied, US birth certificate carrying) babies to a gold tower covered in american flags
Unraveling of federal arts funding infrastructure continues. Hard to describe the decades of debates & advocacy invested in sustaining the CW fellowships at the NEA. Now, wiped out.
i am so sick of the dumbest people alive being in charge of everything and the second dumbest people alive writing opinion columns about how it's good
aah i WISH, though i've never tried! i've just never felt so spiritually connected to an instrumentā want to be the type of person who can play the theremin (also very on brand for me, lol)
if you ever desire an audience.... (waving my hands wildly)
"comments commenting" yes i am a Poet
are bands we were into as teens now considered dad rockā¦. heaeeelp š
old enough to have seen them at warped tour 2000, young enough to contribute to the current enormous birth rate decline
old enough to know what a devil lock isā¦.. young enough to forget iām old enough to be a parent of a tween if i had them in my 20s
seeing IG comments commenting on davey havokās new look (oregon trail sleaze?) like āis this the guy from AFI? my mom loves themā & now iām really really confused about how old i am
Iām kind of speechless with this one. I canāt imagine the kind of person who continues to make the argument that it doesnāt count as real starvation if the kids were already sick.
philadelphia august has left me no choice but to wear a matching red linen ensemble & go see a wim wenders matinee with an enormous fountain seltzer
At least we're consistent--every facet of government from top to bottom is complete and utter trash.
š¤ yeeeeeeeehaw š¤
Brooklyn persons: on the 15th and 16th I have some 7 pm poetry readings in NYC to celebrate new books by @dianaarterian.bsky.social, Allyson Paty, @christinehou.bsky.social, and me, alongside fellow poets @zefrrr.bsky.social and Courtney Bush at Black Spring Books and Unnameable Books respectively
lolā¦. lmao even
this is where we're at...... begging elected officials to help ensure that the country's sixth-largest public transportation system can fucking function
my fellow PA-ians, pleaaaase hit up your friends/fam/exes/whomever who live in areas where their senators especially need to be pressured about supporting SEPTA fundingā thatās N East Philly, Bucks County, & Montgomery County š ā¬ļø
shit is so grim, shit is so bizarre, & the brains are in here getting absolutely toasted
we as a society need to turn off the entire internet for like 3 consecutive business hours per day just to make sure everyone's brains get a constitutional walk
Emily Skillings, from Tantrums in Air @emily-skillings.bsky.social
i realized like 3 minutes into August that the Sealey Challenge isn't going to happen for this brain (here i'm rapping on my skull like the hood of a busted car), but perhaps a thread of poems from great books i've read/am reading can be possible
Luisa Muradyan, from I Make Jokes When Iām Devastated @luisamuradyan.bsky.social
the intensity of my anger at those who would criminalize the homeless ā a population literally created by the greed and callousness of the ruling class ā is very hard to contain. it was you who dismantled the safety net. if you donāt like the results, put it back
the historical shudderā. Joshua Clover
People are just walking around, going about their lives, acting like the governments we elected in the global north arenāt, right now, facilitating one of the most unimaginable atrocities in human history.
Journalist Anas al-Sharif with his daughter Sham and son Salah. Today's assassination of al-Sharif and four other Al Jazeera staff brings the number of journalists killed by Israel to 237. www.middleeasteye.net/news/al-jaze...
the US government is complicit in the mass murder of journalists.
He cried on camera while reporting about starving children in Gaza. For this transgression Israel murdered him. That much of American media still canāt muster the word genocide - even while watching hundreds in our profession be targeted and slaughtered for *doing journalism* ā¦
never take freedom of the press or access to news for granted. www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/...
i believe that short form video is maybe one of the worst things people have ever come up with and it should be regulated at least as much as cigarettes
very excited to share my interview with Elizabeth Hall in Zona Motel! we talk about her terrific new book Season of the Rat, precarity & survival mode, pleasure, productivity, paying attention to mundanity, & more.... šš“ substack.com/home/post/p-...
Zona Motel reminds me of the golden age of the bloggy literary internetāirreverent, human-sounding chatter rather than smooth, indistinguishable-sounding 'content'ā so it's also only fitting that the piece contains a pic of us from way back when in 2017 š¶š¶
very excited to share my interview with Elizabeth Hall in Zona Motel! we talk about her terrific new book Season of the Rat, precarity & survival mode, pleasure, productivity, paying attention to mundanity, & more.... šš“ substack.com/home/post/p-...
in the way that poems get lodged in usā¦ i was just trying to say when the next full moon would be, hesitated, checked, then repeated what i had said, like an incantation, & was like wait a minute isnāt thisā & went & found it on my shelf š
Joanne Kyger
Wow! We're up to 175 participants & more than $10k in pledges/direct contributions! Letās keep the momentum going ā¤ļøāš„ You can still join the #sealeychallenge Poetry Pledge Fundraiser for Gaza, as a participant or sponsor, at any time. Details here: mailchi.mp/openpoetrybo...
i love this song
can't say i've ever, ever loved any interview with a "CEO" until i read this one with Ben Collins (The Onion)ā these parts in particular www.status.news/p/the-onion-...
hell yeah š
the grand canyon being engulfed in flames since july 4 is just too apt of an augury for this empire www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
"One of the reasons the epidemic of violence against women is so unacknowledged is because cases like these are talked about individually, and often treated as though they are shocking aberrations rather than part of a pervasive pattern that operates at all levels of society."
š§š» love to do a summoning!!
truly a blessed South Philly occasion
turtles in question were given privacy, but the parrot eating cake was out here mingling
refilled my dopamine reserves by going to a Turtle Naming Ceremony in my neighborhoodā¦. (how it started)
brb swearing allegiance to the indomitable city-state of Philadelphia Except The Cop Parts
I found her gofundme! She's already raised 41.5k of her 45k goal for gas, vehicle maintenance, phone/internet costs (for posting the videos), food and supply drives for the community, and emergency funds in case she gets into legal trouble:
out here mentally regressing to early childhood (USSR), i fear
ahaha i didn't believe my coworker, eitherāwas covertly typing into google on my phone while on zoom. but now i'm a believer!!
for a bit of levity (tho even then, it indirectly invokes extreme climate change-related heat): this week i learned (via midwestern coworker) about the existence of "corn sweat" as a colloquial weather term š½š¦š¦š¦š¦
in a deluge of shitty news, this rippled hard into my spirit. public media is essential. people NEED access to programming, news, & education that isnāt filtered thru corporate oligarchy influence & $$$. i learned the goddamn language that i didnāt come to this country knowing bc of sesame street.
one million percent, i'd wager that at least 1/4 of my bookshelf is a result of tw*tter alone
i think many ppl are here to be in dialogue & community, which is multidirectional. & i say that as a writer who had a book to promote on a small press & was immeasurably grateful to people on the internet for supporting me so much. but they're real people to me, not a category of prospective buyers
from my came-of-age-online millennial POV, writers who are comfortable being a version of themselves online, & being part of a conversation, often gain audiences/readers/friends just by doing that. when you like someone's whole deal online, it follows that you'll be into supporting their work
i'm sure many are saying this, butāas in real life 'networking'ā ppl can tell when you only want to sell to them or want something from them. if you're a relentless engine of self-promotion & nothing else, & if you think of social platforms as strictly transactional, what you do here won't take.
My wife is in Vogue shitting on your AI-generated "art" š www.vogue.com/article/matt...
![Well, everything. The death of art. [Laughs.] A thing that Iāve been struck by in the last year of tech development around art is that what makes us human is making art, even if youāre not a professional artist. This is kind of corny, but I think about cavemen, right? One of the first things we ever did as a species was put our handprints on a wall, and itās just this drive that has always been there. Itāll always be there. And I think itās preposterous that these people are suggesting that they develop this technology, and the first thing they want to eliminate is art, so you have more time toā¦what, email? I donāt know what they think Iām going to do with my fucking day. Most of the population is not artists, but a lot of the population has artistic hobbies, and if you replace that with a computer doing it for you or whatever, itās just pointless. I think thereās a death drive in these people, almost, and an actual hatred of artists; they are jealous of people with imagination because they donāt have one, and they almost consciously want to eliminate it.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:obalt57atoxc2zooldtuur75/bafkreifnjtvupzmkqg7cggiv2z5nckzpp5yd2sm7h5gg2kq3plbwv2btuy@jpeg "Click to view full size")
. @npr.org is one of the only US national news organizations that still has a reporter inside Gaza, Anas Baba, and he keeps reporting even though he himself is starving. This piece is unbelievably powerful. www.npr.org/2025/07/05/n...
how do these people sleep at night
Just called both my senators, left messages emphasizing the need to block military aid to a country that's enforcing death by starvation. You can do this too
"He walked 8 km to get there. No shoes. Probably hadn't eaten in days... he set down his bags and he put his hands on my face and he kissed me... he left and the IDF opened up with machine gun fire... There were dead Palestinians. He was one of them." A five-year-old child.
"The Israelis don't want us to film out of the window at the devastation inside Gaza. But I've spent 10 mins looking at it with my own eyes and I can tell you communities in the north of Gaza, that I knew well, are flat. There's nothing left of them." Jeremy Bowen www.bbc.com/news/videos/...
Chris Smalls was profiled by every major media outlet when he lead Amazon victory on Staten Island. Shocking that not one outlet has covered the IDF detaining him in the Gaza flotilla
I tried to write about it
daaang going to a show at JBs or i would be here!
More and more this seems like the book of the year both because it's wonderful and because its message is so crystal clear. bookshop.org/p/books/one-...
"The Zaynab Project is a women-led, 100% volunteer-run nonprofit operating directly from within Gaza. We are part of the very communities we serve. No middlemen, no marketing costs, no admin fees ā just local teams delivering urgent relief to those most in need."
(if i ever say poetry + career in the same sentence, you have full permission to lob medium-firm tomatoes in my direction)
