Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Cassandra Whitaker

Albumism @albumism.com · 1d

Now Playing: D'Angelo's debut album 'Brown Sugar' (1995) | Rest in Power to one of the truest talents the music world has ever seen and heard.

album.ink/dangeloBS

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Post Punk-y Brewster @krismeana.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you for providing so much art in my lifetime D’Angelo 🕊️

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Natalie Weiner @natalieweiner.bsky.social · 1d

still proud of this piece, which attempts to complicate one of the things d'angelo was (unfairly) best known for

Natalie Weiner @natalieweiner.bsky.social · Aug 14

www.billboard.com/music/rb-hip...

Why D’Angelo’s ‘Untitled’ Video Is Still Uniquely Provocative, Nearly Two Decades Later

The video for Dâ€™Angeloâ€™s â€œUntitled (How Does It Feel)â€ is famously simple: a man, nude as far as the edge of the frame sitting low on his hips, singing so passionately it seems like his inspir...

www.billboard.com

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Dee Phunk @deephunk.bsky.social · 1d

An hour and 11-minute long mix of nothing but D'Angelo live tracks from various shows during the Brown Sugar and Voodoo eras. It's so well done. Also downloadable.

D'Angelo Live, by Ian Wallace

15 track album

ianwallaceproductions.bandcamp.com

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Ann Powers @annkpowers.bsky.social · 1d

My colleague Sheldon Pearce's obituary for D'Angelo www.npr.org/2025/10/14/n...

D'Angelo, R&B's reluctant icon, has died at 51

The expressive singer made just three albums, including his 1995 debut, Brown Sugar, but retreated from the public after each. He had been battling cancer, according to a statement from his family.

www.npr.org

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ACLU @aclu.org · 2d

The trailblazing transgender rights activist Miss Major has passed away at the age of 78.

Miss Major was a lifelong organizer and participant in the ballroom scene. She took part in the 1969 Stonewall Riots and was injured by the police — but she kept fighting.

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BronSays @bronsays.bsky.social · 4d

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests."

Meta AI adviser spreads disinformation about shootings, vaccines and trans people

Critics condemn Robby Starbuck, appointed in lawsuit settlement, for ‘peddling lies and pushing extremism’

www.theguardian.com

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Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · 4d

Furthermore there is no biographical info on any of the poets. Just their name, and the poem. It seems all the poems are in the public domain.

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Elena “Eraserhead baby” Zhang @ezhang77.bsky.social · 4d

Jon Boisvert

#smallpoemsunday
@tomsnarsky.bsky.social

TRANSPLANT
Father receives another transplant today.
This time, it's a beehive. It feels good to drink the rain, he says, & better to eat the Aowers. He's been in the meadow for hours now, getting so big & brave.

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Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · 4d

There are women and black poets and a few queer ones as well, but there's no searchable way for students to discover them.

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Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · 4d

The collection is a fraction of its former size and glory. Oddly plenty of European poets represented (for America 's 250?) More or less reads like a sanitized pre 21st century Norton. Mostly white male.

Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · 5d

1/3 Poetry Out Loud gutted their collections for poems that connect or reflect America's 250. Below are screens of the original collections 1 of 2

The original categories for poetry out loud were social justice and equality celebrating Hispanic heritage and culture celebrating native American heritage and culture celebrating Asian American and Pacific islander heritage and culture celebrating black history and culture

Celebrating lgbtq pride domestic life mythology and folklore travel water

Music and dance sorrow and grief the sporting Life humor and satire war poetry

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DiscussingFilm @discussingfilm.net · 4d

Diane Keaton has sadly passed away at the age of 79.

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Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · 5d

3/3 to be fair I haven't gone through every thing on the site but a quick cursory search reveals that there's not much left from the original collections. Not surprising just disappointing.

Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · 5d

2/3 Our students were drawn towards social justice/ 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️/ black and Asian pride. Not sure if anyone will participate this year, which perhaps, is part of the point.

The original poetry out loud collection also included Erie poems springtime winter weather historical poems poems of protest resistance and empowerment

Family ties cityscapes feathered Friends summer poems and country roads

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Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · 5d

1/3 Poetry Out Loud gutted their collections for poems that connect or reflect America's 250. Below are screens of the original collections 1 of 2

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Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · 5d

I played the Telephone game, where artists of all types pass work onto each other and create new work based on the work received. My poem(s) responded to paintings by Jessica Snow. It was a cool process. You can view the whole project in an interactive journal/anthology, here telephonegame.art

Homepage of the telephone art project featuring an eye surrounded by a circle with seven moon like objects

Looking Up Into The Winter Stars At The Edge of the Atlantic There You Are

What stars weave their light with darkness? A circle of trust
Between absence Between emptiness
A weather of static— How small must one’s heart become
To survive what passes? To slip between infinity’s trap
I love you I love you not Winking in darkness

What noise reaches us from afar? You are loved — you are loved
You are loved for what you are Between absence and emptiness
To survive? A weather of trust
A circle of dust A heart between light and dark
As if all that came before was wind A voice from another room cries out

In the dark In the emptiness
A warm longing A light Long passed from age
–As if emptiness were so easy to dismiss How we touched without touching? Voices
From afar arriving home through our voice –Together—we opened a door
You are loved you are loved You are loved for what you are

1 Can be read as two poems or as one poem, a contrapuntal

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Chelsea Dingman @chelsdingman.bsky.social · 7d

New poem up! Thanks to the editors @amsterdamreview.bsky.social for including my work. Follow their link to read the issue in full:

AMSTERDAM REVIEW
We Have Known Each Other at Every Hour by Chelsea Dingman
At dusk, the dusk holds
the days apart. I am also other than
I imagine myself to be. To know this is forgiveness, Simone Weil wrote at the onset of WWII. Still,
this almost-hour. Its snows. All that I still have to lose. What grain, what glacier,
what child, what plain did I hand my emptiness
that I would feel full? Still, I don't understand why
we describe it as falling— in orbit, the satellites going fast enough sideways
that they fall past the earth
as the earth turns from them. As in love,

when I looked you in your face the first time and understood you too will be impossible
to see to the end. Some days, I think it would be easier not to know
hat I now know. You are a homesickne uffered by fantasies of orchids, scotc
pines, daybreak. Blue
graves scattered over cities. People
I tried to love
but couldn't. The cow's bright eyes in the fields might've been fireflies tonight had it not been March. The river
cries out from under its hood of ice. Its mouth a silo. In it,
a perfect silence arrives
after the clamor of breaking. As a child,
only after breaking was my body believable. Belief gave way
to grief, its purgatories. Who will look out for you after you are grief enough
to believe in? You who emerged from me
in the future, where I delivered us, two fragile creatures lured out into the ryegrass,
the permafrost. And what on earth is lost that is not lost
fercely, and on purpose? When I'm dead, still I'll dream of you. A rebellion of late snow

I moved toward
without meaning to. A howl of dusk
trembling against me from within.
Chelsea Dingman's first book, Thaw, won the National Poetry Series (UGA Press,
2017). Her second book, through a small ghost, won The Georgia Poetry Prize (UGA Press, 2020). Her third collection is I, Divided (LSU Press, 2023). She is also the author of the chapbook, What Bodies Have I Moved (Madhouse Press, 2018). As a PhD Candidate at the University of Alberta, her current work draws on research supported by funding from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada. Visit her website: chelseadingman.com.
« Two by Eric Pankey
Two by Stefanie Kirby >>

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The Conversation U.S. @us.theconversation.com · 5d

The phrase “coming out” didn’t start as a public declaration — it began in the shadows, among coded phrases and hidden communities.

Over time, it became a political act, a rallying cry, and a model for other social movements.

buff.ly/qnHe5a4

🏳️🌈 #LGBTQHistoryMonth

The history of ‘coming out,’ from secret gay code to popular political protest

In the 1950s, ‘coming out’ meant quietly acknowledging one’s sexual orientation. Today, the term is used by a broad array of social movements.

buff.ly

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Chloe N. Clark @pintsncupcakes.bsky.social · 12d

Made a vibes trailer for the book:

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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 6d

I’d like to amplify others’ pleas to *please* acknowledge and build upon the work of librarians and other organizers — @heykellyjensen.bsky.social, @tasslyn.bsky.social, @everylibrary.bsky.social, et al — who’ve been tracking *all of this* and developing expertise for YEARS.

404 Media @404media.co · 7d

Help us investigate book bans across the USA.

404 Media has gotten a grant to unearth public records about systematic censorship of books, schools, and libraries in the U.S.

🔗 www.404media.co/help-us-inve...

Help Us Investigate Book Bans and Educational Censorship Around America

404 Media has gotten a grant to unearth public records about systematic censorship of books, schools, and libraries in the U.S.

www.404media.co

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David Rosenthal @davidrosenthalpoet.bsky.social · 10d

A little over a month away from the first of these!!!!

Mark your calendar and register for the Zoom link:

beardedbardsofbluesky.weebly.com

Bearded Bards
Of BlueSky

Online readings to raise funds for Tans Lifeline.

November 8, 2025
Featuring:
Todd Dillard
Brian Spears
Matthew E. Henry
James McConachie
David J. Bauman
Jonathan Everitt

December 13, 2025
Featuring:
Jared Beloff
Barlow Adams
Dan Murphy
upformsumdirt
Gregory Crosby
J-T Kelly

5:00-6:45 est / 2:00-3:45 pst

https://beardedbardsofbluesky.weebly.com

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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.bsky.social · 8d

I've written my analysis of today's grim Supreme Court oral argument in the conversion therapy case:

As far as the Court's concerned, imaginary medical uncertainty gives states the authority to hurt queer kids, and takes away states' authority to protect them

ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/chile...

The Conservative Justices Don't Trust Any Science That Supports LGBTQ Kids

States that want to facilitate discrimination against LGBTQ people have the Court's blessing. States that want to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination do not.

ballsandstrikes.org

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Feena van @feenavan2099.bsky.social · 11d

"The species is named after Inazuma, a character from the Japanese manga ‘One Piece,’ known for the ability to change sex between male and female"

Half Male-Half Female Spider Discovered In Thailand Is New To Science

Not only is this species new to science, but this remarkable individual is the first record of a rare biological phenomenon in this previously unknown species.

www.forbes.com

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Sam Levin @samtlevin.bsky.social · 9d

NEW: Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom "deceived" the Supreme Court + "profoundly misrepresented" LGBTQ+ research, according to scholars cited by ADF.

Quoted experts speak out about ADF's "distortions" + "false evidence" in major case, on deck tomorrow, to revive "conversion therapy"

Christian group ‘deceived’ supreme court about LGBTQ+ research, cited scholars say

Exclusive: Experts say Alliance Defending Freedom, arguing to revive conversion therapy, ‘profoundly misrepresented’ their work in case threatening trans and queer youth

www.theguardian.com

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Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · 9d

bookshop.org/p/books/wolf.... Poetry

Wolf Devouring a Wolf Devouring a Wolf

Check out Wolf Devouring a Wolf Devouring a Wolf - <p>Having written a book called <em>Wolf Centos</em> that opens with the quote "All the poetry has wolves in it, Pam," how could I not be entranced b...

bookshop.org

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