Author | Lightnews

Isaac Pickell

@isaacpickell.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.1K following 170 posts

black & jewish poet & phd student in Detroit | work @blackoceanbooks.bsky.social and @blacklawrence.bsky.social and @deadmallpress.bsky.social | Cave Canem fellow | just very glad to be here.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Reposted by Isaac Pickell

Nikki Wallschlaeger @nikkimwalls.bsky.social · 1d

I got something very special in the mail today from my publisher ✨

You Must Live: New Poetry From Palestine

edited by Tayseer Abu Odeh and Sherah Bloor, translators and editors. (Copper Canyon Press, 2025).

💜thank you for not looking away💜 @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social

1 17 36

Isaac Pickell @isaacpickell.bsky.social · 26d

On aging and possibility, or:

forty words for turning forty
for #smallpoemsunday

@tomsnarsky.bsky.social

Middle age

i have traded blithe limbs
for fragile acts—all the days

i ever breathed
could crack as memory

[ i tender past like an egg; what else
might still grow].

i crane to heed
something so important

i leave my whole life for it.

7 26

Isaac Pickell @isaacpickell.bsky.social · 28d

[and do subscribe to Chris' newsletter — it comes with a fresh perspective, it's funny and wise, and it's full of new things to read.]

1 1

Isaac Pickell @isaacpickell.bsky.social · 28d

Easily the most seen I've ever felt in review—

"these dense bricks that aren’t so heavy you can’t carry them, but you know you’ve got a bag of bricks slung over your shoulder."

<<>>

If that sounds good, buy this book? I'm quite sure you'll love its weight.

www.blackocean.org/catalog1/its...

1 1 3

Isaac Pickell @isaacpickell.bsky.social · Sep 21

A very #smallpoemsunday.

<<>>

@tomsnarsky.bsky.social

When you know

The smell of tired
blossom; how musty
sweet are endings. A ruin
of color. You say beauty
is anything—to see the same
yellow moon rising
and not mention it.

1 7 31

Isaac Pickell @isaacpickell.bsky.social · Sep 18

Chris! Very glad to be in the good company of your bookshelf.

Isaac Pickell @isaacpickell.bsky.social · Sep 7

bsky.app/profile/abit...

Breezy (they/them) @abitchislive.bsky.social · Sep 6

Ok so in case yall missed the memo like I did. David Lehman, series editor of Best American Poetry is a Zionist ass. Literally feel embarrassed that I wound up in this situation. I was literally the only person of color in a room of 50+ people. It was terrifying.
#poetry #bestamericanpoetry

Isaac Pickell @isaacpickell.bsky.social · Aug 14

University administrators must have real comfy beds to sleep through the night after sending out sub-living wage contracts to adjuncts every semester.