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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

Follow Farnaz Fatemi to discover more of her work. Read more at farnazfatemi.com. You can also purchase her book, Sister Tongue زبان خواهر, published by The Kent State University Press.

Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

“They find peace
in the way they contain the wind
and are gone.”

— Lorna Dee Cervantes, from “Emplumada”

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

Lorna Dee Cervantes is the author of several poetry collections: Sueño (Wings Press, 2013); Ciento: 100 100-Word Love Poems (Wings Press, 2011); From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger (Arte Público Press, 1991) and Emplumada (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981).

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

Farnaz Fatemi is the former Santa Cruz County Poet Laureate, an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, California Individual Artist Fellow, and author of the poetry collection, Sister Tongue زبان خواهر, recipient of a Publisher’s Weekly starred review.

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

Its poems didn’t apologize for their bilingualism or their subject matter. They walked through the pages because they belonged there. What a gift. (6/6)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

The book with the same title, Emplumada, transformed me, I’m sure. It included poetry rooted in a young woman’s local reality, imbued with the language of a Chicana upbringing in San Jose, California. (5/6)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

I love the lyric imagery that contains personal history. The “arcing…bodies in grim determination to find what is good” and the plaintive repetition: “she hated and she hated to see them go.” I love the sweep of history in the small scene here. (4/6)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

And the obsessions of the poem are my own: a commitment to welcome change when it happens, a focus on connection and intimacy, the way the memory of joy can provide solace during darkness. (3/6)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

At its essence, the poem bears witness to change: in plants, in seasons, in politics, in people. It also established for me the way poems reveal the impact of seemingly small things in the world—things like snapdragons and hummingbirds who love each other fiercely. (2/6)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

From Farnaz:

I am so thankful for the poem ”Emplumada” by Lorna Dee Cervantes (which is the title poem for Cervantes’ first book). It’s a poem which has stayed with me since reading it over 30 years ago in a college lit class. (1/6)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 20h

Today’s poem is selected by Farnaz Fatemi as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry.

“Emplumada” appeared in Emplumada by Lorna Dee Cervantes, published by University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982. Shared here with deep gratitude.

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 1d

Follow Oliver de la Paz to discover more of his work. Read more at oliverdelapaz.com. You can also purchase his latest book, The Diaspora Sonnets, published by Liveright Press.

Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 1d

“You’ll bring me
back home, won’t you?”

— Gary Jackson, from “Kansas”

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 1d

Gary Jackson is the author of small lives (University of New Mexico Press, 2025) and Missing You, Metropolis (Graywolf Press, 2010), which was selected by Yusef Komunyakaa as the winner of the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize.

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 1d

Oliver de la Paz's most recent book, The Diaspora Sonnets (Liveright Press 2023) was the winner of the New England Book Award, the Julie Ward Howe Award, and was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award. He serves as the Worcester, Massachusetts Poet Laureate.

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 1d

but the visual isolation of "grief" amidst the two linebreaks names the thing the speaker is feeling, followed by words from beyond: "You'll bring me/ back home, won't you?" And the last line is full of halting speech. (4/4)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 1d

Jackson names it—not returning to honor those whose graves may be still and present in the place abandoned, and so I'm struck by the syntactical hesitations that occur...The forward slashes functioning like linebreaks which offer pauses in the linebreak's traditional sense, (3/4)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 1d

Here, Jackson's speaker declares "Don't/we know it's love that keeps you/away . . . " and I think about my own past, growing up wondering what's beyond and absolutely needing to leave the place that had raised me. (2/4)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 1d

From Oliver:

Gary's work has always been resonant for me, not only because of his interest in comics, comic book hero universes, & what to me feels like a yearning or a search for community. And in "Kansas," I'm reminded of my upbringing in a small town in Eastern Oregon. (1/4)

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 1d

Today’s poem is selected by Oliver de la Paz (@oliverdelapaz.bsky.social) as part of the 20th anniversary of Read A Little Poetry.

“Kansas” appeared in origin story by Gary Jackson, published by University of New Mexico Press, 2021. Shared here with deep gratitude.

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 2d

Follow @rosswhite.com and @bullcitypress.com to discover more of his work. Read more at rosswhite.com. You can also purchase his latest book, Charm Offensive, published by Black Spring Press Group.

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 2d

“the way you flinch
the way you guide someone's fingers to it
the way you stay still
the way that hand pulls back”

— Ellen C. Bush, from “Also Accidental”

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 2d

Ellen C. Bush is Digital Initiatives and Database Director at UNC Press. Her chapbook Licorice was published by Bull City Press, and her poems have appeared in Four Way Review, The Collagist, Inch, and other outlets.

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 2d

Ross White is the director of Bull City Press (@bullcitypress.com), an independent publisher of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. He is the author of Charm Offensive, and three chapbooks: How We Came Upon the Colony, The Polite Society, and Valley of Want.

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Read A Little Poetry @readalittlepoem.bsky.social · 2d

Suddenly, I was publisher with skin in the game. Nineteen years and eighty-plus books later, I’m so grateful to “Also Accidental” for making us a legitimate press, and to Ellen, for the enormous trust. I don’t think I screwed it up. (8/8)

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