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pumpkin spice Toddé

@toddedillard.bsky.social

6.9K followers 1.4K following 5.1K posts

“Ways We Vanish” from Okay Donkey, “Ragnarök at the Father Daughter Dance” from Variant, finalist for the Donald Hall AWP Prize, poems in Threepenny, Southern Review, APR, HAD, etc.

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · Sep 2

my issue of Threepenny is here! here’s my poem “Present Tense,” I would love for you to give it a read!

“I know this so loudly I don’t
hear, at first, my father’s silence.”

Present Tense
by Todd Dillard

My father’s telling me about his dog,
how it fell into a well
when they were walking down a wooded path.
His dog ran across some rotted planks,
the planks splintered, “And whoosh!”
my father says. “No more dog.”
I look at the clock and remind my father it’s three A.M.
“I’m not finished,” he says.
He tells me about the rope he bought, the bucket,
how he knotted the rope to the bucket, lowered it down,
and yelled for the dog to get in.
“But all I pulled up was more barking.”
“Dad,” I say. “This never happened.”
He says he can’t remember
how long he tried to get the dog
to shimmy into the bucket.
Just that at some point
when the sky turned tawny—“Dad—“
as a pitcher of sweet tea—“Dad—“
he decided to give up.
“Dad,” I say. “It’s late.
I’m tired. And you’re dead.”
“Dammit, son,” my father says. “Let me finish!”
My father tells me about filling the bucket with dirt
and pouring the dirt into the well.
And I know what he’s getting at, I know
he’s going to tell me bucket by bucket
he filled the well and
the dog jumped out. He’s going to say
something about how the dog
led him home through the dark.
I know this so loudly I don’t
hear, at first, my father’s silence.
“Dad?” I say. “Dad, are you there?”
I keep lowering the bucket
but all I ever pull up are leaves.
Red leaves. Lately, some gold.

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 22m

hate it when the utensils say fork you

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 25m

when the title is also a line in the poem

Art by Katerina Kamproni feature a fork that has as one of its tines a tiny fork

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 2h

I keep thinking LOL WE CAN DO A BLUESKY and they are always like “why are you being pedantic at me when you were supposed to just be a grateful receptacle for my pedantry”

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 2h

every time a Bluesky rando is pedantic in my replies they always say something that I am also pedantic about (bc lol) and every single time they do not get it and I think this is the quintessential Bluesky rando user interaction for me

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Reposted by pumpkin spice Toddé

Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 4h

Reposting this thread on the brilliant Louise Glück on the anniversary of her death #poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky 👇

Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · Apr 29

Some writers seek ‘relatability’ in ancient myth. Others look to recreate alien remoteness. But in her use of Homeric or bible tales, Louise Glück sets up dialogue between her own family relations & mythic ones. The latter aren’t lazily appropriated. Rather the immediate & the mythic mutually enrich

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 3h

friendly reminder you can say "the soul! the soul!" in a poem and they will still give you a Pulitzer

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 3h

since I’ve seen several of her poems shared today, let’s also account for how Louise Glück could really write the hell out of a book, and how putting these poems next to each other is such a powerful “move”

Field Flowers

BY LOUISE GLÜCK

What are you saying? That you want
eternal life? Are your thoughts really
as compelling as all that? Certainly
you don’t look at us, don’t listen to us,
on your skin
stain of sun, dust
of yellow buttercups: I’m talking
to you, you staring through
bars of high grass shaking
your little rattle— O
the soul! The soul! Is it enough
only to look inward? Contempt
for humanity is one thing, but why
disdain the expansive
field, your gaze rising over the clear heads
of the wild buttercups into what? Your poor
idea of heaven: absence
of change. Better than earth? How
would you know, who are neither
here nor there, standing in our midst?

The Red Poppy

By Louise Glück

The great thing
is not having
a mind. Feelings:
oh, I have those; they
govern me. I have
a lord in heaven
called the sun, and open
for him, showing him
the fire of my own heart, fire
like his presence.
What could such glory be
if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters,
were you like me once, long ago,
before you were human? Did you
permit yourselves
to open once, who would never
open again? Because in truth
I am speaking now
the way you do. I speak
because I am shattered.

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 4h

right! like there's this internalization of "this is how we speak about art" and it's informative but not always useful. I just want to know if it's a time travel romance.

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 4h

I think about this re: Moby Dick, about which I had heard "it is the great American novel" which is stoic, starched, milquetoast, whereas if someone had said "this book is great because it's weird, wrong, unreliable, brimming with rich language, and there's a musical" I would've read it years ago

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 4h

re: reviews, I firmly believe "this writer/book is great, here is why" is better than "this writer/book does this neat thing really well"

aka

"this crème brûlée is delicious" is better than "good blowtorch technique"

"good blowtorch technique" SOUNDS cooler. but it's not nearly as useful (to me)

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Reposted by pumpkin spice Toddé

Grim Deyn @shortestwitch.bsky.social · 4d

always thinking of this Louise Glück poem

Telemachus' Detachment

When I was a child looking
at my parents' lives, you know
what I thought? I thought
heartbreaking. Now I think
heartbreaking, but also
insane. Also
very funny.

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 4h

congrats again Darren!!!

Reposted by pumpkin spice Toddé

Darren C. Demaree @darrencdemaree.bsky.social · 5h

Many thanks to @toddedillard.bsky.social for his very kind words about my upcoming selected poems collection, Now Flourish Northern Cardinal.

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 15h

Jeremy I want you to sit with your words, and what you identified them as, then sit with my words, and then perhaps infer if maybe I was having a little bit of fun

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 15h

you don’t sound afraid

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 17h

love a good prose poem. love treating the meaning of life like a slice of pie tucked into circus arson.

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 17h

you know how sometimes happiness is stovetop and reptile cake, that

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 17h

the first chilly day of fall every year my wife makes a pre-thanksgiving dinner and then tonight she decided to make a teenage mutant ninja turtle cake for our toddler too; what I am saying is you can't always make yourself happy, but sometimes you can place yourself in happiness's driving path

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 1d

🥰

Reposted by pumpkin spice Toddé

Davi Gray (she/they) @davigray.bsky.social · 1d

😍 Better than literally every piece of so-called "AI" so-called art.

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 1d

toddler asked me to draw him a dinosaur so I banged out this pterodactyl who realized he left the oven on and he’s hours from home and it’s raining

a cartoonish pterodactyl sitting on a branch with huge eyes getting rained on

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 1d

oh dang I thought the bellybutton was pterodactyl-ly (and thank you!)

pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 1d

toddler asked me to draw him a dinosaur so I banged out this pterodactyl who realized he left the oven on and he’s hours from home and it’s raining

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 2d

how do I explain to my cat that running into another room where she is alone does not constitute an emergency

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 3d

it's officially cold enough to wear my fuzzy socks with built in treads, praise be

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pumpkin spice Toddé @toddedillard.bsky.social · 3d

first instance of Cage bait