John Madera
@johnmadera.bsky.social
Author of 𝘕𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024). Editor of @BigOtherMag.bsky.social. Find more at http://johnmadera.com.
Happy birthday, BIG OTHER contributor Elizabeth Robinson! Celebrate by reading "Rift," which I published in the journal in 2024!
bigother.com/2025/12/03/f...
Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
bigother.com/2025/12/03/f...
Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
From the Archives: Rift, by Elizabeth Robinson
Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Elizabeth Robinson! Celebrate by reading “Rift,” which we published in 2024! And then read Robinson’s “Soft Eclipse,” which we published in 2…
bigother.com
December 3, 2025 at 5:36 PM
Happy birthday, BIG OTHER contributor Elizabeth Robinson! Celebrate by reading "Rift," which I published in the journal in 2024!
bigother.com/2025/12/03/f...
Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
bigother.com/2025/12/03/f...
Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
“Respond to every call that excites your spirit. Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back toward disease and death.”
—Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
(Image: Alex Grey's WONDER (1996))
—Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
(Image: Alex Grey's WONDER (1996))
December 3, 2025 at 5:29 PM
“Respond to every call that excites your spirit. Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back toward disease and death.”
—Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
(Image: Alex Grey's WONDER (1996))
—Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
(Image: Alex Grey's WONDER (1996))
It's #GivingTuesday! Please donate to BIG OTHER! Your gift will, among many other things, help us continue to publish new experimental and innovative work from both established and emerging writers and artists!
bigother.com/2025/12/02/t...
@bigothermag.bsky.social
bigother.com/2025/12/02/t...
@bigothermag.bsky.social
Today Is Giving Tuesday! Will You Support Big Other?
Dear Reader, Art, artists, and arts organizations are under attack. Under the guise of cutting government spending, some of the attackers are cancelling grants, shutting down programs, eliminating …
bigother.com
December 3, 2025 at 1:31 AM
It's #GivingTuesday! Please donate to BIG OTHER! Your gift will, among many other things, help us continue to publish new experimental and innovative work from both established and emerging writers and artists!
bigother.com/2025/12/02/t...
@bigothermag.bsky.social
bigother.com/2025/12/02/t...
@bigothermag.bsky.social
Grateful for all the literary citizens, who, even in the midst of uncertainty, financial and otherwise, continue to review books, interview writers, curate and host readings, and more besides!
December 2, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Grateful for all the literary citizens, who, even in the midst of uncertainty, financial and otherwise, continue to review books, interview writers, curate and host readings, and more besides!
"Who once was inattentive but now is not illumines the world, like the moon set free from a cloud."
—Dhammapada, 172
(Image: Willem de Kooning's Interchanged (1955))
—Dhammapada, 172
(Image: Willem de Kooning's Interchanged (1955))
December 1, 2025 at 7:45 PM
"Who once was inattentive but now is not illumines the world, like the moon set free from a cloud."
—Dhammapada, 172
(Image: Willem de Kooning's Interchanged (1955))
—Dhammapada, 172
(Image: Willem de Kooning's Interchanged (1955))
Here's my five-word manifesto: Make art, no matter what.
(Image: Julie Mehretu's Renegade Delirium, 2002)
(Image: Julie Mehretu's Renegade Delirium, 2002)
November 30, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Here's my five-word manifesto: Make art, no matter what.
(Image: Julie Mehretu's Renegade Delirium, 2002)
(Image: Julie Mehretu's Renegade Delirium, 2002)
"You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven."
—Jimi Hendrix
—Jimi Hendrix
November 27, 2025 at 3:15 PM
"You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven."
—Jimi Hendrix
—Jimi Hendrix
"[T]he poet is working not to make the artifact (which is just the midpoint in the total action), but to remake human sentience; by means of the poem, he or she enters into and in some way alters the alive percipience of other persons."
—Elaine Scarry, THE BODY IN PAIN
—Elaine Scarry, THE BODY IN PAIN
November 27, 2025 at 3:15 PM
"[T]he poet is working not to make the artifact (which is just the midpoint in the total action), but to remake human sentience; by means of the poem, he or she enters into and in some way alters the alive percipience of other persons."
—Elaine Scarry, THE BODY IN PAIN
—Elaine Scarry, THE BODY IN PAIN
"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings."
—Wendell Berry
—Wendell Berry
November 25, 2025 at 4:30 PM
"It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings."
—Wendell Berry
—Wendell Berry
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
—Oscar Wilde
—Oscar Wilde
November 24, 2025 at 6:24 PM
"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
—Oscar Wilde
—Oscar Wilde
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Image: Philippe Halsman's Dalí Atomicus, 1948)
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Image: Philippe Halsman's Dalí Atomicus, 1948)
November 24, 2025 at 6:23 PM
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Image: Philippe Halsman's Dalí Atomicus, 1948)
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
(Image: Philippe Halsman's Dalí Atomicus, 1948)
"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
November 24, 2025 at 6:20 PM
"Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another, you have only an extemporaneous, half possession."
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply be.'”
―Henry David Thoreau
(Image: Barbara Morgan's Martha Graham, Lamentation (1935))
―Henry David Thoreau
(Image: Barbara Morgan's Martha Graham, Lamentation (1935))
November 24, 2025 at 6:19 PM
“Amid a world of noisy, shallow actors it is noble to stand aside and say, 'I will simply be.'”
―Henry David Thoreau
(Image: Barbara Morgan's Martha Graham, Lamentation (1935))
―Henry David Thoreau
(Image: Barbara Morgan's Martha Graham, Lamentation (1935))
"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You."
―Dr. Seuss
―Dr. Seuss
November 24, 2025 at 6:15 PM
"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You."
―Dr. Seuss
―Dr. Seuss
Paging through my Guy Davenport firsts today, his birthday! (None of them are signed, alas...)
November 23, 2025 at 9:43 PM
Paging through my Guy Davenport firsts today, his birthday! (None of them are signed, alas...)
Received today: an inscribed copy of marvelous poet Elizabeth Robinson's VULNERABILITY INDEX (Curbstone Press)!
November 21, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Received today: an inscribed copy of marvelous poet Elizabeth Robinson's VULNERABILITY INDEX (Curbstone Press)!
Happy birthday, BIG OTHER contributor Tony Leuzzi! Celebrate by reading this superb suite of Leuzzi poems I published in the journal in 2025!
bigother.com/2025/11/19/f...
Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
bigother.com/2025/11/19/f...
Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
From the Archives: Dissolve to Cloud: Treatments for Five Frames from Tierney Gearon’s Explosure, by Tony Leuzzi
Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Tony Leuzzi! Celebrate by reading this superb suite of Leuzzi poems we published in 2025! 1: Frame 22, 2007 Our clouded heads dissolve to cloud. …
bigother.com
November 19, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Happy birthday, BIG OTHER contributor Tony Leuzzi! Celebrate by reading this superb suite of Leuzzi poems I published in the journal in 2025!
bigother.com/2025/11/19/f...
Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
bigother.com/2025/11/19/f...
Cc: @bigothermag.bsky.social
"Yes to life. Yes to love. Yes to generosity...No to scorn of people. No to degradation of people. No to exploitation of people. No to the butchery of what is most human in people: freedom."
—Frantz Fanon
—Frantz Fanon
November 15, 2025 at 10:54 PM
"Yes to life. Yes to love. Yes to generosity...No to scorn of people. No to degradation of people. No to exploitation of people. No to the butchery of what is most human in people: freedom."
—Frantz Fanon
—Frantz Fanon
“We do not lack communication; on the contrary, we have too much of it. We lack creation. We lack resistance to the present.”
―Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
(Image: Antonio Casanova y Estorach's AMUSING GOSSIP (1890))
―Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
(Image: Antonio Casanova y Estorach's AMUSING GOSSIP (1890))
November 13, 2025 at 6:49 PM
“We do not lack communication; on the contrary, we have too much of it. We lack creation. We lack resistance to the present.”
―Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
(Image: Antonio Casanova y Estorach's AMUSING GOSSIP (1890))
―Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
(Image: Antonio Casanova y Estorach's AMUSING GOSSIP (1890))
“What is style? Style makes a difficult action into a graceful gesture, introducing a rhythm into fatality. Style is to be courageous without disorder, to give necessity to the appearance of freedom.”
—Roland Barthes
—Roland Barthes
November 13, 2025 at 4:12 AM
“What is style? Style makes a difficult action into a graceful gesture, introducing a rhythm into fatality. Style is to be courageous without disorder, to give necessity to the appearance of freedom.”
—Roland Barthes
—Roland Barthes