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D.W. Baker

@lowermelody.bsky.social

860 followers 1.1K following 390 posts

submerging poet, dad, editor ~ place, bodies, belonging, the end of the world ~ edits for @LibreLit.bsky.social reads for @VariantLit.bsky.social @PhillyChapbook.bsky.social @CosmicDaffodil.bsky.social ~ he/him ~ 🪐💀🏳️‍🌈🍃 https://www.dwbakerpoetry.com

www.dwbakerpoetry.com

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · Nov 13

Greetings bluesky; I am a poet who plays with form, sound, image, and shape

Here is a favorite piece published last year in @feralpoetryandart.bsky.social, "Would a fourth brain make humans less cruel?"

it arranges three microsonnets into a contrapuntal structure:

feralpoetry.net/would-a-four...

Would a fourth brain make humans less cruel?

paleo- neo-
reptilian mammalian mammalian

light pleasant power grid
dark crestfall sneak attack
blood painful decimate
spark craving prostitute
taste savor recipe
run frighten messaging
heat fuming fascism
sun brighten resolute
freeze heartstop terrorist
mate lovemark partnering
bite hunger dominate
wait boredom drug abuse
more crushing stratify
more mortal moralize

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Reposted by D.W. Baker

Variant Literature @variantlit.bsky.social · 5d

Guess what? We're opening for poetry and prose submissions later this month! Official date coming soon!

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 2d

"Atonal Apocalypse: On MILK SICKNESS by David Greenspan" www.brokenantlermag.com/blog/a-revie...

"Rage and Roses: On D A N G E R O U S B O D I E S / A N G E R O D E S by stevie redwood" paraselenemagazine.com/2025/04/08/d...

D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 2d

Interested readers might also enjoy my reviews of David Greenspan's MILK SICKNESS, an apocalyptic surreality in experimental language, and stevie redwood's D A N G E R O U S B O D I E S / A N G E R O D E S, a realist and radical catalogue of embodied dialectics

D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 2d

New review up at @variantlit.bsky.social! On OUR HUMAN SHORES by @burrowtongue.bsky.social (@blackoceanbooks.bsky.social), a "sprawling, kaleidoscopic mass of untitled poems" which "offers hope in ... human agency, despite the waves of damage now impacting our shared material realities."

Residuum and Reclamation: On Our Human Shores by Josh Fomon

Our Human Shores (Black Ocean: 2025) is a dense yet lyrical examination of the limits and imperatives of human agency during the anthropocene. The book’s sprawling, kaleidoscopic mass of untitled p…

variantlit.com

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 4d

huge thanks to @genrepunkmag.bsky.social for nominating this poem, "air," co-authored with @gr8earlofhell.bsky.social as part of a series, for the Pushcart prize. 🌬

genrepunkmag.wordpress.com/2025/08/20/a...

air

after midnight now & i am instituting the freight train over lombard street shut the fuck up challenge & it's
not an attack on trains but actually in defense of a silent night, soundtracked only by tires across slick
pavement & an errant thrush. it's been months since i heard a whistle sound through the stark chill
of midnight air & i swear this tree had leaves the last time i looked but here we are now, in the
waxing-days of january staring at pockets of orangegrey between shadows of branches. i will always
bemoan july's humid advances but never stop to consider the right now of it all—the way chills lurch
up unsuspecting spine, regardless of the weight of my jacket. the black-iced patches of uneven brick
sidewalk. the way a sound, any sound, cuts the sky in the first hours of a new year, ecstatic at all the
streets it may roam unencumbered.

i keep a stock of blades
to cut the sky beneath
my tongue / shaped like
every sound that was
rejected by my kin

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Reposted by D.W. Baker

Philly Poetry Chapbook Review @phillychapbook.bsky.social · 5d

"It seems such a shame that a beautiful location is just gathering dust and overgrowth, and I wanted to lean into the juxtaposition of that." Read three #poems by Bryana Fern along with a few words about "Women on the Wall." #writingcommunity #poetrycommunity phillychapbookreview.org/three-poems-...

Three Poems by Bryana Fern

Read three poems by Bryana Fern, our first biweekly poet of the Fall 2025 issue, along with a few words about "Women on the Wall."

phillychapbookreview.org

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 5d

thank you!!

D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 6d

couldn't be happier to see this poem land in @bruisermag.com, a venue i admire for their commitment to a unique vision

BRUISER @bruisermag.com · 6d

More like a flower than a gun

WITH EACH BITE MORE MAD by @lowermelody.bsky.social

www.bruisermag.com/baker_bite

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Reposted by D.W. Baker

Philly Poetry Chapbook Review @phillychapbook.bsky.social · 7d

New #poetry #books from @lsupress.bsky.social, @deepvellumbooks.bsky.social, @upittpress.bsky.social, Persea, @aaknopf.bsky.social, W. W. Norton, CavanKerry Press, University of Chicago Press & @graywolfpress.bsky.social. #writingcommunity #poetrycommunity phillychapbookreview.org/new-poetry-t...

New Poetry Titles (10/7/25)

Check out new poetry books for the week of 10/7 from White Pine Press, Buckrider Books, Black Ocean, World Poetry, LSU Press, Deep Vellum Publishing, Assembly Press, University of Pittsburgh Press, Sa...

phillychapbookreview.org

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 7d

"We’re in an era where we don’t have to construct thought experiments to see what a dark future might look like, because these days it feels the end of world as we know it is looming over us ... it can make writing a near-future dystopian a tricky endeavor"

lithub.com/its-okay-but...

“It’s Okay But It’s Also Really Not.” When Dystopian Fiction is No Longer a Thought Experiment

Dystopian fiction is getting real, and I’m here for it. I don’t think I’m the only one. There’s something cathartic about reading about the end of the world. As a science fiction reader and avid fa…

lithub.com

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 15d

also reprinted are "microsonnet of musical terms," first published in @feralpoetryandart.bsky.social , "microsonnet of gardening terms," first published in Gastropoda, and "microsonnet of flower names," first published in @litmoralitmag.bsky.social

D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 15d

New prose / poetry combo out in the Autumn 2025 issue of @version9magazine.bsky.social! An essay-in-halves, "Sonic Pressure and The Lexical Poem," plus a suite of four microsonnets, including this previously unpublished one, "microsonnet of climate crisis terms"

version9magazine.com

Microsonnet of climate crisis terms

climate feedback
aerosols
atmospheric
glacier loss
climate forcing
entropy
carbon footprint
refugees
dryland farming
hydrologic
aquifer
hydrocarbon
biogenic
hydrosphere

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 18d

futurism.com/future-socie...

A recent preliminary survey of AI-related psychiatric impacts by social work researcher Keith Robert Head points to a coming society-wide crisis brought on by “unprecedented mental health challenges that mental health professionals are ill-equipped to address.”

“We are witnessing the emergence of an entirely new frontier of mental health crises as AI chatbot interactions begin producing increasingly documented cases of suicide, self-harm, and severe psychological deterioration that were previously unprecedented in the internet age,” Head writes.

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 19d

I'm honored to have this collage, "Matrilineal," published by @turningleafjournal.bsky.social and brilliantly paired with a poem titled "SELFISH GIRL" by Suze Kay, nominated for Best of the Net. So is the poem! See more at turningleafjournal.com/2025/06/01/s...

a collage using photorealistic elements to depict a child with flowers for a head, walking towards an adult female figure with a lightbulb for a head, in an environment with both natural (colores) and built (black & white) elements

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Reposted by D.W. Baker

Libre @librelit.bsky.social · 24d

Poetry today by E. A. Midnight

“how much of love is seeing
someone else’s mental illness as a quirk / and not failure, not a dent, not
something that must be fixed”

librelit.com/2025/09/20/m...

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · 26d

Bertolt Brecht:

Motto

In the dark times,
will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing
about the dark times.

Reposted by D.W. Baker

Philly Poetry Chapbook Review @phillychapbook.bsky.social · 26d

"[Ram] presents a revealing and heartbreaking collection that asks the reader to think about what they remember the most about those they have lost." Read @carriganak.bsky.social's full review. @fifthwheelpress.bsky.social #writingcommunity #poetrycommunity phillychapbookreview.org/verses-of-mo...

Verses of Mourning: in the aftermath by Jessica Nirvana Ram

"[Ram] presents a revealing and heartbreaking collection that asks the reader to think about what they remember the most about those they have lost." Read Alex Carrigan's full review.

phillychapbookreview.org

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Reposted by D.W. Baker

tommy wyatt blake (he/they) @tommywyattblake.bsky.social · 28d

check out the blurb from @lowermelody.bsky.social and the excerpt of the poem "#11: SAVIOR COMPLEX", which was first seen in @feversof.bsky.social

preorder the book through @the-ethelzine.bsky.social

title card post overlayed on a background of a person sitting as someone else gouges out their eyes. the title is Mutually Assured Destruction by tommy wyatt blake. it is published by Ethel Zine in 2025.

“Reading tommy wyatt blake’s MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION feels like stumbling upon the notes of a time-and-self scientist from a biohacked future, who has accidentally cloned Schrödinger’s cat using a remote viewing technique learned from religious myth. The compound neologisms that blake’s readers know and love are incisive tools for probing beyond the curtain of subjectivity.”

—D.W. Baker, editor of GOD/CORPSE: writing on the bipolar body

excerpt from the poem, "#11: SAVIOR COMPLEX":

"i broke the galaxy, the fake one
that promised things from a dimension
so grayalien and strange that it’s unreliable,
at best, to the extent that i can’t expect
its findings to be Truth—"

the poem was first published in Fevers of the Mind

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · Sep 12

Tonight! I will be reading poems about mental health to celebrate the release of @tommywyattblake.bsky.social's MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION from @the-ethelzine.bsky.social

discord voice reading
D.W. Baker & tommy wyatt blake
September 12th / 8pm (est)
DM for the link

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Reposted by D.W. Baker

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · Sep 12

I can’t tell you how to live your life, but I can definitely suggest in the strongest possible terms that you clear your calendar for next Thursday night, 9/18, and register at the 🔗 below to listen in on this reading! I’m so excited to hear these excellent poets read :)

NIGHT LIGHT
THURSDAY 9/18
9PM EASTERN
ZOOM

PAIGE TAGGART
SAMPSON STARKWEATHER
LAUREN HUNTER
BEN MIROV

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · Sep 9

www.brokenantlermag.com/blog/a-revie...

Atonal Apocalypse: On Milk Sickness by David Greenspan — BROKEN ANTLER

D.W. Baker reviews Milk Sickness by David Greenspan.

www.brokenantlermag.com

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · Sep 9

from "Atonal Apocalypse: On MILK SICKNESS by David Greenspan" (@querenciapress.bsky.social: 2025), in which I compare experimental prose to atonal music

published in @brokenantlermag.bsky.social's The Marrow earlier this year

Greenspan’s use of indeterminacy in language may be best understood via analogy to tonal harmony. The vast majority of music is tonal, using recognizable contours and relationships—including, in the western tradition, a whole nomenclature of terms such as “root,” “dominant,” “key signature,” and more—to create desired effects such as tension, progression, recognition, and resolution. Atonal music is carefully structured to avoid these determinate relationships, instead producing a musical text that is coherent, yet dissonant; eventful, yet without resolution; all the while carefully calibrated, yet apparently chaotic. In literature, if normative devices such as character, plot, and genre are like the shared language of tonal harmony, then Milk Sickness is the atonal exception. The book’s language operates with a concerted effort to avoid typical ordering mechanisms: there are multiple unnamed figures, but no lucid characters; many impactful events and chains of cause-and-effect, but no clearly defined linear plot; countless synchronicities, but no framework for understanding their logic.

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · Sep 8

currently finishing my 11th long-form book review of 2025. It can be a lonely task. there is no substitute for the work... but also no substitute for the reward, both for the publicity of any given title & for my own intellect. I hope to continue at this brisk pace indefinitely

Reposted by D.W. Baker

Tom Snarsky @tomsnarsky.bsky.social · Sep 4

I was surprised by how much this one moved me. Roy Fisher

Epitaph: Lorine Niedecker

Certain trees
came separately from the wood

and with no special
thought of returning

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D.W. Baker @lowermelody.bsky.social · Sep 5

from my lyric essay, "Sense Tools"

www.ballastjournal.com/dialogue-duf...

In poetry, I believe this means the power of sound is not only lyrical, but cognitive: activating connective pathways in the brain that mere images do not. This unity between connective form and connective content in Duffey’s “Wilderness” prompts me to consider: Does the natural world contain rhyme? How can we learn to listen, and to sound in harmony with it? What socially constructed dissonances inhibit the way? Can rhyme in language be a tool for priming the brain to access rhyme in life?