Derek Pollard, PhD
LightNews LightNews
banner
doc-pollard.bsky.social
Derek Pollard, PhD
@doc-pollard.bsky.social
1.3K followers 2.7K following 170 posts
• Helping writers get into print since 1991.
• Poets on Poetry Series Editor (Univ. of Michigan Press): https://poets-on-poetry.carrd.co
• Author of ‘On the Verge of Something Bright and Good’ (Barrow Street) & ‘Inconsequentia’ (BlazeVOX).
Posts Replies Media Videos
doc-pollard.bsky.social
"If everything is politics, then nothing is politics."

Jason Schneiderman's NOTHINGISM makes a bold, unexpected case: what if contemplation and privacy are poetry's most subversive acts?

press.umich.edu/Books/N/Noth...

@uofmpress.bsky.social

#Poetry #Books #BookSky
Book cover for NOTHINGISM by Jason Schneiderman, published in the Poets on Poetry Series edited by Derek Pollard. The background is deep purple. The title, NOTHINGISM, appears as large, light purple text running vertically down the left side of the cover. On the right side, in gold text that contrasts with the purple background, is the subtitle POETRY AT THE END OF PRINT CULTURE. The author's name, JASON SCHNEIDERMAN, appears in white text below the subtitle. In the bottom right corner is a simple illustration of a tan cardboard box. The overall design is minimal and contemporary, using typographic elements as the main visual focus.
November 15, 2025 at 2:10 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
When does a poem become more than art?

Frontline workers writing pandemic haiku. Layli Long Soldier rewriting congressional resolutions.

YOUR HISTORICAL LOVELINESS asks what happens when poetry stops being about witness and becomes action itself.

press.umich.edu/Books/Y/Your...
Book cover for ‘Your Historical Loveliness Knows No Bounds’ by Wendy Xu. The book is part of the Poets on Poetry Series, published by the University of Michigan Press and edited by Derek Pollard. The cover image is a striking, full frame close-up photograph of a bronze sculpture of a man's head, angled to fill most of the page. The sculpture is highly dramatic: the man's face is contorted with intense emotion, and his mouth is wide open, as if shouting or screaming. The metal has a dark, mottled verdigris patina. All text is positioned across the lower third of the cover. The title, ‘YOUR HISTORICAL LOVELINESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS,’ and the author's name, WENDY XU, m are printed in light gray/off-white text. The subtitle, "FORM, FUTURITY, AND DOCUMENTARY DESIRE," is centered beneath the title and printed in a distinctive pale yellow text.
November 12, 2025 at 1:35 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
In GHOSTS AND THE OVERPLUS, Christina Pugh traces how Jean Valentine shifts the meaning of a simple word, "eyeshadow," from cosmetics to one of Job's daughters.

In doing so, she reminds us that poetry isn’t just the art of expression, it’s the art of transformation.

press.umich.edu/Books/G/Ghos...
Book cover of ‘Ghosts and the Overplus: Reading Poetry in the Twenty-First Century’ by Christina Pugh, published in the Poets on Poetry Series by the University of Michigan Press, edited by Derek Pollard. The cover features a minimalist design with the title and author name in elegant typography. The visual element shows a mixed media collage with watercolor elements in blue and purple tones on the left side, juxtaposed with a black and white seascape showing rough waters and what appears to be partially submerged wooden posts. The overall aesthetic combines abstract and representational elements in a contemplative, artistic composition.
November 6, 2025 at 12:08 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
@careysalerno.bsky.social's reading at the book launch for THE HUNGRIEST STARS made it clear:

This is a must-read collection.

Copies are available direct from the publisher at: www.perseabooks.com/hungriest-st...

You can also order online at @bookshop.org: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...
The cover art for 'The Hungriest Stars' by Carey Salerno. A woman's manicured hand is centered, adorned with numerous oversized, ornate rings, including a turquoise stone, a gold flower, and a ring shaped like an eye. The hand is set against a large, detailed full moon, with a dark, starry sky surrounding the central image.
November 1, 2025 at 12:46 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
Physicists at CERN told Amy Catanzano they can use quantum theory but find it "counterintuitive.” She recognized immediately: quantum logic IS poetic logic.

THE IMAGINARY PRESENT explores how poetry can reshape scientific understanding.

@uofmpress.bsky.social

press.umich.edu/Books/T/The-...
Book cover for ‘The Imaginary Present: Essays in Quantum Poetics’ by Amy Catanzano, published in the Poets on Poetry Series by the University of Michigan Press. The cover features a pixelated, glitch-art style background in shades of pink, purple, rose, and teal. The title and author name appear in bright pink text on white rectangular l blocks that seem to float over the abstract digital pattern. The subtitle appears in white text on a rose-colored banner.
October 29, 2025 at 5:34 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
Can you inherit someone else's loneliness? Wendy Xu's parents gave her a poem about feeling foreign, words she'd need before she knew why. YOUR HISTORICAL LOVELINESS asks what poetry carries across generations, and why certain words find us exactly when we need them.

press.umich.edu/Books/Y/Your...
Book cover for ‘Your Historical Loveliness Knows No Bounds’ by Wendy Xu. The book is part of the Poets on Poetry Series, published by the University of Michigan Press and edited by Derek Pollard. The cover image is a striking, full-frame close-up photograph of a bronze sculpture of a man's head, angled to fill most of the page. The sculpture is highly dramatic: the man's face is contorted with intense emotion, and his mouth is wide open, as if shouting or screaming. The metal has a dark, mottled verdigris patina. All text is positioned across the lower third of the cover. The title, ‘YOUR HISTORICAL LOVELINESS KNOWS NO BOUNDS,’ and the author's name, WENDY XU, are printed in light gray/off-white text. The subtitle, "FORM, FUTURITY, AND DOCUMENTARY DESIRE," is centered beneath the title and printed in a distinctive pale yellow text.
October 27, 2025 at 2:10 AM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
Can you document trauma without exploiting it?

@utopiaminus.bsky.social warns that the “representation of violence can produce its own kind of violence.”

In @philipmetres.bsky.social’s DISPATCHES, poets debate what documentary poetry can and can’t do for justice – and whether writing is enough.
Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.
October 20, 2025 at 12:55 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
In NOTHINGISM (@uofmpress.bsky.social),
Jason Schneiderman explores the poetic friendship between James Merrill and Agha Shahid Ali.

Though "the loved one may always leave," their correspondence reveals how poetry sustains intimacy across cultures and loss.

press.umich.edu/Books/N/Noth...
Book cover for NOTHINGISM by Jason Schneiderman. The background is deep purple. The title, NOTHINGISM, appears as large, light purple text running vertically down the left side of the cover. On the right side, in gold text that contrasts with the purple background, is the subtitle POETRY AT THE END OF PRINT CULTURE. The author's name, JASON SCHNEIDERMAN, appears in white text below the subtitle. In the bottom right corner is a simple illustration of a tan cardboard box. The overall design is minimal and contemporary, using typographic elements as the main visual focus.
October 11, 2025 at 1:17 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
“Let’s make room for many modes of survival.”

@khadijahqueen.com’s RADICAL POETICS asks: what would our literary spaces look like if we actually meant this?

Her book challenges us to expand what we consider possible – in our teaching, our writing, our communities.

press.umich.edu/Books/R/Radi...
Front cover of the book ‘Radical Poetics’ by Khadijah Queen. The cover features a Black woman sitting barefoot in a dimly lit, eclectic space surrounded by books and fabric drapes. The atmosphere is reminiscent of steampunk with a Southern gothic twist. The woman is wearing a pink dress and sitting on a floral patterned surface. The subtitle reads ‘Essays on Literature & Culture.’
October 7, 2025 at 1:40 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
When Israeli forces captured Jaffa in 1948, the municipal archives vanished, erasing Palestinians' legal proof of land ownership.

@philipmetres.bsky.social's DISPATCHES FROM THE LAND OF ERASURE shows how Arab poets have sought to preserve this disappeared history.

press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...
Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.
October 4, 2025 at 4:55 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
@longrules.bsky.social reads Scarbrough's line about loneliness arriving "like a bouquet out of the evening," then watches his kids reach toward fleeing guinea fowl, finding poetry and parenting in the same impossible gesture.

Joy (Or Something Darker, but Like It)

press.umich.edu/Books/J/Joy-...
Book cover for ‘Joy (Or Something Darker, but Like It)’ by Nathaniel Perry, published in the Poets on Poetry Series by the University of Michigan Press. Dark blue background with black organic shapes. "Joy" in colorful letters (yellow, coral, blue), subtitle in white. "POETRY & PARENTING" in yellow, and author's name in white at bottom.
September 22, 2025 at 3:01 AM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
Kodak invented "the Kodak moment" to teach people they needed cameras to remember their lives.

Jason Schneiderman sees poems heading down the same commercial track – and he's having none of it!

Read more in NOTHINGISM, out now from @uofmpress.bsky.social:

press.umich.edu/Books/N/Noth...
Book cover for NOTHINGISM by Jason Schneiderman. The background is deep purple. The title, NOTHINGISM, appears as large, light purple text running vertically down the left side of the cover. On the right side, in gold text that contrasts with the purple background, is the subtitle POETRY AT THE END OF PRINT CULTURE. The author's name, JASON SCHNEIDERMAN, appears in white text below the subtitle. In the bottom right corner is a simple illustration of a tan cardboard box. The overall design is minimal and contemporary, using typographic elements as the main visual focus.
September 15, 2025 at 7:45 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
In one of her essays, Christina Pugh observes that students copying out Frost's "Birches" and Brooks's sonnets learned meter faster than when they wrote original poems

It's a provocative question: What if imitation teaches craft better than invention?

press.umich.edu/Books/G/Ghos...
Book cover of ‘Ghosts and the Overplus: Reading Poetry in the Twenty-First Century’ by Christina Pugh. The cover features a minimalist design with the title and author name in elegant typography. The visual element shows a mixed-media collage with watercolor elements in blue and purple tones on the left side, juxtaposed with a black and white seascape showing rough waters and what appears to be partially submerged wooden posts. The overall aesthetic combines abstract and representational elements in a contemplative, artistic composition.
September 14, 2025 at 1:30 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
When CERN physicists admitted ordinary language can't describe quantum reality, they were right.

What they missed, though, is exactly what Amy Catanzano observes in THE IMAGINARY PRESENT: that poets have been mapping the indescribable from the very start.

press.umich.edu/Books/T/The-...
Book cover for ‘The Imaginary Present: Essays in Quantum Poetics’ by Amy Catanzano, published in the Poets on Poetry Series by the University of Michigan Press. The cover features a pixelated, glitch-art style background in shades of pink, purple, rose, and teal. The title and author name appear in bright pink text on white rectangular blocks that seem to float over the abstract digital pattern. The subtitle appears in white text on a rose-colored banner.
September 7, 2025 at 1:21 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
When poets debate whether metaphor itself perpetuates harm, every image becomes an ethical choice.

@philipmetres.bsky.social's DISPATCHES FROM THE LAND OF ERASURE captures these heated conversations, changing how we approach poems that engage cultural difference.

press.umich.edu/Books/D/Disp...
Book cover for ‘Dispatches from the Land of Erasure: Essays and Conversations’ by Philip Metres. The cover features an abstract geometric composition of overlapping rectangular blocks in various colors including blues, reds, greens, yellows, purples, and browns against a light gray background. The blocks appear layered and fragmented, creating a mosaic-like pattern that suggests themes of fragmentation and reconstruction. The title and author name are displayed in clean, dark typography at the top of the cover.
September 6, 2025 at 9:37 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
In Midtown today? We’d love to be your rush hour stop-over.

We’ll be getting underway at 6pm at the Bryant Park Reading Room.

Hope to see you there! 🌞
Promotional tile for the Bryant Park Reading Room event on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, hosted by Jason Schneiderman and featuring poets Ryan Black, Nicole Callihan, Derek Pollard, and Amy Small-McKinney.
July 1, 2025 at 3:49 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
In Manhattan on July 1st? Come join us at Bryant Park.

The reading’s scheduled to start at 6pm. It’d be great to see you there.
Promotional tile for the Bryant Park Reading Room event on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, hosted by Jason Schneiderman and featuring poets Ryan Black, Nicole Callihan, Derek Pollard, and Amy Small-McKinney.
June 30, 2025 at 10:55 AM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
What lessons does quantum mechanics hold for poets?

Amy Catanzano traveled to CERN to find out, exploring the relationship between cutting edge science and creativity.

THE IMAGINARY PRESENT is the result. And it’s filled with one unexpected connection after another.

@uofmpress.bsky.social
Book cover for "The Imaginary Present: Essays in Quantum Poetics" by Amy Catanzano. The cover features a pixelated, glitch-art style background in shades of pink, purple, and teal. The title and author name appear in bright pink text on white rectangular blocks that seem to float over the abstract digital pattern. The subtitle appears in white text on a purple banner.
June 14, 2025 at 11:50 AM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
“Manhattan Still" reminded me that sometimes you can't write about the unimaginable thing itself.

You can only write around it, through the small things that happened before.

cutt.ly/GryJTiMn

#Poetry #Books #WritingCommunity
The front cover of ‘On the Verge of Something Bright and Good’ by Derek Pollard features the title in light purple text with "Bright" and "Good" highlighted in magenta. The cover art displays a pale sculptural human figure with an upraised arm, encircled by a turquoise beaded hoop. The figure stands on a circular base against a light blue/purple gradient background, with the author's name in light purple text at the bottom.
June 8, 2025 at 12:37 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
There's something to be said for the solitariness of writing.

But there's something equally liberating about writing with others.

Join us virtually this summer to explore what writing collaboratively means for your own work.

Click here to see the full lineup of DWC workshops: cutt.ly/8rntUwjY
A promotional image for a creative writing workshop at the Downtown Writers Center at the YMCA of Central New York, featuring a close-up portrait of Derek Pollard, a middle-aged man with short brown hair, clear-frame glasses, and a mustache, smiling warmly at the camera against a neutral beige background. The YMCA logo appears in the top right corner. Bold text overlays announce "SHARED VOICES: A COLLABORATIVE WORKSHOP WITH DEREK POLLARD" with workshop details "THURSDAYS, 6 PM TO 8 PM, STARTS JULY 24" displayed prominently at the bottom.
June 2, 2025 at 4:20 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
The thread between a sonnet & a helix spiral? The difference between reading & scrolling?

In NOTHINGISM, Jason Schneiderman tackles poetry's place in our digital era with wit and wisdom.

It’s a must-read for the chronically online.

@umichpress.bsky.social

press.umich.edu/Books/N/Noth...
Book cover for NOTHINGISM by Jason Schneiderman. The background is deep purple. The title, NOTHINGISM, appears as large, light purple text running vertically down the left side of the cover. On the right side, in gold text that contrasts with the purple background, is the subtitle POETRY AT THE END OF PRINT CULTURE. The author's name, JASON SCHNEIDERMAN, appears in white text below the subtitle. In the bottom right corner is a simple illustration of a tan cardboard box. The overall design is minimal and contemporary, using typographic elements as the main visual focus.
June 1, 2025 at 12:43 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
April showers bring...our May book sale!

Get 50% off every order between now and the end of the month.

Talk about a great way to stock up on your summer reads!

Browse the @uofmpress.bsky.social catalogue, including the latest Poets on Poetry Series titles, here: press.umich.edu
A colorful promotional image for the University of Michigan Press Spring Sale. The image features decorative floral elements in soft blues, corals, and mint greens framing the top and bottom. In the center, "SPRING SALE" appears in large blue lettering, followed by text that reads "Save 50% on all orders with promo code SPRING25." The bottom corners showcase illustrated books with flowers emerging from them, suggesting a flourishing of knowledge and ideas with the arrival of spring.
May 18, 2025 at 12:56 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
Is poetry a form of scrying?

Christina Pugh's GHOSTS & THE OVERPLUS explores that question through concepts like "transpersonal utterance," revealing how poems become vessels for multiple voices across the centuries.

Which poets from the past whisper in your reading?

@uofmpress.bsky.social
Book cover of ‘Ghosts and the Overplus: Reading Poetry in the Twenty-First Century’ by Christina Pugh. The cover features a minimalist design with the title and author name in elegant typography. The visual element shows a mixed-media collage with watercolor elements in blue and purple tones on the left side, juxtaposed with a black and white seascape showing rough waters and what appears to be partially submerged wooden posts. The overall aesthetic combines abstract and representational elements in a contemplative, artistic composition.
May 11, 2025 at 3:13 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
From spiral sonnets to Agha Shahid Ali's poetry, Jason Schneiderman's NOTHINGISM celebrates slowness in our hyper-paced world.

These essays remind us of what we lose when we trade deep reading for endless scrolling.

Out now from @uofmpress.bsky.social

press.umich.edu/Books/N/Noth...

#Books
Book cover for NOTHINGISM by Jason Schneiderman. The background is deep purple. The title, NOTHINGISM, appears as large, light purple text running vertically down the left side of the cover. On the right side, in gold text that contrasts with the purple background, is the subtitle POETRY AT THE END OF PRINT CULTURE. The author's name, JASON SCHNEIDERMAN, appears in white text below the subtitle. In the bottom right corner is a simple illustration of a tan cardboard box. The overall design is minimal and contemporary, using typographic elements as the main visual focus.
April 23, 2025 at 1:15 PM
doc-pollard.bsky.social
Congratulations to @philipmetres.bsky.social on the 2025 William Carlos Williams Award! ‘Fugitive/Refuge’ extends the vital work from his Poets on Poetry Series books – bearing witness to violence while imagining peace. Phil's lyric intelligence reminds us why poetry matters.

@uofmpress.bsky.social
Award certificate from Poetry Society of America announcing Philip Metres as Winner of the William Carlos Williams Award for his book ‘Fugitive/Refuge’ (Copper Canyon Press), selected by David Baker. The certificate includes a portrait photo of Metres wearing a blue patterned shirt and an image of his book cover featuring the dark form of a boat's prow against a vibrant red background. The announcement is framed with gold and blue decorative borders.
April 17, 2025 at 10:50 AM