Derek JG Williams
@derekjgwilliams.bsky.social
expat American writer, PhD Reading Water (Lightscatter, 2025) Poetry Is A Disease (Greying Ghost, 2022) http://www.derekjgwilliams.com/
5 month old is snoring & I should work but Crusader Kings is way too much fun--after all, I finally, 3 generations in, managed to form the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1127. Although, I still don't have control of Praha.
Crusader Bursts In with Sword
ALT: Crusader Bursts In with Sword
static.klipy.com
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
Read Frank O’Hara’s Collected in three days and preparing to do the same with Stanley Plumly. Feels kinda like speed-dating all the alternate-universe versions of the same person.
BREAKING: Crucifictorious has withdrawn from the Freedom 250 Celebration.
so what I might be working on my bus routes in a city simulator while editing a chapter on constitutionalism in Latin America--it's how I unwind!
There's no money in poetry, as they say, but there's no money in short stories either. What about novels? No. All the money's in home repairs.
writing is boring and frustrating and painful and ridiculous and confusing and embarrassing and there is nothing on this earth i want more. i’m always trying to make more time for writing, i always want more time to write because i know how much time it takes
WXPN playing "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," and it's like I've never heard this song before, but also I've heard it almost every day of my life, you know?
So far my 5 day old daughter has watched Industry and Shoresy. Not sure what that says about me, but that’s what’s up over here.
Over here wondering where my yearly Threepenny Review rejection be.
Asterisks are my favorite fallen stars. *This poem was found after the poet's death on the back of an envelope from Helen Vender, November 28, 1981.
thanks: Joyce & Norman "Some books of poetry take on a single subject... In others, artists create a work into which they pour everything they know. Expansive, elegiac, exuberant, tender yet cool and precise in its observations, Reading Water is such a book." www.poetryinreview.com/reviews/read...
Restless Messengers - Poetry In Review
poetryinreview.com
This is one of those quotes I think about more than any other.
In case any poets needed some Dan Beachy-Quick tonight... "When the eye loses the ability to see an object for the fact of its very nearness, then the imagination must alter the lens. A poem may bring us what we see in it just such a way."
there is no reason for ICE to exist. immigrants aren’t doing anything wrong by trying to live and work and provide for their loved ones. I don’t care how people got here. if they want to be here that’s good. leave them alone.
The most unsubtle, heavy-handed claims made by pomo academic types have turned out to all be true. Gender is a relation of domination that requires constant, affirming witness. Capitalism will require extractive colonial relations. There’s no subtlety. Every day is like a 101 seminar at Oberlin.
so much love for everyone reading and thinking about my work, all that time and effort in addition, I'll be back in the US and doing some reading/talk dates in late April (early May) - shout if you want me to come visit!
🌟NEW REVIEW ALERT! Check out Tyler Truman Julian’s review on READING WATER by Derek JG Williams.🌟 Link in bio! www.theshorepoetry.org/shore-things...
THE PITT 🤝 INDUSTRY Me somehow understanding everything despite not following 98% of the jargon.
Any one of us could be in the next apartment building that ICE raids in the middle of the night. Any one of us could be on the next boat that Trump bombs on a whim. Any one of us could be detained for hours despite being a U.S. citizen. Authoritarianism hurts all of us.
No darkness lasts forever. And even there, there are stars.
