“[P]oems might help us do one simple thing: Pay Closer Attention.” — Ada Limón @adalimonwriter , from *Against Breaking: On The Power of Poetry* (Scribner, 2026) #poetry #attention #presence

“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.” — Wisława Szymborska, in her poem “Possibilities”, translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. Photo of the poet by Mariusz Kubik, October 2009, Krakow, Poland. #szymborska #poetry #absurdity #writeanyway

“Nature will bear the closest inspection; she invites us to lay our eye level with the smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. She has no interstices; every part is full of life.” — Henry David Thoreau, “Natural History of Massachusetts” in Excursions, p. 7 #thoreau #lunamoth #walking

The rhythmic clink and clank of the Golding Pearl No. 3 as it inks up makes me smile. Made in Massachusetts in 1910, this printing press is powered by a foot treadle. Which is why this video is short — I gotta keep pumping so that it will keep printing. #letterpress #printingpress #exercise

“There has been, I think, a narrowing of relatedness. To be *is* to be related. We must hugely widen the space of relations.” — Yuvan Aves (educator, naturalist, writer, activist) in *Is A River Alive* by R. Macfarlane @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social (Pic: Gull tracks along the tideline in N.C.)

I cranked the hollow cylinder of the printing press and a bunch of neatly-emptied sunflower seed hulls and a half-gnawed hickory nut fell out. Print shop life! It's a rural community, and most of my neighbors are other-than-human — including the occasional mouse. #letterpress #printshop #rurallife

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.” — Henry David Thoreau, *Walden* Photo: Morning moon-set over the mountain here. #thoreau #mountains #blueridgemountains

Have a peace-full day, friends.

I missed being in the print shop today, but at least managed to write three poems and replace the tractor’s busted radiator hose. #gratitude #rurallife #nelsoncounty #poetry #poetryisnotaluxury #poemsandtractors #johndeere #shadetreemechanic

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” — Henry David Thoreau, *Walden* (1854) #thoreau #walden #castlesintheair #foundations #blueridgemountains #julymorning

One of the unsung heroes of the print shop is the dehumidifier. Our summers are always humid, & increasingly hot. And humidity is no friend to the cast-iron presses & lead-alloy metal type that fills the space. #blueridgemountains #virginia #printshop #shoptalk #letterpress #castiron #metaltype

Late afternoon at the type case… Shop Dog Linji-the-Aussie is exhausted from herding little metal letters all day… #aussie #letterpress #metaltype #shopdog #printshop

Happy birthday, Henry! “I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual. It is surprising how contented one can be with nothing definite only a sense of existence....My wealth is not possession but enjoyment.” HDT, December 6, 1856 #thoreau #contentment #otd #americanhistory

What to with bold, old metal type with the disconcerting name of “Empire”? Well, one solution is to beat swords into ploughshares. So I printed up some 72pt Peace with Morris Fuller Benton’s 1930s design. #peace #ploughshares #typedesign #metaltype #printinghistory

“To know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are a part of a part and that the whole is made of parts, each of which is whole. You start with the part you are whole in.” — Gary Snyder, “The Place,The Region,&The Commons” in *The Practice of the Wild* (Counterpoint, 1990) #garysnyder #place

“Find your place on the planet, dig in, and take responsibility from there.” — Gary Snyder, from a footnote in “Four Changes” (1970) #garysnyder #homeplace #blueridgemountains

Reading Gary Snyder this evening —

Toni Morrison is one of the greatest writers to ever live. What many don’t know, is that she was also the first Black woman to become a senior editor at Random House. I wrote about a new book that discusses how she edited by day, wrote by night, and ushered in a new generation of Black writers.

How Toni Morrison Changed Publishing

At night, she worked on her novels. By day, as an editor at Random House, she championed a new generation of writers.

theatlantic.com

“Big wheel[s] keep on turnin’”… The 1914 Chandler-&-Price printing press coming back to life this morning. After a back injury a couple of years ago, I retired the foot-treadle & now let the motor do the work of keeping this 1500+ pound beast rolling. #letterpress #printing #printshoplife

Have you ever seen the underside of a metal type forme? The bottom of all the letters and spacing material has its own fascinating structure and pattern. (Just make sure it’s locked up tight before taking a look ;-) #letterpress #metaltype

Slowly & carefully distributing the type back into its case, breaking up the clods of words & spacing material & fingering language’s newly-friable ground again. These little silver seeds will sprout something new, in time. #letterpress #language #metaltype #distributing #decomposition #bookmaking

#nokings #woodtype #democracy #freepress

~ creek talked all night long — so smooth, even the moon drowned in that silver tongue ~ (From *Soundings: haiku & carvings* by Emily Hancock, St Brigid Press, 2014) #poetry #creeks #blueridgemountains

~ what is new is tender — gently take the white oak’s hands in yours ~ (From *Falling Into Place*, poems by Emily Hancock, St Brigid Press, 2024) #oak #Quercus #leaves #tenderness #spring #poetry

This is not a drill.

Timothy Snyder@timothysnyder.bsky.social · last yr.

Trump to Bukele on Salvadoran concentration camps: “Home-growns are next. You’re going to have to build about five more places.”

Jamestown is sinking. I got to spend some time with the photographer Greta Pratt's new project, thanks to @placesjournal.bsky.social and the often misremembered line from Heraclitus: “We step into and we do not step into the same rivers. We are and we are not.” placesjournal.org/article/jame...

Jamestown Is Sinking

In the Tidewater region of Virginia, history is slipping beneath the waves. In the Anthropocene, a complicated past is vanishing.

placesjournal.org

Sewing tiny books in the print shop bindery (with shop-dog Linji at my side). #sewing #sewingbooks #handsewing #printshop #printshoplife

“My life as essentially belongs to the present as that of a willow tree in the spring.” — Henry David Thoreau A willow tree or, in this case, a Japanese magnolia. The present moment is vast but fleeting; let’s not miss it. #thoreau #spring #magnolia #japanesemagnolia #presentmoment #now

A poem for St Brigid’s Eve, which was last weekend. This and other published poems of mine are offered freely each Sunday on my Substack page emilyehancock.substack.com . #stbrigid #poetry

Together, personally and communally, we can undo the causes and conditions of harm, of violence, of war in speech and action. #unlearnwar #unlearnviolence #donoharm #peacework #together #woodtype