Sometimes, rejection, even rejection without comment, is clarifying in a way that even the best editorial feedback is not, making it possible to move forward with a writing project in a direction you’d never before considered that has far more potential than the one you’d been pursuing.

It Almost Doesn't Look Real

One Who Came Back One Who Came Back I can't be sure why we should want you among us ... so I'm out here in the moonlight pounding nails in your footprints as if that could make you stay. ... To read the whole poem, click the link.

The poem I read to my wife at our wedding, four women artists you probably haven’t heard of, music by Alice Coltrane and others, and more are collected in this month’s Four by Four. Check it out!

Four by Four #58

Four Things To Read, Four Things To See, Four Things To Listen To, and Four Things About Me

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The Sealey Challenge Day 24 I like it when my friend has lovers, their happy moans, unrestrained, fill the house with the glee of her prowess. —from “For Every Heart,” in Perpetua, by Olga Broumas #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 24

The Sealey Challenge Day 24 I like it when my friend has lovers, their happy moans, unrestrained, fill the house with the glee of her prowess. —from “For Every Heart,” in Perpetua, by Olga Broumas ...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 23 ...and the globe might shake us off its flank like quarry dust and start again with something less free, less wrecked by greed but it suffers us on its blue cetacean patience like festered barnacles. from “The Massacre,” in Perpetua, by Olga Broumas #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 23

The Sealey Challenge Day 23 ...and the globe might shake us off its flank like quarry dust and start again with something less free, less wrecked by greed but it suffers us on its blue cetacean patie...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 20 By day, I ask of those who come to me for answers, what would you say, asked by a poet whose tongue and nails have been removed, whose nipples are cratered with ash, to account for your freedom? —from “Evensong,” in Perpetua, by Olga Broumas #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 20

The Sealey Challenge Day 20 By day, I ask of those who come to me for answers, what would you say, asked by a poet whose tongue and nails have been removed, whose nipples are cratered with ash, to a...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 18 To spite, to tease, to be and not be his look-alike, his twin. I hid the woman in his heart so long I had forgotten. Face I’m forever about to know. —from “Body,” in Pastoral Jazz, Olga Broumas’ third book #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 18

The Sealey Challenge Day 18 I cut it off myself both times I married, veiled the attentive temples, the long spine. To spite, to tease, to be and not be his look-alike, his twin. I hid the woman in h...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 17 To love the body to love its work to love the hand that praises both to praise the body and to love the soul that dreams and wakes us back alive against the slothful odds... —from “Sweeping the Garden,” from Soie Sauvage, Olga Broumas’ second book #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 17

The Sealey Challenge Day 17 To love the body to love its work to love the hand that praises both to praise the body and to love the soul that dreams and wakes us back alive against the slothful odds....

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The Sealey Challenge Day 16 "In the gazebo-like café, you gave me food from your plate, alert to my blood-sweet hungers double-edged in the glare of the sun’s and our own twin heat." “Amazon Twins,” from Beginning With O, Olga Broumas’ first book #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 16

The Sealey Challenge Day 16 In the gazebo-like café, you gave me food from your plate, alert to my blood-sweet hungers double-edged in the glare of the sun’s and our own twin heat “Amazon Twins,” fr...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 15 Now I know less, and better. I’ve grown less lean, less easily pleased: I’m tenderer, harder, angry at all I’ve not become; I’m more worn, more generous, more strengely myself. And more horny. “Snapshot,” from Selected New Poems #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 15

The Sealey Challenge Day 15 Now I know less, and better. I’ve grown less lean, less easily pleased: I’m tenderer, harder, angry at all I’ve not become; I’m more worn, more generous, more strengely my...

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Wrestling with yourself like that, if you’re honest about it, is to court what can be a very frightening vulnerability, because it means by definition having the audacity to lay claim to a readership’s attention...

To Write Is To Sit In Confrontation With Yourself

Wrestling with yourself like that, if you’re honest about it, is to court what can be a very frightening vulnerability, because it means by definition having the audacity to lay claim to a readership’...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 14 Beyond naming names, nothing can help. I learn my limits, I write what I can: I didn’t become a poet for nothing. from Before Sleep, Philip Booth’s sixth book. #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 14

The Sealey Challenge Day 14 Beyond naming names, nothing can help. I learn my limits, I write what I can: I didn’t become a poet for nothing. from Before Sleep, Philip Booth’s sixth book. #theseale...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 12 It is being offshore: nothing that’s not horizon. It is, beyond beacons, sailing alone. Nothing, beyond one’s compass, to point or warn. from “It Is Being,” in Available Light, Booth’s fifth book. #TheSealeyChallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 12

The Sealey Challenge Day 12 It is being offshore: nothing that’s not horizon. It is, beyond beacons, sailing alone. Nothing, beyond one’s compass, to point or warn. from “It Is Being,” in Available ...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 11 ...we grope, for clothes and coffee, our selves woken by waking beside each other: who climb back down from separate sleep and are, by morning, married. from “Native to Valleys,” in Margins, Booth’s fourth book. #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 11

The Sealey Challenge Day 11 ...we grope, for clothes and coffee, our selves woken by waking beside each other: who climb back down from separate sleep and are, by morning, married. from “Native to ...

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That moment when you’re rereading a poet who was important to you when you were learning to be a poet and you recognize, viscerally, a lesson you learned from them that you are still learning in your own, when your lineage becomes inescapably visible to you in the felt power of a master’s work.

The Sealey Challenge Day 10 ...the poem, the poem that must map the bottom of here, would be some sort of base to start out from. from “Heart of Darkness,” in Weathers and Edges, Booth’s third book. #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 10

The Sealey Challenge Day 10 ...the poem, the poem that must map the bottom of here, would be some sort of base to start out from. from “Heart of Darkness,” in Weathers and Edges, Booth’s third book....

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The Sealey Challenge Day 9 "I love you by the terms/I make to give you." from “Adam,” in Letter from a Distant Land, Booth’s first book. #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 9

The Sealey Challenge Day 9 I love you by the terms/I make to give you. from “Adam,” in Letter from a Distant Land, Booth’s first book. #thesealeychallenge

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The Sealey Challenge Day 8 She never knew what to expect from her furtive trysts with death And much to her amazement, She realized that had made her husk of a life worth living. —from “The Cancer Chronicles,” in No Surrender, Ai’s eighth book. #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 8

The Sealey Challenge Day 8 She never knew what to expect from her furtive trysts with death And much to her amazement, She realized that had made her husk of a life worth living. from “The Cancer Ch...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 7 A woman is not a horse you can trade, sell or shoot when you get tired of her. I realize now that it’s too late a man can learn from his mistakes. A few good women is all it takes. from “The Saga of Charlie Smith,” in Dread, Ai’s seventh book. #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 7

The Sealey Challenge Day 7 A woman is not a horse you can trade, sell or shoot when you get tired of her. I realize now that it’s too late a man can learn from his mistakes. A few good women is all i...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 6 I don’t want the truth, I want the lies, so look this way, say something nasty. Don’t be shy. from “The Paparazzi,” in Vice, Ai’s sixth book. #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 6

The Sealey Challenge Day 6 I don’t want the truth, I want the lies, so look this way, say something nasty. Don’t be shy. from “The Paparazzi,” in Vice, Ai’s sixth book. #thesealeychallenge

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The Sealey Challenge Day 5 When the police come, I’m sitting at the table, the cup of coffee that I am unable to drink as cold as you body. I shot him, I say, he beat me. I do not tell them how the emancipation from pain leaves nothing in its place. from “Finished,” in Greed #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 5

The Sealey Challenge Day 5 When the police come, I’m sitting at the table, the cup of coffee that I am unable to drink as cold as you body. I shot him, I say, he beat me. I do not tell them how the e...

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The Sealey Challenge - Day 4 “You tricked me,” he gasped as he poured himself into my glass and I drank him like grappa made from grapes I'd picked with my own hands. from “Capture” in Fate, Ai's fourth book #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 3 Manhood, a dream, an illusion, I think, as I lay down the photograph and stand still in the anemic glow of the darkroom lights, my body giving off the formaldehyde smell of the unknown. from “The Journalist,” in Sin, Ai’s third book. #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 3

The Sealey Challenge Day 3 Manhood, a dream, an illusion, I think, as I lay down the photograph and stand still in the anemic glow of the darkroom lights, my body giving off the formaldehyde smell of...

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The Sealey Challenge Day 2 #thesealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 2

God. The boot heel an inch above your head is mine. God, say your prayers. —from Killing Floor, Ai’s second book

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The Sealey Challenge Day 1 For this year’s Sealey challenge, I'm reading the collected volumes on my shelf, starting with Ai’s. I first learned from her about immersing yourself fully in a poem’s voice. Her first book was Cruelty. #sealeychallenge

The Sealey Challenge Day 1

For this year’s Sealey challenge, I'm reading the collected volumes on my shelf, starting with Ai’s. I first learned from her about immersing yourself fully in a poem’s voice. Her first book was Cruel...

richardjnewman.com

Thank you to the editors of these three journals, each of which recently published a poem from 2020, my new collection of poems, that will be out in 2027 from Fernwood Press.

In a world that seems more and more troubled by disruption, It All Connects is where I work out for myself how to live in, with, and through the identities that define me. If you find yourself struggling with that same unsettling sense of discontinuity, this newsletter is for you.

Diamonds aren't forever & other truth-bombs with @lesleymwheeler.bsky.social @renee-emerson.bsky.social @kristybowen.bsky.social @saudaminideo.bsky.social @robmclennan.bsky.social @emmalee1.bsky.social @kimmoorepoet.bsky.social @richardjnewman.bsky.social 3/3 www.vianegativa.us/2026/05/poet...

Poetry Blog Digest 2026, Week 18

A personal selection of posts from around the Anglophone blogosphere.

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‘Nuff said!