"Where Spahr’s reader co-creates, McSweeney’s undergoes." Wrote this post about Ailbhe Darcy's groudnbreaking new book of "Virtuosity" (Cambridge UP) substack.com/home/post/p-...

The Excess of Virtuosity

Read the book “Virtuosity: risk and Excess in Poetic Form” by the Irish poet-critic Ailbhe Darcy this morning.

substack.com

Just came back from 3 weeks in Spain, where I did research, wrote, gave readings, was spellbound by a bunch of El Grecos, and met with Spain's greatest poet, 95-year-old Antonio Gamoneda (here with the latest issue of Notre Dame Review, which includes a chunk of his work in translation)

Photo of the Spanish translation of my book Summer in the best company imaginable at the bookstore Documenta in the beautiful city of Barcelona where I gave a reading/discussion from/about it the night before last:

Can I point out that Chicago Review is doing an incredible job publishing both essays and reviews? The new issue includes many good reviews, including Caitlin Farr's in-depth review of my translation of Jäderlund's Ensamtal, and a fascinating essay on "cartoneras" publishing in Latin America.

“I feel like some kind of quantum ghost. The book writes itself once I get started. I know exactly what belongs and what doesn’t.” For “Women in Translation” month I recommend my last translated title, Aase’s Death, by Aase Berg. Here’s an interview with Aase: paulsemel.com/exclusive-in...

Aase's Death · Aase Berg · Exclusive Interview · paulsemel.com

Exclusive Interview: "Aase's Death" Author Aase Berg \ In which she talks about her new collection of poems.

paulsemel.com

Our country is run by madmen.

Kai Ryssdal@kairyssdal.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The President of the United States is going to kill people

this @johannesg.bsky.social poem wow wow wow autocorrectmag.com/03/goransson...

But it's impossible to make art out of true grief Or more correctly nobody will like it www.blackocean.org/catalog1/aas...

Aase's Death by Aase Berg, translated by Johannes Göransson — Black Ocean

One might expect a book by Aase Berg with the title Aase’s Death to be dark, and it is. You may also expect it to be parodic, and maybe it is that too. But if it’s parodic, it’s darkly parodic. A defi...

blackocean.org

New issue of Notre Dame Review is released today! Including poems by Will Alexander, Sarah Vap, Ken Chen, Antonio Gamoneda (trans Hedeen/Rodríguez Núñez), Cynthia Cruz, and Bustriazo Ortiz (trans. Gil-Montero). Reviews of Monica McClure and Mette Moestrup. Very proud of this issue!

”Alongside a sense of isolation and almost bottomless allusivity, there is something starkly affirmative in these poems.” Brilliant review of Ann Jäderlund’s Lonespeech by Caitlin Farr in new issue of Chicago Review. www.chicagoreview.org/issues/6803-...

68:03/04 & 69:01

Visit the post for more.

chicagoreview.org

"A chorus of flames. I search for evidence of my adrenaline in the rubble." Very pleased to see another "adoration" - "Adoration of Winning" - from my next book, The Adorations, published. This time on @adamclay.bsky.social 's new journal, Autocorrect: autocorrectmag.com/03/goransson...

This is upsetting.

the Mountain Goats@themountaingoats.bsky.social · 3mo ago

this is a catastrophe and he will do harm, and only harm, to those living with disabilities

"Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement are roads of Genius." Blake

HATING AI IS GOOD! I have believed this. It’s good to have beliefs. To believe in the human brain and its worth. To work to preserve our dignity as a creative species.

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 4mo ago

NEW — My first true foray into AI haterdom is about how those of us not convinced by AI’s inevitability are a real constituency worthy of a voice. Give it a read:

Our Lady of Flowers Moby Dick The Sound and the Fury

John Wiswell@wiswell.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Say a group of friends is making their own Top 100 Best Novels List. Your friends ask you for your recommendations. What are the first three books that come to mind? No overthinking. Share the first three greats that hit you.

Split / Game of Little Deaths by Réka Nyitrai is out in two weeks! We’re honored to have these four masterful poets blurb this strange & surreal 2-in-1 book. @noahfalck.bsky.social / @vikshirley.bsky.social / @johannesg.bsky.social / Mikko Harvey

“Zurita’s poetry is constantly accumulating mystical, iconic qualities while engaged with issues of violence in and against the body... This insistence on the wounded body and the wounded landscape both gives rise to a sense of allegory and disrupts the allegory.” substack.com/home/post/p-...

“THE LIMITLESS VIOLENCE OF BEAUTY”: ON RAÚL ZURITA

[I wrote the following essay for the Swedish literary journal 10tal when in 2019 the journal introduced Raúl Zurita’s work to Swedish readers.

substack.com

Great new issue of Mercury Firs, one of the best new poetry journals. Including poems by Mexican poet Berona Teomitz, translated by my student Adriana Toledano Kolteniuk: www.mercuryfirs.org/8-berona-teo...

I wrote this essay about Raul Zurita for the wonderful Swedish journal 10tal (now 20tal) when they introduced Zurita in Swedish. Here it is in English on my Substack account: johannesgransson.substack.com/p/the-limitl...

“THE LIMITLESS VIOLENCE OF BEAUTY”: ON RAÚL ZURITA

[I wrote the following essay for the Swedish literary journal 10tal when in 2019 the journal introduced Raúl Zurita’s work to Swedish readers.

johannesgransson.substack.com

"the reason I’ve done the things I’ve done is simply because I found them beautiful. It’s beautiful to see a poem of madness, love, and death traced on the sky." - Raul Zurita

The Yale Review@yalereview.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Congratulations to Raúl Zurita, recipient of the 2026 Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award! The Chilean poet's incantatory work has long borne witness to political violence and the resilience of language. Read a new interview with him today in TYR. yalereview.org/article/ra%C...

Super congratulations to Action Books author Raúl Zurita, who has been awarded a Griffin Lifetime Achievement Award. He's been such a profound influence on me over the past couple of decades. Pleased to see his work recognized this way. griffinpoetryprize.com/press/announ...

Announcing the 2026 Lifetime Recognition Award - Griffin Poetry Prize

TORONTO – May 6, 2026 – The Griffin Poetry Prize is pleased to announce Raúl Zurita as the 2026 Lifetime Recognition Award recipient. Instituted in 2006, the Griffin trustees bestow the Lifetime Recog...

griffinpoetryprize.com

I often think about that old norse story where the hero eats the dragon’s heart and suddenly he can understand bird song. (The birds all tell him his friend is going to kill him.)

Was working on something but fell into the Warhol Hole, writing about Warhol, Dylan and @jhoberman.bsky.social 's brilliant book Everything is Now: open.substack.com/pub/johannes...

The Warhol Zone: On Dylan, Warhol and the Iconophilia of the 1960s

I’ve been reading/writing/thinking about Latin American “neo-avant-gardism” but this has also led me to fall down into a “Warhol/rabbit hole”, thinking a lot about Andy Warhol’s influence and the dyna...

open.substack.com

New Aase Berg poem, "Feminist Depression," from her new book Aase's Death up at Poetry Daily: poems.com/poem/feminis...

Feminist Depression

Oh, how it cannot artejaculate itself

poems.com

Here's a poem by great Argentinian modernist Oliverio Girondo. It's from his great last - and most experimental, erotic. and combustive (so much for "late" writing being subdued) - En la masmedula, translated almost incomprehensibly wonderfully by Molly Weigl (In the moremarrow, Action Books).

If you watch and share one thing today make at this. Why is every democrat in the country not talking like this?

Just got back from the New Orleans Poetry Festival. A great time - grassroots poetry is alive and well in this country. One poet asked me to grind up her book in a blender and drink it. Another told me he was "a big fan of Goransson's work" (we had no name tags). Strong recommend. nolapoetry.com

Chicagoans make sure you check out this event!

Ben Niespodziany 📚🎪@neonpajamas.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Tarot! 🔮 Clowns! 🤡 Piżama Press! 📚

Helena Boberg tr. Johannes Göransson

even if you don't care about the accompanying writing prompt, I share one unreleased poem here every Sunday morning Recent writers include: Johannes Göransson, Claire Hopple, Tom Snarsky, Vi Khi Nao, Jay Besemer, Zan de Parry, Joanna Ruocco, Todd Dillard, Michael Bazzett neonpajamas.substack.com

Sunday Poem + Prompt | Benjamin Niespodziany | Substack

sharing a poem with an accompanying writing prompt every Sunday. Click to read Sunday Poem + Prompt, by Benjamin Niespodziany, a Substack publication with hundreds of subscribers.

neonpajamas.substack.com