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Amsterdam Review
@amsterdamreview.bsky.social
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A literary magazine publishing poetry, translations, fiction, interviews, essays, photography, and fine arts. Follow AR Tunes on Spotify.

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Amsterdam Review @amsterdamreview.bsky.social · Oct 9
Our Fall 2025 issue is OUT NOW!

Featuring an #interview with Keetje Kuipers and works by Sean Thomas Dougherty, Suzy Eynon, Jason Bentsman, Chelsea Dingman, and many more.

Read here: bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #fiction #translations #finearts #amsterdam 🇳🇱
Amsterdam Review Fall 2025 issue is OUT NOW! Featuring an #interview with Keetje Kuipers and works by Sean Thomas Dougherty, Suzy Eynon, Jason Bentsman, Chelsea Dingman, and many more.
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
M𝐎N𝐎C𝐇R𝐎M𝐄 𝐂I𝐍E𝐌A𝐓I𝐂

#Photography by 𝗝𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗻 @jasonbentsman.bsky.social in the Fall issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview
At once symbolic and immediate, grounded and searching, capturing not just what is seen, but what is felt beyond the edge of perception, Bentsman's photographs invite the viewer to discern where one sense gives way to the other—or whether the distinction even holds at all.
December 10, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
bloodaxebooks.bsky.social
Good to see Vidyan Ravinthiran's @forwardprizes.bsky.social winning third collection Avidyā and Gillian Allnutt's @tseliotprize.bsky.social shortlisted tenth collection Lode included in @betarish.bsky.social's poetry books of 2025 feature in @theguardian.com.
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...
The best poetry books of 2025
From Seamus Heaney’s collected poems and Simon Armitage’s animal spirits, to prizewinners Karen Solie and Vidyan Ravinthiran
www.theguardian.com
December 6, 2025 at 3:08 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
"You hum your melody inside me. You kick your beat into my drumhead until just before the / break."

A poem by 𝗝𝗲𝗻𝗻𝘆 𝗠𝗮𝗮𝗸𝗲𝘁𝗼 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity
​Your cry. New string. New bow. New hand. Keep playing your violin. On June 9th, 2023, at 8:09 a.m. you birth your wordless word into day. New branch cracking air from the / sterile / freeze. It’s so cold in the room I can almost see your breath as a shadow of smoke on the scrim. A Local Black Hole Serves Up an “Awe Moment.”
December 8, 2025 at 3:40 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
Read 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝗹 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗡𝗲𝗺𝗼's @danielnemo.bsky.social new translation of 𝑨𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒎𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑨𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒑𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒈𝒐 by Tomas Tranströmer, the second poem of his first book, 17 𝑷𝙤𝒆𝙢𝒔 (1954).

hataaliinotes.substack.com/p/autumnal-archipelago

#poetry #poetrycommunity #translation #Swedish #Transtromer
Storm The wanderer suddenly comes upon the huge ancient oak, like a petrified elk whose crown spans miles before the murky green stronghold of the September sea. Northern storm. The time when the rowanberry clusters ripen. Awake in the dark, you hear the constellations stamping in their stalls high above the trees.
December 5, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
bloodaxebooks.bsky.social
'a strikingly beautiful nod to the lasting echoes of a friendship'

Thanks to @laurenmurphyjourno.bsky.social for including @jesstraynor.bsky.social's fourth poetry collection New Arcana in this RTÉ Culture Irish books of the year feature. #RTÉCulture
www.rte.ie/culture/2025...
The best Irish books of 2025
www.rte.ie
December 3, 2025 at 5:09 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
What becomes of heroes when the war is over? In its lingering aftermath, a boy grapples with the shame of a father broken by his ordeal as a prisoner of war.

#flashfiction by 𝗔𝘁𝗲𝗳 𝗘𝗯𝗲𝗶𝗱 (transl 𝗘𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗺 𝗔𝗹-𝗝𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗺 @essamksa.bsky.social) in the Fall issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#writingcommunity #war
​The schoolyard walls closed in around me like a prison. At school, I recoiled every time they called my name, shame weighing me down. Everyone knew who my father was. To them, he was just the madman who roamed the village alleys at night. At home, my mother no longer asked why I was upset—she knew all too well. My father sat with us, but remained unreachable in his own world, inspecting his bread before forcing a smile. But the smile never lasted long, and he would struggle to swallow. At random intervals, without warning, he’d leap up and dart out the door, disappearing onto the narrow streets.
December 3, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
lsheahen.bsky.social
"When you go, space closes over like water behind you"

Wonderful reading last night of poems by Ivan V. Lalić, read by his translator Francis R. Jones.

Thanks @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social
bloodaxebooks.bsky.social Bloodaxe Books @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social · 20d
The Taste of Lightning is a new selection of poems by Ivan V. Lalić, one of 20th-century Yugoslavia’s most crucial poets.
‘Lalić’s work…crackles with brilliant, arresting imagery forged by the heat of concentrated thought...' – Celia Hawkesworth, The Independent
November 21, 2025 at 8:35 AM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
"December has no scent, / its whitened landscape / is a far wall with iron bars / that have been gnawed."

Three poems by 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗠𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗵 @simonemuenchie.bsky.social and 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗲 𝗞. 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity
Breaking open the black egg, the lynx bred from scattered skulls was, like me, never wife nor lover, nor a girl costumed against a father's grasp, scolded for listening at keyholes. Instead, like Astarte and the Red Queen, I welcomed the ocelot in me, the ouroboros nestled in my throat. Now, I braid woodsmoke and thistle in my hair.
December 1, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
sjane.bsky.social
found wanting vs found longing
collage and aphorism on vintage postcard
November 24, 2025 at 1:09 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
Read an #interview with 𝗞𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗷𝗲 𝗞𝘂𝗶𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀 in the Fall issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity
Poems are a place where I don’t have to be afraid to make the reader feel uncomfortable or vulnerable along with me. I want to be holding hands with the reader as the floor gives out beneath us.
November 28, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
roseknapp.bsky.social
The Shadow of Words by Ana Blandiana @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

#poetry
November 26, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
danielnemo.bsky.social
Read my new translation of 𝑷𝙧𝒆𝙡𝒖𝙙𝒆 by Tomas Tranströmer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. 𝑷𝙧𝒆𝙡𝒖𝙙𝒆 is the opening poem of his first book, 17 𝑷𝙤𝒆𝙢𝒔 (1954).

hataaliinotes.substack.com/p/prelude

#poetry #poetrycommunity #translation #Swedish #Transtromer
Waking is a parachute jump from a dream. Free of the suffocating whirl, the traveler dives toward the green zone of the morning. Things flare up. From the soaring skylark’s perch, he makes out the mighty tree root system’s subterranean, swaying lamps. But above ground, the greenery stands in a tropical current with raised arms, listening to the rhythm of an invisible pump. And he sinks toward summer, lowered into its bright crater
November 26, 2025 at 2:59 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
"There is never / an ending to The End of the Affair, / to The Lover."

A poem by 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗮 𝗦𝗮𝗻 𝗟𝗶 @georgia2newengland.bsky.social in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity
​We are neither friend, nor enemy because those could be metaphor I might come to understand, something made by diction, by definition or perhaps by reference to a painting – But I am boiling water at temperatures too high for this tea, this bite of York peppermint. Is your yearning to regain control of my life why you text me again, conjuring
November 26, 2025 at 1:32 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
We stand against promoting and monetizing mediocrity at the expense of genuine talent and artistic freedom.

Read 𝙋𝙤𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙮 𝘾𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚: 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙈𝙁𝘼 𝙄𝙣𝙙𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙡 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙡𝙚𝙭 by 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝗹 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗡𝗲𝗺𝗼 @danielnemo.bsky.social in the Fall issue.

#poetry #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #essays
What does it mean to be an artist today? What does it mean to be a poet? Amsterdam Review confronts the rise of the MFA industrial complex and the consequences of turning creativity into an institutionalized craft, in a call to remember that genuine art emerges from the unconscious, not from within the walls of academically sanctioned success.
November 24, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
sjane.bsky.social
sleigh-bells
bent down
bristling with
a forlorn note

Many thanks for @amsterdamreview.bsky.social for nominating "when the ponds were new" for Best of the Net. The poem is a visual erasure using a page of Walden.
November 22, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
bloodaxebooks.bsky.social
Join us tomorrow for our online launch event for new November titles by Tomas Venclova, Pia Tafdrup and Ivan V. Lalić (1931-96), with readings from the poets & translators, plus discussion with editor Neil Astley.
Watch live (or later) on YouTube on Thurs 20 Nov, 7pm GMT:
youtube.com/live/OTRTqP2...
November 19, 2025 at 10:32 AM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
Read 𝙊𝙛𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘾𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙙, a tale about the power of words in a digital world built to repress and forget.

#flashfiction by 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝗞. 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗶𝘀 in the Fall issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#writingcommunity
Raz Darden recrossed San Carlos Street carrying his lunch as he looked at the sign over his shop. “Antiques” was all it said and all it needed it to say. His niece, who lived on the other side of San Jose, always bugged him about making the sign read “Darden’s Antiques,” but he kept telling her the front of the building wasn’t long enough to support all the extra letters. Besides, he worried about having his name attached to the business for other reasons. He unlocked the front door, removed the handwritten “back in five minutes” sign, and walked to the counter. Raz took a glance at his dark, wrinkled face in the 19th-century mirror that hung on the far side of the shop. That, he thought, still needed to be removed.
November 19, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
asls.org.uk
“And what is home if not the choice – over and over again – to stay?”

Marjorie Lotfi – winner of the 2024 Forward Prize for Best First Collection for THE WRONG PERSON TO ASK – on becoming a writer, from fleeing Iran as a child in 1978 to arriving in Scotland
writersmosaic.org.uk/people/marjo...
Marjorie Lotfi | WritersMosaic Magazine
Forward Prize winner 2024 for The Wrong Person to Ask, Lotfi moved to Tehran as a baby from the US and fled during the Iranian Revolution
writersmosaic.org.uk
November 16, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
melostrom.bsky.social
“only after breaking was my body/ believable”

This poem by @chelsdingman.bsky.social in @amsterdamreview.bsky.social is so beautiful. (Thanks for passing it along, @pdforan.bsky.social!)❤️
November 17, 2025 at 3:54 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
"is there a place in Dante's hell for the / algae that eat light / and beget this world one bone marrow / at a time"

A poem by 𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮 𝗶𝗿𝘂 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity
for your adoration, a woolly mammoth, intact with its last meal— all that unprocessed sugar, tucked in the ​cold wok of its belly, like your rage inside me, waiting as though waiting is a form of listening.
November 17, 2025 at 2:45 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
"Chop / ped / the beam / of sun / light / into burning blocks of wood / and piled them in the shape of a / p y r a m i d"

A poem by 𝗗𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗵𝗺𝘀 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity
Chop / ped / the beam / of sun / light into burning blocks of wood and piled them in the shape of a p y r a m i d and climbed to the top of its golden pinnacle e y e silently meditated on suffering and pain
November 14, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
resurgencetrust.bsky.social
Animals and healing

Friday 14 November, 7—8.30pm GMT

The Resurgence Centre, Hartland

An evening with poet @pascalepetit.bsky.social and author @jay-griffiths.bsky.social exploring how animals can help us heal

Buy a ticket > www.tickettailor.com/events/there...

#Animals #Healing #Poetry #Writing
Animals and healing Friday 14 November • 7—8.30pm GMT The Resurgence Centre, Hartland An evening with poet Pascale Petit and author Jay Griffiths. Shamans have always said that it is the animals who heal us. Pascale Petit’s work demonstrates poetry as a kind of shamanism, allowing author and reader to shapeshift in the imagination, and the animals are the constant medicine in her work. Jay Griffiths’ new book encompasses how animals heal the society as well as the psyche, electrifying our minds and vitalising our cultures. Together Jay and Pascale will create an event that shows, through both personal experience and their writing, that animals are our healers. They will be discussing their experiences, reading from their work, and opening up the conversation to the audience. Buy a ticket > https://www.tickettailor.com/events/theresurgencecentre/1835026/r/bluesky #Animals #Healing #Poetry #Writing
October 20, 2025 at 12:37 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
"Here lives the ultimate wound: not exclusion but indifference, not anger but a shrug, the absence even of remembrance"

#nonfiction by 𝗚𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗶𝗼 𝗙𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗮 in the Fall issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#essays #philosophy #writingcommunity
Few admit it (it's a truth devoid of poetry), but the mere fact of falling in love is not very interesting. Circumstances vary, of course: but the moment before the shipwreck—the fleeting instant when you get to face something entirely different—is pretty much the same for anyone. The same goes for breaking up: we all tell stories about our loves, we share our feelings in order to know that we are not alone in being happy or suffering; and yet what does that accomplish? Each love is similar as is each abandonment, but no amount of facts can prepare us; and we will always think that our pain and pleasure are nobler, deeper, better: we recount our experiences, but deep down we tell each other that no one can ever understand this.
November 12, 2025 at 1:24 PM
amsterdamreview.bsky.social
"If / I were there I too would be nothing / But inside my body is a bearing were / One to arise."

A poem by 𝗦𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗧𝗵𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘀 𝗗𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘆 @seanthomasd.bsky.social in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity
GS with lines from Alejandra Pizarnik's Paths of the Mirror and a Distant Autumn Something from the blood the way Y Or X shapes and shifts as if above The body is a cartography for all Who is not other. Who will be the one to Turn away or be the one to look And bear witness for the body on The ground, torn apart—​inocencia
November 10, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by Amsterdam Review
poetjohncompton.bsky.social
my new book "my husband holds my hand because i may drift away & be lost forever in the vortex of a crowded store" published by @flowersongpress.bsky.social

buy your copy! tell your library to stock it!

www.flowersongpress.com/books/p/my-h...
January 9, 2025 at 12:22 AM