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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 3h

Read Ray McDaniel’s 2017 review of Derrick Austin’s TROUBLE THE WATER (BOA Editions Ltd., 2016) on Fence Digital.

& look for a review from the Constant Critic—republished from the archive, or just published—every other Friday this fall!

fencedigital.com/2025/10/10/c... 🍁

Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 3d

Our warm, tremendous congratulations to lovely and visionary Fence person, Amy Beth Sisson, who won Lambda Literary's 2025 J. Michael Samuel Prize, which honors emerging LGBTQ writers over the age of 50!

lambdaliterary.org/2025/10/5-qu... 🍄

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Simeon Berry @simeonberry.bsky.social · 13d

“There was laughter in the night, an unseasonable cold, and the beautiful sadness of lost roads and pine trees. I might tell Frank that I too have always lived near water and have seen the moon like a dead man in the river.” —Christopher Chambers, “What About This” @fencebooks.bsky.social

WHAT ABOUT THIS. The collected poems of Frank Stanford arrive by mail sealed in an opaque plastic shroud that requires a sharp knife to open, a book heavy as a brick, 762 pages, a smooth matte hardcover embossed with a blue monochrome photograph of Frank crouching with what looks like it might be a gun in his hands. But it’s not. He’s holding a dog-eared paperback as if it were a gun, perhaps like the one he used in 1978 to shoot himself three times in the chest. He’s looking up at you from a field of wildflowers, defiant and serious as only the youthful dead can be. There’s a story here in this book I’m holding, this book that has traveled a long way to my door, this book apparently purchased by and stolen from a public library in Washington DC to be sold on the internet like flotsam from a riverboat run aground in another time. But maybe this is a story neither I nor Frank can tell. Maybe this story’s already been told and is only any more an echo. I imagine returning to Fayetteville

an old man packing the weight of this book, a fading tattoo on my wrist of its kanji spine. The first time I went up to Fayetteville was for a wedding all mixed up with poetry, whiskey, and barbeque. There was laughter in the night, an unseasonable cold, and the beautiful sadness of lost roads and pine trees. I might tell Frank that I too have always lived near water and have seen the moon like a dead man in the river. I could tell him about the levees that broke my heart. I might say this book is an anchor, or that it’s a balloon cut loose and drifting away across the Mississippi leaving me where I’ve fallen on my hands and knees on the sidewalk. I might ask him his thoughts on jazz, on metaphors, and weddings. I might ask him about Room 308 in the Hotel New Orleans in Eureka Springs. Then again I might say nothing at all and just stand here a while beside the mailbox in front of a small white house in Fayetteville with this book heavy in my hands. Christopher Chambers

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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 7d

We’re pleased to feature Adam Munsey Tobin reading his poetry at the Fence issue number 42 launch party on Wednesday, June 11, 2025 at the Poets House in New York City. Find Adam’s poems on pages 27 through 29 of Fence issue number 42!

Find the full recording on fenceportal.org… ⛅️

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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 8d

Current "Other" editors, Sarah Falkner & Adam Golaski, will carefully consider your work for issue number 44! ✨

Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 9d

Fence is open for submissions for issue number 44, & today we’re highlighting the opportunity for writers/etc. to submit their work to “Other”!

Jason Zuzga writes this working definition / list of possible "Other" material in BEST OF FENCE... 🦩

fence.submittable.com/submit 🏞️

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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 10d

Fence received this notice from Miranda González at AWP, & we’re submitting each and every Fence book to www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com to ensure that, if Anthropic unlawfully mined any Fence books to train their AI, Fence authors will receive compensation from the settlement.

Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 15d

Fence is open for submissions for issue number 44, & today we’re highlighting the opportunity for translators to submit their work to this open call!

Translation Editor Cole Swensen will consider & select translation submissions for publication, focusing on poetry.

fence.submittable.com/submit 🌞

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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 18d

“And there is here a productive kind of disharmony [...] a making of good trouble..."

Read Adam Day’s excellent review of Jennifer Nelson’s ON THE WAY TO THE PAINTINGS OF FOREST ROBBERIES for Action, Spectacle! 💡 action-spectacle.com/summer-2025-...

@henkaipantomime.bsky.social

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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 22d

We're so grateful that Poetry Daily chose Jericho Jennifer Nelson's expansive & intimate "So Grateful I Turn to the Art" for their September 14, 2025 feature! 🌲 @henkaipantomime.bsky.social @poetrydaily.bsky.social

spare.poems.com/poem/so-grateful-i-turn-to-the-art ⛅️

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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 25d

FENCE & FUTUREPOEM will share table 327 at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 21st from 10 AM through 6 PM! @futurepoem.bsky.social

Find this festival at Brooklyn Borough Hall & surrounding venues; it's free & open to the public! See you there.

brooklynbookfestival.org 🌦️

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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 28d

Amanda Deutch’s NEW YORK IRONWEED won the 2025 Ottoline Prize, & is forthcoming from Fence Books this winter. 🌀

Pre-order NEW YORK IRONWEED, here: www.cbsd.com/9798989978526/new-york-ironweed, & look forward to our cover reveal this month! 🌾

Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · 28d

Subscribe to FENCE before the end of September to receive issue number 42 in your mailbox, & find Darcie Dennigan's brilliant, exuberant poem “Commander!” on pages 172 through 174!

fenceportal.org/subscribe 📖

Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · Sep 9

…thus Donald Revell reviews Kathryn Cowles’s THE STRANGE WONDROUS WORKS OF ELEANOR ELEANOR, forthcoming from Fence Books in December 2025. ✨

Pre-order, here: www.cbsd.com/9798989978533/the-strange-wondrous-works-of-eleanor-eleanor, & look forward to our cover reveal this month! 💌

Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · Sep 9

We’re so pleased to share The Poetry Project’s Fall 2025 lineup (poetryproject.org): this sequence honors and features such Fence contributors as Juliana Spahr, Alexis Almeida, Lara Mimosa Montes, Cole Heinowitz, Anselm Berrigan, Jennifer Nelson, Kevin Killian, Alice Notley, & Lyn Hejinian. 📖

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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · Sep 4

Upon Fence’s return from our August-long Quiet Time, we announce our OPEN CALL for poetry, fiction, other, & translation submissions, which we’ll read carefully, & consider for Fence issue number 44! 🌀

fence.submittable.com/submit 💡

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Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · Aug 2

Today, we at Fence commence our August-long Quiet Time, in which we’ll take a break from our email/social media/etc. rhythms to rest, focus on our personal art-making, and gather our strength. 🌾

Yours in safety & connection,
Fence 💌

Fence Magazine & Books @fencebooks.bsky.social · Jul 30

“Trouble #2” by Mónica de la Torre, published in Fence Winter/Spring 2006 (pp. 42–43).
Collaged with an untitled painting by John Lurie (p. 89), whose other artworks also appear in this issue.
Collage and photographs by Olivia, Fence intern.

Read the full issue at fenceportal.org/archive.

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Reposted by Fence Magazine & Books

Amish Trivedi @amishtrivedi.bsky.social · Feb 5

Excited to receive @henkaipantomime.bsky.social's new book from our friends @fencebooks.bsky.social

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Ben Niespodziany 📚🎪 @neonpajamas.bsky.social · Mar 25

Michael Earl Craig

@fencebooks.bsky.social

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Diane Josefowicz @dianejosefowicz.bsky.social · Mar 28

State of the stack 😜 #awp25 @blaft.bsky.social @coffeehousepress.bsky.social @fencebooks.bsky.social @twolinespress.bsky.social @coachhousebooks.bsky.social @blackoceanbooks.bsky.social @apublicspace @oceanstatereview

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Philly Poetry Chapbook Review @phillychapbook.bsky.social · Apr 2

Read a #poem from Jennifer Nelson's (@henkaipantomime.bsky.social) new book from @fencebooks.bsky.social, On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies. #writingcommunity #poetrycommunity
phillychapbookreview.org/book-excerpt...

Book Excerpt: The Prize of Québec by Jennifer Nelson

Read the featured Excerpt Poem of the Month for April 2025, “The Prize of Québec” from On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies by Jennifer Nelson, along with a few words from the poet.

phillychapbookreview.org

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👻darth jericho👻 @henkaipantomime.bsky.social · Apr 11

flattered by and grateful for this read by a fellow @fencebooks.bsky.social poet

Kathryn Cowles @kathryncowles.bsky.social · Apr 11

Startling syntax makes me swoon, friends, swoon. Also poems that hit the ground running and then run more. To this end, look at the beginning of this poem by the brilliant Jennifer Nelson:

@henkaipantomime.bsky.social

The cover of Jennifer Nelson’s book On the Way to the Paintings of Forest Robberies has an etching of a forest scene and a pilgrim-hatted man with a gun. The etching is in pale blue, the background dark blue, as if the etching is fading away or is just coming into being.

The beginning of the poem “Danaë Danaë Revolution” (which, ha!) goes like this:

There's a trick, the trick that men
can use, the flip,
desire desires,
the gold wants me. Every time

I see that nude laid out, that same
pale body touched with blood
beneath, that butchery blush, it's
the window

of coherence, growing
shorter each time
I repeat. I'm only as me
as the last attempt. The more

I see my body the less I'm inside it,

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Mary Gilliland @newsthatstays.bsky.social · May 27

Praise be the #poetry editors of these and other lit mags!
🖋️✏️For sustaining the soul 🪭🫶🏼
@fencebooks.bsky.social
@fiddlehd.bsky.social
@undpress.bsky.social
@passagesnorth.bsky.social
@senecareview.bsky.social
@smartishpace.bsky.social
@vallummag.bsky.social

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Ben Niespodziany 📚🎪 @neonpajamas.bsky.social · Jun 28

Greg Brownderville

@fencebooks.bsky.social

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