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Kathryn Cowles

@kathryncowles.bsky.social

1K followers 670 following 130 posts

Poet/Artist, The Strange Wondrous Works of Eleanor Eleanor (Fence Modern Poets Prize, forthcoming), Maps and Transcripts (Milkweed) Editor “Beyond Category”@SenecaReview HWS Prof Trias Writers Residency Director www.kathryncowles.com

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Kathryn Cowles @kathryncowles.bsky.social · Mar 24

Big beautiful news, friends: I won the Fence Modern Poets prize, and my book will be out in the winter. It’s called The Strange Wondrous Works of Eleanor Eleanor, and it contains lots of collage-poem pieces, like the one here.

I am so delighted and honored and moved I keep swooning mid-step.

A black and white collaged image of a three headed, multi-armed lady with the following poem interspersed:

Self-Portrait as Mythological Figure

I am on the move.
My mind is attached to my body at the hip.
My hip is attached to my hand.
I use my hand to write.
I yes my yes.
I have found the good light.
I am looking myself in the eye.
I have free use of my limbs, and look how very forward I can go.

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J G Orudjev | collage . assemblage @nineteendegrees.bsky.social · 23d

Sketchbook, mixed media collage. Part of a diptych.

Slow clouds ii.

mixed media collage
found papers, acrylic, foil, wax

#art #artist #artsky #collage #mixedmedia

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delightful freak ⚡️ @velociicoaster.bsky.social · Aug 28

the human body was not made to take in this much bad news every single day

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Kathryn Cowles @kathryncowles.bsky.social · Aug 13

I edit the Beyond Category section of @senecareview.bsky.social—all hybrid stuff. And Seneca Review is also known as the birthplace of the lyric essay (though it was born all over the place) and runs a lyric essay book prize. Longtime hybrid friendly journal/press.

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Kathryn Cowles @kathryncowles.bsky.social · Aug 13

What a lovely thing to ask! We’re still working on the cover ahead of a preorder announcement from Fence, but I noticed it’s secretly already up with an old cover version on Amazon.

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Jeff Melnick @melnickjeffrey1.bsky.social · Aug 1

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week."

--Willa Cather, 1925 and timeless

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The Slowdown @slowdownshow.org · Jul 30

“I feel a heavy kinship with the speaker in today’s poem. Their embrace of the world exhibits the ecstatic yearning and vulnerability essential to the imagination,” shares Major in today’s encore episode.

Read “In Love” by Chloe Martinez: bit.ly/3U5Hx6H

An excerpt of “In Love” by Chloe Martinez

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Adrian Dallas Frandle @adrianf.bsky.social · Jul 27

Denise Levertov

Keeping Track

Between chores—
hulling strawberries, answering letters-
or between poems,
returning to the mirror to see if I'm there.

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Burgi Zenhaeusern @burgi.bsky.social · Jul 27

"In a place where institutions and systems have collapsed, it is the human gesture—freely given—that preserves the sacred."
Alaa Alqaisi in Beneath the Howl of Hunger
@arablit.bsky.social

arablit.org/2025/07/23/b...

Beneath the Howl of Hunger

“And though the world may have looked away, let this much be remembered: we named the hunger. We bore it. We endured. Let that remain.” – Alaa Alqaisi

arablit.org

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Kathryn Cowles @kathryncowles.bsky.social · Jul 17

It’s the time of year for hot poems about fruit. Here’s the beginning of D. H. Lawrence’s “Medlars and Sorb-Apples”:

I love you, rotten,
Delicious rottenness.

(You can read the rest yourselves, you beasts.)

The first bit of a poem with remarkably untidy underlining of key parts of the first few lines in blue ink:

Medlars and Sorb-Apples

I love you, rotten,
Delicious rottenness.

I love to suck you out from your skins
So brown and soft and coming suave,
So morbid, as the Italians say.

What a rare, powerful, reminiscent flavour
Comes out of your falling through the stages of decay:
Stream within stream.

Something of the same flavour as Syracusan muscat wine
Or vulgar Marsala.

Reposted by Kathryn Cowles

Frances “Poet Laureate of the Robot Alliance” Klein @fklein907.bsky.social · Jul 17

Therapist: and are the ominous Newsweek bisexuals in the room with us now?

Ominous Newsweek Bisexuals:

Jae H @considermycat.bsky.social · Jul 17

A very happy 30th birthday to bisexuality, born this day in 1995 🎂

Newsweek’s infamous 17 July 1995 cover: “Bisexuality: Not Gay. Not Straight. A New Sexual Identity Emerges.”

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Geoffrey Babbitt @geoffreybabbitt.bsky.social · Jul 16

A Grain of Sand in Lambeth has a cover! Many thanks to Caroline Dickens and the folks at UN Press for the design. Official release is December 2nd, which I am happy to share with the wonderful Jami Macarty’s The Long Now Conditions Permit, whose cover I also love. Preorder links below in comments.

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Erin Vachon (they/them) 🍉 @erinvachon.bsky.social · Jul 15

panic attacks count as cardio

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Kathryn Cowles @kathryncowles.bsky.social · Jul 15

I like how the alt descriptions are their own little poem.

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Kathryn Cowles @kathryncowles.bsky.social · Jul 15

Holli Carrell is a writer to watch, friends. Just read a sample poem at the link and you’ll be preordering the book, just like I did. A clear descendant of Jean Valentine. I can’t wait for this one to arrive.

Perugia Press @perugiapress.bsky.social · Jul 15

We’re excited to announce APOSTASIES by Holli Carrell: Release date September 15. Available NOW for preorder at a sale price till 9/15 at perugiapress.org/product/apos... and also available at asterismbooks. Check it out in our Linktree! @hollicarrell.bsky.social @asterismbooks.bsky.social

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Perugia Press @perugiapress.bsky.social · Jul 15

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Cassandra Whitaker @casswhit.bsky.social · Jul 15

My first full collection of poems, Wolf Devouring A Wolf Devouring A Wolf comes out today! Many many thanks to Richard Siken, Jennifer Harris, & Simone Muench for believing in it!

It wrestles with the doubt, desire, addiction, identity. You can buy it here, bookshop.org/p/books/wolf...

Wolf Devouring a Wolf Devouring a Wolf

Check out Wolf Devouring a Wolf Devouring a Wolf - <p>Having written a book called <em>Wolf Centos</em> that opens with the quote "All the poetry has wolves in it, Pam," how could I not be entranced b...

bookshop.org

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Jessica Cuello @jessicacuello.bsky.social · Jun 25

Tiger Bark Press will be publishing my translation of Tania Langlais' Pendant que Perceval tombait, a book-length poem about Virginia Woolf's last day. I'm excited to share this spare, strange, and beautiful book that reads like a riddle. Pub date Feb 2026🌊🐎

Photo of poet Tania Langlais and translator Jessica Cuello

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Curt Nehring Bliss @curtnehringbliss.bsky.social · Jun 13

a wonderful evening of poetry at the Highland Bowl with readings by @kathryncowles.bsky.social @cathylinhche.bsky.social and @geoffreybabbitt.bsky.social -a huge thanks to Writers & Books for hosting and @robinweeg.bsky.social for hanging

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Kathryn Cowles @kathryncowles.bsky.social · Jun 10

Outdoor reading in Rochester’s beautiful Highland Park, if you’re in the area. Thursday at 6:30 with @geoffreybabbitt.bsky.social @cathylinhche.bsky.social and me. Bring a blanket!!

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Kamran Javadizadeh @kjavadizadeh.bsky.social · Jun 9

I talked with Nick Sturm (@nicksturm.bsky.social) about the brilliant Alice Notley, who died just three weeks ago, and her poem “At Night the States.”

“making life, not explaining anything”

I missed having these conversations.

open.spotify.com/episode/6fLF...

Nick Sturm on Alice Notley ("At Night the States")

Close Readings · Episode

open.spotify.com

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Jesse Lee Kercheval @jesselkercheval.bsky.social · Jun 9

Thanks to @oldstermag.bsky.social for publishing this graphic memoir piece with introduction about visiting my sister after she was moved to assisted living. #memoryloss #aging #sisters #alzheimers #graphicmedicine oldster.substack.com/p/what-kinds...

What Kinds of Birds We Are

While visiting her older sister in an assisted living facility, Jesse Lee Kercheval encounters a profusion of birds who remind her of her sister and herself.

oldster.substack.com

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Alina Stefanescu @alinaetc.bsky.social · Jun 8

The vocation is not to cheat by not destroying yourself
The vocation is not to cheat by not erasing your cultural identity
On a globe of fools pretending they aren’t the same animal
Pretending they are dignified screw dignity

- Alice Notley

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Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · Jun 4

I got to speak with an amazing poet this morning. ❤️🎙️

@ofpoetrypodcast.bsky.social
@sarahgreenpoet.bsky.social
@uakronpress.bsky.social

The Deletions
Sarah Green

Held up in evening light beside a NC swimming pool

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Han VanderHart @hanvanderhart.bsky.social · Jun 3

I am down here, solo, shooting arrows into some clouds after a drought. And you're

the clouds making me sweat, and the arrow's trajectory,
and the idea of the field.

Sarah Green
@sarahgreenpoet.bsky.social
@uakronpress.bsky.social

Boston Harbor

The featured pop star's voice was too big for the waterfront pavilion. That's what the reviewer said. Her recent poignant hit flew overhead, drifted right out of open sides

of the white tent, somehow tugging us with it, flinging us toward stars where we hung briefly before falling among jellyfish and buoys.
Once we were part of the water, we couldn't also take it in.

The folk singer who opened for her, meanwhile, was just a small light making a proportional circle-his song meant for historic basements whose walls make a story's echoes ricochet back into hearts

of customers at small tables, who debrief on the train after, rating the concert on the persistence of its shrapnel. Sometimes I am not vast enough to match the love

that takes the form of sky and railroad tracks, canyon and breeze. I am down here, solo, shooting arrows into some clouds after a drought. And you're

the clouds making me sweat, and the arrow's trajectory, and the idea of the field.

The Deletions
Sarah Green

Held up in front of blue sky, green trees, edge of a pool umbrella

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Jooli-AHH! Ghoulia 🎃🍂🔪 @jooliaghoulia.bsky.social · Jun 3

The perfect bird feeder doesn't exi--

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