Robert van Vliet
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Robert van Vliet
@letterspace.org
510 followers 260 following 250 posts
❡ Poet, teacher
❡ St Paul MN
❡ inventions (above/ground 2026)
❡ Vessels (Unsolicited 2024)
❡ This Folded Path (above/ground 2023)
❡ Mostly offline for the ’25–’26 school year
❡ Blogging infrequently at www.letterspace.org
❡ www.robertvanvliet.com
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Robert van Vliet @letterspace.org · Dec 17
It’s publication day for my strange little book!

Order a copy here.
Vessels was written during a time of disquiet, isolation, and absences, when each day was folded over on itself, false and empty. To keep working, Robert van Vliet challenged himself to build a ten-line poem each day that needed to include five words and a line or fragment from a book, all chosen randomly through chance operations. ¶ He knew that he was too swamped by the quotidian to allow himself to choose the words—they would be nothing but fear, mask, Covid, police, racist, murder, climate, rage… The chance operations allowed him to leave most of the decisions until the very moment he began composing. ¶ The result is a collection of three suites, each seeking a path beyond the polarity of either willfully ignoring the appalling spectacle of those pandemic years or being angrily transfixed by it. Three paths out of mute heartbreak and toward a third space of hope, presence, spirit.
letterspace.org
The kids are alright.
December 20, 2025 at 3:21 AM
letterspace.org
My book is one year old today!

I haven’t done any readings since I returned to the classroom as a high school English teacher this year. Who knows, maybe in the spring.

Anyway, thanks again to @unsolicitedpress.bsky.social for taking a chance on it.
My increasingly tattered author copy, with tabs and bookmarks, and a sheaf of paper stuck between the pages.
December 17, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Robert van Vliet
subpresspoetry.bsky.social
Happy publication day to @luaz.bsky.social’s Becoming Altar: New and Selected Poems! asterismbooks.com
Becoming Altar New and Selected Poems Kyla Houbolt SUBPRESS Becoming Altar Kyla Houbolt $20.00 @ Add
December 15, 2025 at 3:09 PM
letterspace.org
My next chapbook is even less imaginary today than it was yesterday.

“inventions” is a collection of prose poems accompanied by short poems and fragments.

Thanks to the perpetual @robmclennan.bsky.social, it will emerge from above/ground press in January.
A weird little doodle, which could be a figure crouching, contemplating a small orb in its hand, or could be a jaunty smiling creature with a swooping coiffe as an airborne serpent disguised as the letter M stoops down upon it.
December 15, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Reposted by Robert van Vliet
unsolicitedpress.bsky.social
Listen in: www.youtube.com/@unsolicited...
Unsolicited Press
Unsolicited Press is a small press in Portland, Oregon publishing award-winning poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. The on-the-fringes team champions the unsung and marginalized writers with an ...
www.youtube.com
December 11, 2025 at 2:23 AM
Reposted by Robert van Vliet
readinstead.bsky.social
This is next week!! Sign up to see some superstar readers like @rika99.bsky.social @jaredharel.bsky.social @thefoxmother.bsky.social @philgoldstein.bsky.social @maudlavin.bsky.social @drsaephd.bsky.social @rosebudbenoni.bsky.social @hilaratzabi.bsky.social @vivakresh.bsky.social @mordecaimartin.net
December 11, 2025 at 2:24 AM
letterspace.org
Becoming Alter: Some new books that arrived in the house today.

@luaz.bsky.social
Kyla Houbolt's "Becoming Altar: New and Selected Poems" atop the enormous three volume translation of the Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter. Altar, Alter. Get it? If only I still had my old copy of the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, "Third Planet from Altair." Hat trick!
December 10, 2025 at 10:37 PM
letterspace.org
Midnight in the Garden State of Good and Evil
letterspace.org Robert van Vliet @letterspace.org · 16d
Down with Love by Law
grousehollow.bsky.social Michael Metivier @grousehollow.bsky.social · 16d
Jurassic Mansfield Park
December 4, 2025 at 6:18 PM
letterspace.org
Down with Love by Law
December 4, 2025 at 3:15 AM
letterspace.org
A Room with a Parallax View
letterspace.org Robert van Vliet @letterspace.org · 16d
A Room with a View to a Kill
j-tkelly.bsky.social J-T Kelly @j-tkelly.bsky.social · 16d
Children of a Lesser Gods Must Be Crazy
December 4, 2025 at 3:08 AM
letterspace.org
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Bob, and Carol, and Ted, and Alice, and Her Lover.
j-tkelly.bsky.social J-T Kelly @j-tkelly.bsky.social · 16d
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and the World's Greatest Lover
letterspace.org Robert van Vliet @letterspace.org · 16d
The Empire Records Strikes Back
December 4, 2025 at 3:07 AM
letterspace.org
A Room with a View to a Kill
j-tkelly.bsky.social J-T Kelly @j-tkelly.bsky.social · 16d
Children of a Lesser Gods Must Be Crazy
grousehollow.bsky.social Michael Metivier @grousehollow.bsky.social · 16d
Jurassic Mansfield Park
December 4, 2025 at 3:01 AM
letterspace.org
The Empire Records Strikes Back
j-tkelly.bsky.social J-T Kelly @j-tkelly.bsky.social · 16d
Children of a Lesser Gods Must Be Crazy
grousehollow.bsky.social Michael Metivier @grousehollow.bsky.social · 16d
Jurassic Mansfield Park
December 4, 2025 at 2:59 AM
Reposted by Robert van Vliet
readinstead.bsky.social
Tomorrow is December. Only two weeks until Hanukkah! NAWP is hosting our 3rd annual Hanukkah reading with 22 Jewish poets (we know, it isn't chai, but we have some great readers!)

Please join us!

www.eventbrite.com/e/from-darkn...
From Darkness to Light, Poetry in Celebration of Hanukkah: a list of 22 poets! Jared Beloff Rosebud Ben-Oni Robin Rosen Chang Moriah Cohen David Ebenbach Sarah Etlinger H.E. Fisher Elisheva Fox Josette Akresh-Gonzales Jared Harél Carlie Hoffmann Julia Kolchinsky Maud Lavin Arden Levine Mordecai Martin Erika Meitner Lynn Melnick Richard Newman Hila Ratzabi Jason Schneiderman Sean Singer Yerra Sugarman
November 30, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Reposted by Robert van Vliet
thoughtcat.bsky.social
Now I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do ya
Pope singing meme
November 23, 2025 at 4:31 PM
letterspace.org
Reading Alter’s excellent translation of Job.
November 23, 2025 at 4:45 PM
letterspace.org
The existence of my next chapbook grows increasingly less implausible.
A weird little black and white doodle that vaguely resembles an upper case A tipping over, with a very long cross line and a small lower case n attached to its side. A dot hovers to its right. Around it, one faint square of graph paper frames but doesn't quite contain the doodle.
November 23, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Robert van Vliet
mollyakin.bsky.social
Very much looking forward to reading with @janehuffman.bsky.social and Patrick Donnelly virtually on 11/20, 7pm EST. Hosted by the wonderful @poetmercurio.bsky.social: bit.ly/HospiceBookL...
November 13, 2025 at 3:55 PM
letterspace.org
Do you wish you had more things to worry about?

Are you too comfortable with the state of the world?

Do you sleep through the night without long insomniac stretches of low-grade panic and despair?

If so, I have just the thing! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

The Kessler Syndrome.
Kessler Syndrome and the space debris problem
This feared space-junk cascade called Kessler Syndrome may have already begun.
www.space.com
November 8, 2025 at 3:32 PM
letterspace.org
It’s entirely possible my next chapbook might coming out sometime in the near future.
An extreme close-up of a strange little doodle: a circle bisected by a line, with two dots, one inside the circle, one outside. Several other doodles are almost visisble around the edges of the screenshot.
November 1, 2025 at 2:30 PM
letterspace.org
A lively, joyous, noisy gathering in St Paul today. The peaceful, friendly crowd stretched many blocks in every direction along Fairview and Randolph.
Several American flags on the busy street lined with people. A man with a t-shirt that reads, "YOU WILL HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME," and a woman with a shirt that reads, "The horrors persist, and so do I."
October 18, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Reposted by Robert van Vliet
brtom.bsky.social
“Well, that’s what I’m a-saying; all kings is mostly rapscallions, as fur as I can make out.” Huck Finn
October 18, 2025 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Robert van Vliet
October 7, 2025 at 10:20 PM
letterspace.org
7th October 1955 – Ginsberg’s First Reading of “Howl”
On this day in 1955, a behemoth of incomparable significance occurred that would restore poetry to its rightful cultural position, crystallise the voice of a discontented generation and launch a revol...
www.onthisdeity.com
October 7, 2025 at 10:51 PM