Bonanni Comma John
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bananascallops.bsky.social
Bonanni Comma John
@bananascallops.bsky.social
Poet. Winner of the 2025 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry for retrovirology (Pitt 2026). Editor of Cape Cod Review. Words in Gulf Coast, Foglifter, Electric Lit, & Michigan Quarterly Review. More here: www.johnbonanni.com
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I'm both thrilled and shocked to announce this! Thank you Honorée Fonanne Jeffers for selecting my work for this honor. @upittpress.bsky.social has been a dream press since as long as I've been at this--not enough emojis for all these feels.
Congrats to John Bonanni @bananascallops.bsky.social, winner of the 2025 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry for his collection, RETROVIROLOGY, selected by @blklibrarygirl.bsky.social!

UPP will publish RETROVIROLOGY in the Fall 2026:
www.awpwriter.org/AWP/Contests...
David Carter's Stonewall book completely changed me, but the text I had read years ago was a library copy. I was writing an essay and needed to include a quote, so I finally ordered my own copy #myownprivatestonewall
November 12, 2025 at 2:32 AM
Such a glorious feeling to read a book, think you're only halfway through it, and then scan the back pages consisting of pages upon pages of index and appendices. Like, oops, nevermind! I'm 75 percent through! Almost there!
November 9, 2025 at 5:44 PM
"But oh, Lou. Maybe that means we get to keep ourselves, too"

www.short-reads.org/deadhead/?fb...
Deadhead
by Caylin Capra-Thomas | Redistributing energy.
www.short-reads.org
November 8, 2025 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by Bonanni Comma John
I have the weekend off. Can I remember how to be a writer and a reader
November 8, 2025 at 12:14 PM
If you can't figure out post-production to align the sound volume between your interviewer and subject, please don't make a podcast... marie howe literally soundd like she's whispering in this interview
November 7, 2025 at 11:29 PM
but how about this banger from Carl Phillips?
November 4, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Excellent critique on @theatlantic.com article "Is America Sliding Toward Illiteracy?" written by a veteran teacher:
www.adn.com/opinions/202...
Opinion: It’s not just about literacy. It’s a cognitive decline.
More Chromebooks won’t save education.
www.adn.com
November 3, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Yes.
Every day I write is a day I feel more like myself. It’s chasing that feeling that gets my books written, more than any ambition. Days spent reading good books can work too. When I don’t write or read or take in art, I feel “thin”—and if other people feel the same, I don’t know how they stand it.
sometimes i try to draw a line connecting all the times i’ve been happiest and the dots that connect them all is that was when i was writing
November 2, 2025 at 10:43 PM
so when i calculate a word count, does the title get lumped in there? asking as a poet writing an essay who usually doesn't calculate word counts.
November 2, 2025 at 4:22 PM
really wish higher ed didn't pay garbage so I could feel good about an exhaustive application process. "Donaldson Writer in Residence" would be a beautiful title if "hourly employees" were not "subject to 29 hours per week max." These positions are for people with rich husbands.
November 2, 2025 at 3:32 PM
I know this is some bougie shit, but I really wish bars just had some kombucha on tap as their alcohol-free option. It's good for the gut!
November 1, 2025 at 8:20 PM
I love when reality tv show contestants just up and leave on their own accord. Like, yes, you gave those producers enough, you're tired, you know you're unlikely to win, you're not in an actor's union... assert your power.
November 1, 2025 at 1:06 AM
Reposted by Bonanni Comma John
Perfect timing for this story to drop on the same day Amazon lays off 30,000 workers due to claims of AI efficiencies.

If companies have less work for people to do, they don’t give you Fridays off, they lay off people until everyone has a full workweek.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan says AI will shorten our workweek | TechCrunch
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan says that, in a few years, we should be working a 3-4 day workweek because of AI.
techcrunch.com
October 28, 2025 at 12:20 AM
Had a student completely lose their shit when I said they couldn't use ChatGPT with their essays. "Why? Can't I just look up facts?" "No. You can't. Wanna see the MIT study on AI and essay writing?" "Just don't talk to me!" I'd call this a teenage tantrum, but no: it's typical addict behavior.
October 27, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Red line to Boston Book Festival, then back to Braintree to read in Buzzard's Bay--sometimes it's exhausting filling your soul with poems, but how blessed this exhaustion.
October 26, 2025 at 3:52 AM
October 18, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Reposted by Bonanni Comma John
1) comma with coordinating conjunction
2) semicolon
3) semicolon followed by coordinating conjunction followed by a comma
4) colon (if there is a causal relationship between first and second clause)
5) comma (only if there are more than two independent clauses)
6) the dash ("for emphasis")

🪗
October 17, 2025 at 12:30 PM
LinkedIn is the weirdest space of AI worship & kiss assery
October 18, 2025 at 12:04 AM
U S Mutant Ninja Turtles have risen from the radioactive ooze. Splinter says, "I, too, once had a family, Danny," and brings brainwashed youth back to the light, and we all, together, fight ICE #usmnt
October 15, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Reposted by Bonanni Comma John
Michael Eugene Archer aka D’Angelo 🖤🕊️
October 14, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Why doesn't starring emails work?
October 14, 2025 at 9:43 PM
I'm not sure why I keep getting these emails, but I shamelessly read every AI-generated word. "Hey cosmic baddies!"
October 13, 2025 at 12:24 PM