Buzz Poole
@buzzpoole.bsky.social
Sandorf Passage co-founder and publisher
sandorfpassage.org
Author of Workingman’s Dead, part of the 33 1/3 series
Writer, editor, aspiring full-time putterer
sandorfpassage.org
Author of Workingman’s Dead, part of the 33 1/3 series
Writer, editor, aspiring full-time putterer
Pinned
Buzz Poole
@buzzpoole.bsky.social
· Nov 13
Sandorf Passage 2025 Subscription – sandorfpassage.org
sandorfpassage.org
Want to support Sandorf Passage and score a great deal? From now until the end of December, we’re running an early-bird special on our 2025 subscription: 7 books for $100. Next year’s list is killer! Reskeet and follow for a chance to win a free 2025 subscription. sandorfpassage.org/product/sand...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
Hot off the press here in #maine: ARCs of The Minister by Stefan Bošković (tr.Will Firth). Sharp, unsettling, and bitingly relevant, it is a portrait of a society where truth is slippery, power is dangerous, and survival demands moral compromise. Let us know if you want a copy. #booksky
January 2, 2026 at 6:27 PM
Spun Purple Mountains earlier today, forever in awe of Berman’s turns of phrase. And also happened to think about Ryan and some of his Berman stories. If I were in New York this weekend, I would not miss this.
This Sunday night at The Bowery Ballroom in NYC: Hills & Ezra Furman doing a set of David's brilliant songs on his birthday.
www.ticketmaster.com/dcbday-celeb...
www.ticketmaster.com/dcbday-celeb...
January 2, 2026 at 12:03 AM
Spun Purple Mountains earlier today, forever in awe of Berman’s turns of phrase. And also happened to think about Ryan and some of his Berman stories. If I were in New York this weekend, I would not miss this.
Reposted by Buzz Poole
This huge Europa hit, a Deep Vellum book making Obama's book list...I can't help feeling like publishing's woes could open up an opportunity for readers to understand that independent press books (by US authors and in translation) are not only vital literature but also...as good, as big 5 books?
Michael Reynolds from Europa echoing this sentiment in the NYT today! Every time someone asks me to make any predictions for books in 2026, the only thing I'm certain about is that readers will begin to move away from algorithms and continue to be drawn to the authenticity, curation, and humanity.
December 30, 2025 at 6:19 PM
This huge Europa hit, a Deep Vellum book making Obama's book list...I can't help feeling like publishing's woes could open up an opportunity for readers to understand that independent press books (by US authors and in translation) are not only vital literature but also...as good, as big 5 books?
Reposted by Buzz Poole
Today's Featured Poem:
"Preparing the Body" by Monika Herceg, translated from the Croatian by @marinaveverec.bsky.social from Closed Season published by @sandorfpassage.bsky.social
Read here:
poems.com/poem/prepari...
"Preparing the Body" by Monika Herceg, translated from the Croatian by @marinaveverec.bsky.social from Closed Season published by @sandorfpassage.bsky.social
Read here:
poems.com/poem/prepari...
Preparing the Body
carcinomas slumber
under the unkind nurses' tongues
poems.com
December 28, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Today's Featured Poem:
"Preparing the Body" by Monika Herceg, translated from the Croatian by @marinaveverec.bsky.social from Closed Season published by @sandorfpassage.bsky.social
Read here:
poems.com/poem/prepari...
"Preparing the Body" by Monika Herceg, translated from the Croatian by @marinaveverec.bsky.social from Closed Season published by @sandorfpassage.bsky.social
Read here:
poems.com/poem/prepari...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
Monika Herceg’s “Preparing the Body” from Closed Season (tr. Marina Veverec) is featured @poetrydaily.bsky.social today. poems.com/poem/prepari...
Preparing the Body
carcinomas slumber
under the unkind nurses' tongues
poems.com
December 28, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Monika Herceg’s “Preparing the Body” from Closed Season (tr. Marina Veverec) is featured @poetrydaily.bsky.social today. poems.com/poem/prepari...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
@gayadorno.bsky.social on translating Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories in a new Asymptote interview: “One thing that did feel joyful or exciting about doing this project was getting an opportunity to think of myself more as a writer.” www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/12...
Unreliable Narrator, Unreliable Translator: Nicholas Glastonbury on Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories - Asymptote Blog
. . . if we can unmake or destabilize the novel, we might similarly destabilize the nation, which warrants or conscripts the novel.
www.asymptotejournal.com
December 19, 2025 at 2:56 PM
@gayadorno.bsky.social on translating Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories in a new Asymptote interview: “One thing that did feel joyful or exciting about doing this project was getting an opportunity to think of myself more as a writer.” www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/12...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
Good luck to @sandorfpassage.bsky.social !
December 18, 2025 at 11:39 PM
Good luck to @sandorfpassage.bsky.social !
Reposted by Buzz Poole
2025 has been awful, but our six releases this year are evidence that books still surprise and delight, and are more necessary than ever. We’re so proud of these books and are thankful for the teams behind them. 2026 promises more great fiction and poetry, starting with She Who Remains. #booksky
December 17, 2025 at 3:29 PM
2025 has been awful, but our six releases this year are evidence that books still surprise and delight, and are more necessary than ever. We’re so proud of these books and are thankful for the teams behind them. 2026 promises more great fiction and poetry, starting with She Who Remains. #booksky
Reposted by Buzz Poole
More end-of-year love for Underground Barbie. @libraryjournal.bsky.social includes it in “Stellar Selections: Best Books of 2025”! www.libraryjournal.com/story/Stella...
Stellar Selections | Best Books 2025
Throughout the year, LJ’s expert reviewers consider thousands of books, reading titles across a myriad of genres and subjects. These are the nearly 800 works they judged as the best, most notable, sig...
www.libraryjournal.com
December 15, 2025 at 9:22 PM
More end-of-year love for Underground Barbie. @libraryjournal.bsky.social includes it in “Stellar Selections: Best Books of 2025”! www.libraryjournal.com/story/Stella...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
This week @buzzpoole.bsky.social, cofounder of @sandorfpassage.bsky.social and the person most responsible for Mike's first book being published in a defensible state, visited the library for a discussion of publishing literature in translation and more. Listen anywhere that pods are known to pod.
The Ministry of Culture with Buzz Poole
Podcast Episode · Library Pizza · 12/11/2025 · 1h 45m
podcasts.apple.com
December 11, 2025 at 5:58 PM
This week @buzzpoole.bsky.social, cofounder of @sandorfpassage.bsky.social and the person most responsible for Mike's first book being published in a defensible state, visited the library for a discussion of publishing literature in translation and more. Listen anywhere that pods are known to pod.
Translators are alchemists, conjuring meaning and beauty from one language into another. @littranslate.bsky.social’s sole purpose is to support and advocate for translators. If you can, help them help translators by making a donation. Maybe you’ll even win a virtual meeting with me . . .
Did you know? When you donate $50 or more to ALTA by December 19, you'll be entered into a raffle to win a virtual meeting to talk shop with Buzz Poole of Sandorf Passage! @buzzpoole.bsky.social @sandorfpassage.bsky.social
Learn more here, and donate by December 19: buff.ly/9MCcuix
Learn more here, and donate by December 19: buff.ly/9MCcuix
2025 Winter Fundraiser
Thanks to several generous ALTA members, we are excited to announce a full match for our winter fundraiser! That’s right: All donations up to our goal of $20,000 will be matched. We’re grateful to…
buff.ly
December 10, 2025 at 5:59 PM
Translators are alchemists, conjuring meaning and beauty from one language into another. @littranslate.bsky.social’s sole purpose is to support and advocate for translators. If you can, help them help translators by making a donation. Maybe you’ll even win a virtual meeting with me . . .
Reposted by Buzz Poole
In the words of Sun Ra: Space is the place! And for those of you in the Portland, Maine, area, the mighty @spacegallery.bsky.social Pop-Up Shop opens tonight. Shop local and get some locally published books, along with all manner of creative gifts.
December 5, 2025 at 9:31 PM
In the words of Sun Ra: Space is the place! And for those of you in the Portland, Maine, area, the mighty @spacegallery.bsky.social Pop-Up Shop opens tonight. Shop local and get some locally published books, along with all manner of creative gifts.
Yesterday, I read about $100,000 worth of escargot being stolen in France, today, it’s an oyster heist here in #maine. www.pressherald.com/2025/12/04/u...
Unusual oyster farm heist leaves Portland couple reeling
The equipment and oysters that went missing from the waters off Falmouth last month are valued at roughly $20,000.
www.pressherald.com
December 5, 2025 at 1:10 PM
Yesterday, I read about $100,000 worth of escargot being stolen in France, today, it’s an oyster heist here in #maine. www.pressherald.com/2025/12/04/u...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
Like a map that unfolds & unfolds until it is larger than the territory, this odd and oddly delightful little book will beguile you with the beauty of its prose, the agility of images, and the joy it clearly shows in the art of literature
Strange & Perfect Account from the Permafrost
“ I am the nameless crew member who died on January 27, 1597.” So reports the Dutch narrator of Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost from his icy grave on the Arctic archipelago Novaya Zemyla, separating what is known today as the Barents and Kara Seas in Russia. But when this expedition set out to find a “ northeast passage” from Europe to China, the landmasses blocking such a route were unknown. While the expedition failed, the narrator becomes a sentient part of the landscape, privy to centuries of change.
portersquarebooks.com
December 1, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Like a map that unfolds & unfolds until it is larger than the territory, this odd and oddly delightful little book will beguile you with the beauty of its prose, the agility of images, and the joy it clearly shows in the art of literature
As a Charles Burchfield freak and a @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social fanatic, I might be one of the few folks who notices that Burchfield’s work is about to appear on a second cover, albeit about 11 years after the first one appeared.
December 3, 2025 at 10:48 PM
As a Charles Burchfield freak and a @nyrb-imprints.bsky.social fanatic, I might be one of the few folks who notices that Burchfield’s work is about to appear on a second cover, albeit about 11 years after the first one appeared.
Reposted by Buzz Poole
So great to see Jonathan Reeder’s spectacular translation of Donald Niedekker’s Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost on this @speculativeshelf.bsky.social Top 10 Books of 2025 list! speculativeshelf.com/2025/12/02/t...
Top 10 Books of 2025
10. Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel Emotionally resonant and deeply felt, Lightbreakers plumbs the complex depths of love, loss, and grief through the eyes of three individuals caught in a tid…
speculativeshelf.com
December 2, 2025 at 10:15 PM
So great to see Jonathan Reeder’s spectacular translation of Donald Niedekker’s Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost on this @speculativeshelf.bsky.social Top 10 Books of 2025 list! speculativeshelf.com/2025/12/02/t...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
Translator Jonathan Reeder muses on the first sentence of Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost—the longest first sentence he’s ever translated—for the wonderful Dutch Athenaeum bookstores. athenaeumscheltema.nl/vertalers/20...
Athenaeum | Scheltema | The first sentence of Donald Niedekker's Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost
Toelichting: Jonathan Reeder vertaalde Donald Niedekkers Waarachtige beschrijvingen uit de permafrost als Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost.
athenaeumscheltema.nl
December 2, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Translator Jonathan Reeder muses on the first sentence of Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost—the longest first sentence he’s ever translated—for the wonderful Dutch Athenaeum bookstores. athenaeumscheltema.nl/vertalers/20...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
“To capture the precarious existential condition of Kurds, Ozmen has crafted a book that resembles a piece of performance art, defying novelistic conventions.” Hilary Ilkay on @gayadorno.bsky.social’s translation of The Competition of Unfinished Stories. www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/11...
Announcing Our November Book Club Selection: The Competition of Unfinished Stories by Sener Ozmen - Asymptote Blog
From a Turkish perspective, there is no Kurdistan . . . . Ozmen’s novel meditates on what this effacement does to someone’s subjectivity.
www.asymptotejournal.com
December 1, 2025 at 4:27 PM
“To capture the precarious existential condition of Kurds, Ozmen has crafted a book that resembles a piece of performance art, defying novelistic conventions.” Hilary Ilkay on @gayadorno.bsky.social’s translation of The Competition of Unfinished Stories. www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/11...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
Asymptote chews on The Competition of Unfinished Stories (tr. @gayadorno.bsky.social): “To capture the precarious existential condition of Kurds, [Sener] Ozmen has crafted a book that resembles a piece of performance art, defying novelistic conventions.” www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/11...
Announcing Our November Book Club Selection: The Competition of Unfinished Stories by Sener Ozmen - Asymptote Blog
From a Turkish perspective, there is no Kurdistan . . . . Ozmen’s novel meditates on what this effacement does to someone’s subjectivity.
www.asymptotejournal.com
November 28, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Asymptote chews on The Competition of Unfinished Stories (tr. @gayadorno.bsky.social): “To capture the precarious existential condition of Kurds, [Sener] Ozmen has crafted a book that resembles a piece of performance art, defying novelistic conventions.” www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2025/11...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
@tobiascarroll.bsky.social includes Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories (tr. @gayadorno.bsky.social) on the @wwborders.bsky.social November Watchlist! wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...
The Watchlist: November 2025 - Words Without Borders
Nonfiction, comics, poems, and fiction in translation: Tobias Carroll recommends a little of everything in this month's Watchlist.
wordswithoutborders.org
November 26, 2025 at 6:42 PM
@tobiascarroll.bsky.social includes Sener Ozmen’s The Competition of Unfinished Stories (tr. @gayadorno.bsky.social) on the @wwborders.bsky.social November Watchlist! wordswithoutborders.org/read/article...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
The UN General Assembly has designated today, November 25, as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Monika Herceg’s Closed Season is a clarion call to not look away from or ignore the suffering of women throughout the world.
November 25, 2025 at 3:25 PM
The UN General Assembly has designated today, November 25, as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Monika Herceg’s Closed Season is a clarion call to not look away from or ignore the suffering of women throughout the world.
Reposted by Buzz Poole
Last week’s Monika Herceg events in support of Closed Season were a delight: inspiring, challenging, surprising, and beautiful. Get a taste by watching this video from @brooklinebooksmith.bsky.social. m.youtube.com/watch?v=xu6d...
Brookline Booksmith is live! Transnational Series: Monika Herceg with Ellen Elias-Bursać
YouTube video by Brookline Booksmith
m.youtube.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Last week’s Monika Herceg events in support of Closed Season were a delight: inspiring, challenging, surprising, and beautiful. Get a taste by watching this video from @brooklinebooksmith.bsky.social. m.youtube.com/watch?v=xu6d...
RIP Jimmy Cliff. m.youtube.com/watch?v=ISuH...
Jimmy Cliff - Wanted Man [from Roots Rock Reggae, 1977 documentary]
YouTube video by Chris Azevedo
m.youtube.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:17 PM
RIP Jimmy Cliff. m.youtube.com/watch?v=ISuH...
Reposted by Buzz Poole
Huzzah! Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost is a @washingtonpost.com 2025 notable work of fiction! Thanks to @themountaingoats.bsky.social @portersqbooks.bsky.social @bseitz.bsky.social @leviathanbookstore.bsky.social @jamesfolta.com for championing this book from the jump!
November 21, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Huzzah! Strange and Perfect Account from the Permafrost is a @washingtonpost.com 2025 notable work of fiction! Thanks to @themountaingoats.bsky.social @portersqbooks.bsky.social @bseitz.bsky.social @leviathanbookstore.bsky.social @jamesfolta.com for championing this book from the jump!