Eugenia Leigh
LightNews LightNews
banner
eugenialeigh.bsky.social
Eugenia Leigh
@eugenialeigh.bsky.social
2.3K followers 1K following 83 posts
Poet. Author of Bianca + Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows
Poetry Editor @ The Adroit Journal
Valentines Editor @ Honey Literary
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
brcremer.bsky.social
If your Christianity causes you to be offended by someone asking the most powerful person in the country to be merciful towards the powerless, then you have profoundly misunderstood the teachings of Jesus Christ.
January 22, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
corinnaboard.bsky.social
There really aren’t enough beetle poems. Here’s a great one by @eugenialeigh.bsky.social which I discovered through Pádraig Ó Tuama’s podcast:
#poetry
Poem text reads: How the Dung Beetle Finds Its Way Home by Eugenia Leigh The Milky Way's glinting ribbon helps the dung beetle roll his good ball of shit back to the ones he loves. But blind him to the sky with as little as a hat, and he will swerve like a drunk who, if he makes it home alive, might find the family, soured with waiting, gone. Drawers cleared, beds cold, even the watercolor ark of giraffes and raptors pulled from the face of the fridge. See? I want to tell my missing father, it's a metaphor so simple it's almost not worth writing down: even beetles need the stars to nudge them back to where they need to be when they need to be there— toward their little ones' gummy grins ever pardoning the grisliest parent. Poem text reads: (2/2) I am thirty-four with a son the day my mother tells me she enrolled in a four-day seminar about how to be a good mom. A little late, I know. Once, in a rage, I left my husband and our sleeping child. Where did you go, friends ask when I tell the story. I wish I'd had a grander plan. I wish I'd stood on the roof of our building and, empowered by that single Brooklyn star, I'd ripped up the book of my parents' sins. Or I wish I could tell someone the truth: that I fear I am the kind of woman who could leave the one good family God had the gall to give her. Really, I sat on the stairwell leading up to the roof and wept until a large bug threatened my life, at which point I recalled the dung beetles, stopped blaming my parents, and— thanking the metaphorical stars— I rolled up my pile of shit and trudged back home.
January 23, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
karissachen.bsky.social
Ahem I was on live television this morning (still trying to wrap my head around it). Yes that's me I. @goodmorningamerica.bsky.social !

abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/...
Video Karissa Chen talks book, ‘Homeseeking’
Author Karissa Chen joins “GMA” to discuss her debut novel and “GMA’s” January Book Club pick.
abcnews.go.com
January 19, 2025 at 4:06 AM
eugenialeigh.bsky.social
Absolutely loved having this conversation with Vi Khi Nao @bombmag.bsky.social 🖤
bombmagazine.org/articles/202...
Pink graphic with BOMB Magazine logo & book cover image of Bianca by Eugenia Leigh. Headline says Interview: Eugenia Leigh by Vi Khi Nao & tag line says, “The poet on mental health struggles and creative metamorphosis.” Date: January 9, 2025. And a pull quote attributed to Eugenia Leigh says, “I want to believe I am that ‘flower that blooms even when the earth is desiccated,’ but I prefer to think of myself as the dirt. I’m the earth, desiccated. And I want to know that something can bloom even from someone as dirt-like as me.”
January 13, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
teenvogue.com
The Last Wildfire-Fighting Camp for Incarcerated Teens in California

"You’re put in danger every time you’re on the fire line.”

Read more: www.teenvogue.com/story/wildfi...
In California, Incarcerated Teenagers Help Fight Wildfires
"You’re put in danger every time you’re on the fire line.”
www.teenvogue.com
January 9, 2025 at 3:44 PM
eugenialeigh.bsky.social
Ahhhhh!!!!! Congratulations & happy pub day to @karissachen.bsky.social, Jan’s @goodmorningamerica.bsky.social Book Club pick! So amazed by my brilliant bff! Her nationwide tour for HOMESEEKING kicks off tonight in NYC via Yu and Me Books at New Design High Seward Park Campus Library 350 Grand St.!
Book cover for HOMESEEKING by Karissa Chen - teal blue with a gold ring at center with orange trees sprouting from the top and green palm trees sprouting upside down from the bottom. A blurb by Celeste Ng on the cover says “weaves expertly between present and past… a kaleidoscopic yet intimate view of the Chinese diaspora.”
January 7, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
soulkhan.bsky.social
you can be driven into homelessness by someone like brian thompson, then legally murdered by someone like daniel penny, while the money that could have saved you is spent on murdering children in gaza.
December 9, 2024 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
marquisedavon.bsky.social
i hope i die
warmed
by the life that i tried
to live

— Nikki Giovanni
December 10, 2024 at 2:57 AM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
raquelwillis.com
Nikki Giovanni staunchly supported trans folks, especially trans youth. Her encouragement is a balm.

“I think the transgender kids are the bravest kids right now that we see; they're as brave as my generation was in breaking down segregation.”
A white square with black text reading, “I remember in a recent interview you spoke about your support of the trans community, because you said: "I see that transgender youngsters are the ones who are helping to take planet Earth into the galaxy because we're going to run into other life forms that our gender does not matter." Can you speak about that a bit? I think the transgender kids are the bravest kids right now that we see; they're as brave as my generation was in breaking down segregation. They're breaking down —I don't have the word for it right now-but it's gender prejudice, and [the idea that] somebody has decided that they can tell you who you are, what your name should be, and how you should look.” A white square with black text reading, “And those youngsters are saying, "No, I can decide who I am, what my name should be." Everybody's mad at me like, You should be a girl because we've decided you're a girl. And they say, "Well, who the hell are you?" I can decide that I'm a boy. And if it makes me happy, what does it mean to you? And I can decide that my name is John. And if you don't like that my name is Geraldine, why can't you name yourself? And if the people who know you and love you— or have to talk to you, maybe they don't even love you but they have to talk to you-you can tell them, "This is my name, and I would like to be referred to in that way." A white square with black text reading, “But when we go into the galaxy, a life-form may say, "Who are you?" Well, there's no point in talking to another life-form and [saying] "I'm a boy or a girl," because it may have no meaning. That may mean nothing to them. So what you're going to say is, "I am a life form from the third planet, from the yellow sun," therefore giving yourself an identity. You don't have an identity because you say, "I'm a boy, I'm a girl, I'm a Jew or Gentile, I'm a Catholic or Baptist." That doesn't mean anything once you get beyond the prejudices of Earth. So yeah, I think the transgender students are really brave because they're taking a lot of flack for just wanting to be themselves and to have the right to have their own name. I think that's incredibly brave, and I think that they're absolutely right to want to do that. To want to own themselves.”
December 10, 2024 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
mjerkins.bsky.social
From an interview I did with Nikki Giovanni back in 2017:
Nikki Giovanni describes how she doesn't think death is the end of us.
December 10, 2024 at 3:17 AM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
taliajane.bsky.social
Daniel Penny acquitted after literally killing someone on camera for being disruptive on the train the same day a person of interest in the shooting of a shitbag healthcare exec gets grabbed pretty succinctly sums up who in this country is allowed to kill and who they’re allowed to kill.
December 9, 2024 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
intifadabatata.bsky.social
Grateful to have this new poem in the new issue of @thebeliever.net with thanks to habibi Fady Joudah whose book has helped get me through this past year, & to @sallywenmao.bsky.social for the support ❤️🙏🍉
December 9, 2024 at 8:00 PM
eugenialeigh.bsky.social
Ugh. When the one piece of good news coming from @penamerica.bsky.social (about signing onto PACBI) was fake. Should’ve known it was too good to be true. Well. Hope PEN America takes notes & sees how quick we were to celebrate this. Sigh. 💔
December 9, 2024 at 5:28 PM
eugenialeigh.bsky.social
Check out the Brooklyn Poets online auction! I’m donating the following:

✨written feedback on 1 full-length poetry manuscript

✨1-hr zoom convo — anything poetry-related

✨(2) book bundles: signed copies of Blood, Sparrows and Sparrows + Bianca plus 2 signed broadsides

Auction ends this Sat 12/14
Beige graphic. Top text: Brooklyn Poets Auction Fundraiser. Bid @ bit [dot] ly [slash] bkp [dash] give through Dec 14th. Then a headshot of Eugenia in glasses and red lipstick. Bottom text says Manuscript feedback with Eugenia Leigh Beige graphic. Top text: Brooklyn Poets Auction Fundraiser. Bid @ bit [dot] ly [slash] bkp [dash] give through Dec 14th. Then a headshot of Eugenia in glasses and red lipstick. Bottom text says 1 hour consult with Eugenia Leigh
December 9, 2024 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
terpsicoreans.bsky.social
“Once you see empire, you can’t unsee it.”

- Moon-Ho Jung
August 7, 2023 at 12:46 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
alexanderchee.bsky.social
A stunning poem of lesbian love by the legend Willyce Kim. poets.org/poem/places
Places
I dreamed you. / I waited 45 years for you
poets.org
September 8, 2023 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
elnorterecuerda.bsky.social
Been thinking about this tweet for five solid days
krisko.bsky.social tofu & tesla! (& krisko) 🐈 📚 🎲 ♿ @krisko.bsky.social · Apr 18
my psychiatrist asked me if i had suicidal ideations, i told "nothing active, but if a bus was barreling down on me i'd probably think twice about getting out of the way" and without missing a beat she goes "in the biz we consider that 'millenial stable'"
November 24, 2024 at 11:19 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
brunojnavarro.bsky.social
nypl book of the day

Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders

Vanessa Angélica Villarreal

Villarreal's essays look to music, fantasy, and pop culture—from Beyoncé to Game of Thrones—to heal, to reimagine, and to excavate what has been disappeared by migration and colonialism
November 24, 2024 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
intifadabatata.bsky.social
MIZNA 25.1: CATASTROPHE HAS ARRIVED! This issue is gorgeous and breathtaking beyond words. I hope you'll hold these words of our community, who have gathered here despite an impossible time for so many of us 🍉🇵🇸

mizna.org/product/mizn...
November 25, 2024 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
bombmag.bsky.social
“Your novel’s bewildering you, but isn’t that always how it is?” —R.O. Kwon

The author chronicles the journey to completing her novel, “Exhibit,” through two elections and a life-altering pandemic.
BOMB Magazine | A Novel's Hidden Diary: Writing Exhibit
Process journal : Seven years of notes
buff.ly
November 26, 2024 at 5:30 PM
eugenialeigh.bsky.social
idk why but Kimiko Hahn posting nothing but the earth for four ig stories in a row is making me emotional 😭
November 26, 2024 at 1:43 AM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
rika99.bsky.social
I am keeper of the post-MFA tumblr (crowdsourced) which has tons of info on post-MFA fellowships, BUT it also has info on residencies—with a whole section of shorter residencies for caregivers! Pass it on! #writers #writingcommunity post-mfa.tumblr.com/residencies
Post-MFA Resources
Fellowships, Residencies, and other resources for people with MFAs in Creative Writing...
post-mfa.tumblr.com
November 23, 2024 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
karissachen.bsky.social
Total actual dream come true to have an essay in Modern Love today!

www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/s...
When the Cost of Being Unmarried Is Too High
In an uncertain world, a marriage skeptic comes around.
www.nytimes.com
November 22, 2024 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Eugenia Leigh
bardsbesidebars.bsky.social
To @lenakt.bsky.social: Absolutely, I want to congratulate you. Your National Book Award was well deserved. But more than congratulating, I want to thank you. Thank you, dear poet. May more and more heed your call to us every minute, every hour, every day until Palestine is free.
November 21, 2024 at 2:47 AM