Nathan Swartzendruber
@fishpatrol.bsky.social
I write poems on typewriters, bother my kids, turn over the thrifts, play albums, walk under the trees.
It's just the Muppet Christmas Carol, but when Scrooge shouts, "And how does one celebrate Christmas on the unemployment line?" it's got bite.
December 10, 2025 at 12:52 AM
It's just the Muppet Christmas Carol, but when Scrooge shouts, "And how does one celebrate Christmas on the unemployment line?" it's got bite.
No cheese cloth to strain this turkey broth? The aeropress will do.
December 7, 2025 at 2:42 AM
No cheese cloth to strain this turkey broth? The aeropress will do.
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
Question: if Sufjan Stevens did an album about your state, what would there be songs about? (sorry, Michigan and Illinois, you have to sit this one out.
I'll go first for Maryland:
1. Baltimore
2. Harriet Tubman
3. The Snallygaster
4. The pursuit of John Wilkes Booth
5. The Chesapeake
6. Crabs
I'll go first for Maryland:
1. Baltimore
2. Harriet Tubman
3. The Snallygaster
4. The pursuit of John Wilkes Booth
5. The Chesapeake
6. Crabs
December 1, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Question: if Sufjan Stevens did an album about your state, what would there be songs about? (sorry, Michigan and Illinois, you have to sit this one out.
I'll go first for Maryland:
1. Baltimore
2. Harriet Tubman
3. The Snallygaster
4. The pursuit of John Wilkes Booth
5. The Chesapeake
6. Crabs
I'll go first for Maryland:
1. Baltimore
2. Harriet Tubman
3. The Snallygaster
4. The pursuit of John Wilkes Booth
5. The Chesapeake
6. Crabs
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
every day i continue to do whatever it is i do & every day i'm interrupting by thinking, "to be in this world"— just that clipped phrase. it's unbearable to put words or sense to any of it, to know that whatever funds we can spare don't offset the horror of what the US government enables & supports.
July 21, 2025 at 8:33 PM
every day i continue to do whatever it is i do & every day i'm interrupting by thinking, "to be in this world"— just that clipped phrase. it's unbearable to put words or sense to any of it, to know that whatever funds we can spare don't offset the horror of what the US government enables & supports.
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
One of Amorak Huey’s two poems in Shō No. 7! ⤵️
“… or / I must change my understanding of what it means to be satisfied.”
—from the new issue of @shopoetryjournal.bsky.social
—from the new issue of @shopoetryjournal.bsky.social
July 8, 2025 at 12:42 PM
One of Amorak Huey’s two poems in Shō No. 7! ⤵️
Last night there were the first fireflies of the season that I’ve seen. One on the neighbor’s lawn, and one by their rose bush (same one?). Then one out back. That light—a tone, not a fizz. I’d forgotten I was waiting for you to sound.
May 29, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Last night there were the first fireflies of the season that I’ve seen. One on the neighbor’s lawn, and one by their rose bush (same one?). Then one out back. That light—a tone, not a fizz. I’d forgotten I was waiting for you to sound.
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
My first 12 years teaching were in areas with a good deal of poverty, which means a lot of my students went military after graduation. Also an old friend from my teaching MA program is career Army and has lost a lot of friends. Thinking of all of them today.
May 26, 2025 at 4:04 PM
My first 12 years teaching were in areas with a good deal of poverty, which means a lot of my students went military after graduation. Also an old friend from my teaching MA program is career Army and has lost a lot of friends. Thinking of all of them today.
It’s 1989 and you’re in a Pizza Hut. The jukebox plays Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” What does it play next?
May 10, 2025 at 6:34 PM
It’s 1989 and you’re in a Pizza Hut. The jukebox plays Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” What does it play next?
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
Missing from this great thread is the fun fact that the Iowa Writers Workshop was founded by Paul Engle in cooperation with the State Dept to cultivate and spread American values via creative works; recently defunded companion International Writing Program had similar objective w/ global writers
much has been said about the NYT's framing of the growth of the government-university research complex as a story of higher ed "dependency" on government
it's a silly and ahistorical way to characterize a carefully thought out national strategy, one imagined by
1/
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/u...
it's a silly and ahistorical way to characterize a carefully thought out national strategy, one imagined by
1/
www.nytimes.com/2025/04/18/u...
How Universities Became So Dependent on the Federal Government
For decades, universities got billions in federal dollars for research. The relationship was mutually beneficial, until President Trump decided it wasn’t.
www.nytimes.com
April 23, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Missing from this great thread is the fun fact that the Iowa Writers Workshop was founded by Paul Engle in cooperation with the State Dept to cultivate and spread American values via creative works; recently defunded companion International Writing Program had similar objective w/ global writers
I used Google to search for a poem, but above the results, their AI sausaged together its own poem, and I nearly punched my monitor off the desk to make it go away.
March 19, 2025 at 4:08 PM
I used Google to search for a poem, but above the results, their AI sausaged together its own poem, and I nearly punched my monitor off the desk to make it go away.
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories
–
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
-Muriel Rukeyser
#everynightapoem
[Carel Willink, Bad Tidings, 1932]
Most mornings I would be more or less insane
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories
–
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
-Muriel Rukeyser
#everynightapoem
[Carel Willink, Bad Tidings, 1932]
![[Carel Willink, Bad Tidings, 1932 Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam] Tempera on linen. A man in suit and hat in right foreground, walking away; a woman in white blouse and brown skirt, running up the street to reach him. Stately pink mansion and tree-lined street form the picture, ominous dark clouds overhead.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:rkgmcmrlwobvdajgjmxlvfya/bafkreic2aacf7rikk4k6hifhwwaftnhkysnmrhfmxb6apvx7r2uknelkrq@jpeg)
March 17, 2025 at 2:20 AM
I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories
–
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
-Muriel Rukeyser
#everynightapoem
[Carel Willink, Bad Tidings, 1932]
Most mornings I would be more or less insane
The newspapers would arrive with their careless stories
–
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
-Muriel Rukeyser
#everynightapoem
[Carel Willink, Bad Tidings, 1932]
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?
Anne Carson
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?
Anne Carson
The Glass Essay
Night drips its silver tap down the back. SHE She lives on a moor in the north. Spring opens like a blade there. I travel all day on trains and bring a lot of books— some for my mother, some for me in...
www.poetryfoundation.org
March 11, 2025 at 12:15 PM
You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?
Anne Carson
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?
Anne Carson
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
"You, selling roses out of a silver grocery cart
You, in the park, feeding the pigeons
You cheering for the bees
You with cats in your voice in the morning, feeding cats"
poetrysociety.org/poems-essays...
You, in the park, feeding the pigeons
You cheering for the bees
You with cats in your voice in the morning, feeding cats"
poetrysociety.org/poems-essays...
Hanif Abdurraqib on Aracelis Girmay’s “You Are Who I Love”
Placing poetry at the crossroads of American life since 1910.
poetrysociety.org
March 9, 2025 at 3:17 AM
"You, selling roses out of a silver grocery cart
You, in the park, feeding the pigeons
You cheering for the bees
You with cats in your voice in the morning, feeding cats"
poetrysociety.org/poems-essays...
You, in the park, feeding the pigeons
You cheering for the bees
You with cats in your voice in the morning, feeding cats"
poetrysociety.org/poems-essays...
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
The 5Ds of Bystander Training are great for folks who want to be able to help if/when they witness someone being harassed.
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@righttobe.bsky.social has short videos for each D:
righttobe.org/guides/bysta...
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Delegate
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@righttobe.bsky.social has short videos for each D:
righttobe.org/guides/bysta...
December 3, 2024 at 9:18 PM
The 5Ds of Bystander Training are great for folks who want to be able to help if/when they witness someone being harassed.
Distract
Delegate
Document
Delay
Direct
@righttobe.bsky.social has short videos for each D:
righttobe.org/guides/bysta...
Distract
Delegate
Document
Delay
Direct
@righttobe.bsky.social has short videos for each D:
righttobe.org/guides/bysta...
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
Since pausing an activity you hadn’t begun is now a thing, I am announcing a pause to my daily 20-mile zig-zag run through the local grocery store parking lot. The store will now accept returns on produce I damage while running. Also I am barred from the store.
February 4, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Since pausing an activity you hadn’t begun is now a thing, I am announcing a pause to my daily 20-mile zig-zag run through the local grocery store parking lot. The store will now accept returns on produce I damage while running. Also I am barred from the store.
Here’s Ursula Franklin speaking on the moral obligation to seek peace in Gaza and elsewhere, 16 years ago youtu.be/a5-mpAqcNoI?... #ursulafranklin
youtu.be
February 5, 2025 at 3:55 AM
Here’s Ursula Franklin speaking on the moral obligation to seek peace in Gaza and elsewhere, 16 years ago youtu.be/a5-mpAqcNoI?... #ursulafranklin
Since pausing an activity you hadn’t begun is now a thing, I am announcing a pause to my daily 20-mile zig-zag run through the local grocery store parking lot. The store will now accept returns on produce I damage while running. Also I am barred from the store.
February 4, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Since pausing an activity you hadn’t begun is now a thing, I am announcing a pause to my daily 20-mile zig-zag run through the local grocery store parking lot. The store will now accept returns on produce I damage while running. Also I am barred from the store.
I went to a Star Wars themed minor league hockey game. Tons of people had bought or been given cheap light sabers—red, Darth Vader’s color. They brought the home team out to the Imperial March. That’s the music for the bad guys, you idiots! We lost. Yay rebels?
January 27, 2025 at 3:32 AM
I went to a Star Wars themed minor league hockey game. Tons of people had bought or been given cheap light sabers—red, Darth Vader’s color. They brought the home team out to the Imperial March. That’s the music for the bad guys, you idiots! We lost. Yay rebels?
Social media feels more and more like online sports betting. Put a penny in and scroll. No winner? It’s just a penny, scroll again. What’s a winner worth? Rarely enough to cash out. But enough to want to keep playing, just in case. And grouch at creators who didn’t quite score for you.
January 14, 2025 at 1:23 AM
Social media feels more and more like online sports betting. Put a penny in and scroll. No winner? It’s just a penny, scroll again. What’s a winner worth? Rarely enough to cash out. But enough to want to keep playing, just in case. And grouch at creators who didn’t quite score for you.
The aux battle at this coffee shop continues. Embarrassing for all involved.
January 3, 2025 at 4:28 PM
The aux battle at this coffee shop continues. Embarrassing for all involved.
The coffee shop I'm in just played half a Tom Petty song and then skipped to the next song. Get me out of this 'ell 'ole
January 3, 2025 at 3:12 PM
The coffee shop I'm in just played half a Tom Petty song and then skipped to the next song. Get me out of this 'ell 'ole
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
I have this poem taped up on my kitchen cabinet, and once in a while it just grabs me by the face, lovingly.
Denise Levertov, “Prayer for Revolutionary Love”:
Denise Levertov, “Prayer for Revolutionary Love”:
December 16, 2024 at 11:39 PM
I have this poem taped up on my kitchen cabinet, and once in a while it just grabs me by the face, lovingly.
Denise Levertov, “Prayer for Revolutionary Love”:
Denise Levertov, “Prayer for Revolutionary Love”:
It’s stunning—like standing up and hitting your head—to watch videos of people being released from prison in Syria—a man, shaking, being led from a windowless cell where he’s been held for 3 months—and remember the US routinely treats its citizens this way.
December 12, 2024 at 2:24 AM
It’s stunning—like standing up and hitting your head—to watch videos of people being released from prison in Syria—a man, shaking, being led from a windowless cell where he’s been held for 3 months—and remember the US routinely treats its citizens this way.
Reposted by Nathan Swartzendruber
Here are the gestures
of my hands. Wear them in your hair.
Jane Kenyon
of my hands. Wear them in your hair.
Jane Kenyon
December 10, 2024 at 11:21 PM
Here are the gestures
of my hands. Wear them in your hair.
Jane Kenyon
of my hands. Wear them in your hair.
Jane Kenyon
A hashtag couple filled their cart with all the miniature tubs of crispy fried onions. Shoppers saw their green bean casseroles imperiled. The content creators, tackled. The video, viral. Their channel, banned when a copycat got mugged by the marshmallows. #fixinfiction
November 29, 2024 at 1:24 AM
A hashtag couple filled their cart with all the miniature tubs of crispy fried onions. Shoppers saw their green bean casseroles imperiled. The content creators, tackled. The video, viral. Their channel, banned when a copycat got mugged by the marshmallows. #fixinfiction