James Lilliefors
banner
jameslilliefors.bsky.social
James Lilliefors
@jameslilliefors.bsky.social
Poet, journalist, novelist. BotN nominee. First poetry collection, SUDDEN SHADOWS, coming in November from Finishing Line Press.
Pinned
Greetings, Bluesky!
Reposted by James Lilliefors
Really love this lush & surprising lyric on the Academy's Poem-a-Day today.
poets.org/poem/homecom...
Homecoming
One bridge and then another over the fisherman’s net / of steel water and high, secreting grasses.
poets.org
November 6, 2025 at 1:54 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
The light is on for James Lilliefors! @jameslilliefors.bsky.social💡

“The Purpose of Trees” is a gorgeous poem that speaks to the everlasting nature of trees juxtaposed against human ephemerality.

Check out James’s beautiful writing over at the site!
The Purpose of Trees - James Lilliefors — Bulb Culture Collective
how the will to survive outlasts the will to destroy.
www.bulbculturecollective.com
October 17, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Thank you to Epistemic Literary for nominating my poem "There Will Be Warnings" for the 2026 Best of the Net anthology!
Please congratulate our Best of the Net 2026 nominees!
August 28, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Wendell Berry reciting "The Peace of Wild Things."
Happy 91st birthday.
onbeing.org/poetry/the-p...
The Peace of Wild Things
A poem by Wendell Berry.
onbeing.org
August 5, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Cover reveal for my chapbook SUDDEN SHADOWS, which is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press. www.finishinglinepress.com
June 15, 2025 at 5:26 PM
My poetry chapbook SUDDEN SHADOWS is now available for pre-order from Finishing Line Press. Publication date is October 17.

www.finishinglinepress.com/product/sudd...
SUDDEN SHADOWS 21 Poems of Love and Loss by James Lilliefors – Finishing Line Press
www.finishinglinepress.com
June 15, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
To this day, "Monet Refuses the Operation" by Lisel Mueller remains my favorite poem ever written. It is simply beautiful.

www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52577/...
Monet Refuses the Operation
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
www.poetryfoundation.org
October 15, 2024 at 12:08 PM
Thanks to Third Wednesday magazine, and Editor David Jibson, for including my new poem "Seriously" in its upcoming spring edition.
March 15, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
My poem "Edward Hopper. Rooms by the Sea, 1951" was published in @tahomareview.bsky.social today!

Thank you @jessicacuello.bsky.social!

tahomaliteraryreview.com/selections/e...
February 21, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Thank you to Hanna Nielson @hannaswork.bsky.social, EIC of The Belfast Review, for including my poems "Covered" and "The News Was Good" (a tribute to Jimmy Carter, written months before he passed away) in the third edition, which is now available from Amazon and online.
Consider us launched! Issue 3 now available in our shop, or at the links below.

Feel free to screenshot & share your work, and help promote others. Tag us so we can like & repost 🍀
February 14, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Hopeful words from W.S. Merwin.
December 31, 2024 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
LitHub asked some poets what our favorite poems of the year are and I picked two ("A Sunset" by Robert Haas and “The Poets Awoke” by m. nourbeSe Philip)

lithub.com/49-contemporary-...
50 Contemporary Poets on the Best Poems they Read in 2024
In the sea of endless year-end lists, poetry often seems to get sidelined, or forgotten—or maybe the critics and listmakers just aren’t reading enough poetry in the first place. Which made me…
lithub.com
December 20, 2024 at 4:30 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
So grateful for @jackbedell.bsky.social endorsement of my forthcoming book A WEATHERED SHIP. Pre-orders coming soon—stay tuned! 🌊📖
December 11, 2024 at 5:17 PM
"Strawberry Season," a lovely, thought-provoking poem from Susan L. Leary (@susanlleary.bsky.social).

www.arkint.org/magazine/sus...
Susan L. Leary — The Arkansas International
Strawberry Season
www.arkint.org
December 18, 2024 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
"I am surprised sometimes
to hear late-at-night voices
through open windows
and realize those rooms
are still out there."

#TodaysPoem #poetry
Some Rooms are Prayers by @jameslilliefors.bsky.social (2024 Amethyst Review) tinyurl.com/ykrdy6f4
Some Rooms are Prayers – a poem by James Lilliefors
Some Rooms are PrayersThe times they wanted me to think their thoughtsand I went on thinking mine. The times they expected meto hear, to see, to remember a certain way, and I tried, but couldn’t.Th…
tinyurl.com
December 14, 2024 at 2:32 PM
Thank you to Editor Charlotte Cosgrove @charlottecosgrove.bsky.social for including my poem "Playing Tennis with the Past" in the new print anthology from Rough Diamond Poetry Journal - on the important theme of Hope! The Hope anthology features about 75 poems.
Our hope anthology is available from Amazon internationally. We are proud to have had so many amazing poets published in this. Hope can mean a million different things to different people and this showcases that #poetry #poetrycommunity #writing
December 9, 2024 at 9:15 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
I love this poem by @toddedillard.bsky.social
this i think is the poem I’m most known for, and probably will be for the rest of my life
November 23, 2024 at 2:17 PM
Powerful words from Susan Stewart.
December 7, 2024 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
"When power corrupts, poetry cleanses... We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth."

Remember JFK, slain on this day in 1963, with his magnificent speech on the political power of art:
JFK on Poetry, Power, and the Artist’s Role in Society: His Eulogy for Robert Frost, One of the Greatest Speeches of All Time
“We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.”
www.themarginalian.org
November 22, 2024 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
Work as Wendell Berry writes:
November 19, 2024 at 11:52 AM
Thank you to Amethyst Review for publishing my poem "Some Rooms are Prayers" and to editor Sarah Law @sarahpoet.bsky.social amethystmagazine.org/2024/11/17/s...
Some Rooms are Prayers – a poem by James Lilliefors
Some Rooms are PrayersThe times they wanted me to think their thoughtsand I went on thinking mine. The times they expected meto hear, to see, to remember a certain way, and I tried, but couldn’t.Th…
amethystmagazine.org
November 17, 2024 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
"What others found in art,
I found in nature. What others found
in human love, I found in nature.
Very simple. But there was no voice there.

Winter was over...

Come to me, said the world. I was standing
in my wool coat at a kind of bright portal"

Louise Glück

Friedrich, The Garden Terrace. 1798
October 14, 2023 at 3:06 PM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
“All my friends are finding new beliefs,” by Christian Wiman is sticking with me…
November 28, 2023 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by James Lilliefors
The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens
#poetry #WallaceStevens
June 8, 2024 at 6:13 PM