Austin Allen
LightNews LightNews
banner
aawriting.bsky.social
Austin Allen
@aawriting.bsky.social
120 followers 250 following 19 posts
Writer.
Posts Replies Media Videos
aawriting.bsky.social
Gift-giving season is here. Do you know someone who enjoys poetry? Typography? Travel? Saudade? French cosmology? Limestone statues in labyrinths? Gondolas? Rendezvous?

This book might be for them:

www.powells.com/book/the-tra...
The Travels of Blad J. Garamond: In Search of Geneviève Sans-Serif | Powell's Books
The Travels of Blad J. Garamond: In Search of Geneviève Sans-Serif is a novel in verse and a swashbuckling saga in the grand old style. It chronicles the feverish romantic entanglements of three frien...
www.powells.com
December 6, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by Austin Allen
brinkerhoffpoetry.bsky.social
"Carried her unprotesting out the door.
Kicked back the casket-stand. But it can't hold her,
That stuff and satin aiming to enfold her,
The lid's contrition nor the bolts before."

Gwendolyn Brooks died 25 years ago on this day.
Gwendolyn Brooks - "the rites for Cousin Vit"
Carried her unprotesting out the door.
www.brinkerhoffpoetry.org
December 4, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by Austin Allen
krobinsonwriting.bsky.social
One of my #Shetland stories, set at the height of Shetland's arctic whaling. About a whaling marriage, the winter solstice, and trowies (Shetland trolls). Thank you so much to @northamerreview.bsky.social for publishing this one.

northamericanreview.org/open-space/f...
Hollow Hills | North American Review
northamericanreview.org
February 15, 2025 at 5:12 PM
aawriting.bsky.social
!
neilpollyticks.bsky.social Neil PollyTicks Campbell 🦜 @neilpollyticks.bsky.social · 7d
Alt text version. Thanks for sharing Harry.
Saved by Stoppard Sir, In 1993 my wife and I went to see the first production of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (obituary, Dec I), and in the interval I experienced a Damascene conversion. As a clinical scientist I was trying to understand the enigma of the behaviour of breast cancer, the assumption being that it grew in a linear trajectory spitting off metastases on its way. In the first act of Arcadia, Thomasina asks her tutor, Septimus: "If there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose?" With that Stoppard explains chaos theory, which better explains the behaviour of breast cancer. At the point of diagnosis, the cancer must have already scattered cancer cells into the circulation that nest latent in distant organs. The consequence of that hypothesis was the birth of "adjuvant systemic chemotherapy", ", and rapidly we saw a striking fall of the curve that illustrated patients' survival. Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia. Michael Baum Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, UCL r.
December 3, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Reposted by Austin Allen
bfletcherwatson.bsky.social
Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.
"Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view. And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone. "When you look up the stage directions, it says, 'Exit Ariel.”
November 30, 2025 at 1:38 PM
aawriting.bsky.social
"Autumn eats its leaf out of my hand: we are friends."

www.artofeurope.com/celan/cel2.htm
Celan - Corona
www.artofeurope.com
November 27, 2025 at 2:11 AM
aawriting.bsky.social
"To push an idea through a rhyme-pattern feels like straining fruit through muslin, and it often emerges refined, sharpened and about 50 per cent lighter."

— @dharmabam.bsky.social
November 25, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Reposted by Austin Allen
aestallings.bsky.social
Adversarial poems!
cstross.bsky.social Charlie Stross @cstross.bsky.social · 19d
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."

https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 21, 2025 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Austin Allen
pw.org
A round of applause for the 2025 #NBAwards winner in Poetry: Patricia Smith for The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems.
November 20, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Reposted by Austin Allen
nimrodjournal.bsky.social
If you weren’t able to join us for the 2025 Literary Prize presentation, you can view it here. An inspiring double reading! Our thanks to our winners and judges, including @talianeffson.bsky.social, @nancyjooyounkim.bsky.social, and @randallmann.bsky.social! youtube.com/watch?v=r53p...
2025 Nimrod Literary Awards Reading
YouTube video by Nimrod International Journal
m.youtube.com
November 16, 2025 at 3:07 PM
aawriting.bsky.social
It's an honor to have 2 poems in this month's issue of Poetry magazine. Thanks to the Poetry editors for featuring them, and providing the opportunity to record them.

"Arrival in Montpellier":

www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

"The Last Catalogue":

www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...
November 15, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by Austin Allen
nimrodjournal.bsky.social
Please join us on Friday, November 14, at 2pm CST, to celebrate and hear the winners of NIMROD’s annual literary awards, Michael Lavers and Talia Neffson, with judges Randall Mann and Nancy Jooyoun Kim.

Zoom address in post below.
November 5, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Reposted by Austin Allen
newyorker.com
One analytical model shows that, as of November 5th, the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has already caused the deaths of 600,000 people, two-thirds of them children. https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/jUzNSc
The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands
The short documentary “Rovina’s Choice” tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
newyorkermag.visitlink.me
November 13, 2025 at 1:00 AM
aawriting.bsky.social
Attention: this exists

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBkm...
Helena Bonham Carter: This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams
YouTube video by Pan Macmillan
www.youtube.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Austin Allen
paradiselaust.bsky.social
Wild that there aren’t more Tennessee Williams revivals considering how miserably hot life will be now. We are all of us sweaty and slightly unwell
July 28, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Austin Allen
dharmabam.bsky.social
Wrote something on Harrison & class. Also scansion. But remember the first rule of Foot Club. open.substack.com/pub/northsea...
Tony Harrison's 'Study'
Don Paterson on the best room
open.substack.com
October 3, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Reposted by Austin Allen
badlilies.bsky.social
'Dissent at the Temple of Gemini' by @austinwriting.bsky.social badlilies.uk/austin-allen-2
Dissent at the Temple of Gemini None of us loves the Leader all that much, although, of course, we keep this to ourselves whenever Sphere and Azure are around. Azure might look the other way, but Sphere (always with that damn tablet in his garment) would have you written up before first light and E-5'd straight into the Outer Zone. True, that's his role, but it's the way he plays it—
November 7, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Austin Allen
henrymceric.bsky.social
As long as I’ve got my laptop and summer breaks, no urban legend is safe.
Gone Fishin’ - The American Scholar
Could two famous rivermen really have met their end while grappling giant fish in a Kansas river?
theamericanscholar.org
November 6, 2025 at 8:05 PM
aawriting.bsky.social
“But for him it was not an important failure”
Trump not caring as someone collapses in the Oval
November 6, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted by Austin Allen
aestallings.bsky.social
Doing this soon:
October 31, 2025 at 12:07 PM
aawriting.bsky.social
Grateful to @kathryngray.bsky.social and @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social for including my narrative poem "Dissent at the Temple of Gemini" in the new issue of Bad Lilies. Enjoy, and please do yourself the favor of reading the full issue!

www.badlilies.uk/austin-allen-2
Austin Allen — Bad Lilies
A poem by Austin Allen
www.badlilies.uk
October 31, 2025 at 4:57 PM
aawriting.bsky.social
If you're eagerly seeking a copy of The Travels of Blad J. Garamond: In Search of Geneviève Sans-Serif (and I know you are), why not try Powell's Books? Special thanks to the good folks at @powells.bsky.social for helping ensure the "è" rendered correctly!

www.powells.com/book/the-tra...
October 29, 2025 at 9:50 PM
aawriting.bsky.social
The Hecht Prize contest is open through Dec. 1. Poets, send your manuscripts!

www.waywiserbooks.org/the-anthony-...
aawriting.bsky.social Austin Allen @aawriting.bsky.social · Aug 31
Writerfolk: the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize contest opens tomorrow. Poets with no more than one published full-length collection are eligible. A. E. Stallings will be this year's judge. Send your work!
October 26, 2025 at 8:25 PM