Cassandra Whitaker
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casswhit.bsky.social
Cassandra Whitaker
@casswhit.bsky.social
3.4K followers 5.4K following 350 posts
Poet, Writer 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ (She/they/Mx). NBCC, full length out in 25 with Jackleg Press. https://wolfs-den.page/

Neurospicy
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casswhit.bsky.social
Grateful and excited to be included in the new issue of Muzzle, along with some fine poets I admire!

www.muzzlemagazine.com/cassandra-wh...
Muscle magazine fall 2025 issue 37 Poetry featuring Jane Zwart, Phillip B Williams and others The Wedding Is A Sensible Affair For The Two Old Lovers who wait on each other with an audience— everyone laughs there is no booze —hardly anyone smokes—not even the band— as polite as they can be with the songbook It’s official— at last—at last— over the long ache of it— tears of beaded jewels— hotel light— cheers and clapping claps Desire sleeps in their senses Everyone has slept with everyone else —or wanted to or meant to Desire is a curious spirit Here—in recovery it settles in the chocolate mousse— everyone devours—savoring the last bite— napkins reveal the story. At last— desire enlarges as night falls on the celebrants— despite dry glasses—dry noses the sober chicken dinner A couple disappears into love again —behind a faux colonnade— another joins—laughter collaborates with the band—the dancing already hammering their hearts into joyful hammers —how their blood flows celebrating —two old lovers —hand in hand dandied alike —each a half of each you can see where they snap to— snap apart
October 25, 2025 at 2:49 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
3/3 to be fair I haven't gone through every thing on the site but a quick cursory search reveals that there's not much left from the original collections. Not surprising just disappointing.
October 11, 2025 at 4:38 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
2/3 Our students were drawn towards social justice/ 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️/ black and Asian pride. Not sure if anyone will participate this year, which perhaps, is part of the point.
The original poetry out loud collection also included Erie poems springtime winter weather historical poems poems of protest resistance and empowerment Family ties cityscapes feathered Friends summer poems and country roads
October 11, 2025 at 4:38 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
1/3 Poetry Out Loud gutted their collections for poems that connect or reflect America's 250. Below are screens of the original collections 1 of 2
The original categories for poetry out loud were social justice and equality celebrating Hispanic heritage and culture celebrating native American heritage and culture celebrating Asian American and Pacific islander heritage and culture celebrating black history and culture Celebrating lgbtq pride domestic life mythology and folklore travel water Music and dance sorrow and grief the sporting Life humor and satire war poetry Autumn working love animalia childhood
October 11, 2025 at 4:38 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
I played the Telephone game, where artists of all types pass work onto each other and create new work based on the work received. My poem(s) responded to paintings by Jessica Snow. It was a cool process. You can view the whole project in an interactive journal/anthology, here telephonegame.art
Homepage of the telephone art project featuring an eye surrounded by a circle with seven moon like objects Looking Up Into The Winter Stars At The Edge of the Atlantic There You Are What stars weave their light with darkness? A circle of trust Between absence Between emptiness A weather of static— How small must one’s heart become To survive what passes? To slip between infinity’s trap I love you I love you not Winking in darkness What noise reaches us from afar? You are loved — you are loved You are loved for what you are Between absence and emptiness To survive? A weather of trust A circle of dust A heart between light and dark As if all that came before was wind A voice from another room cries out In the dark In the emptiness A warm longing A light Long passed from age –As if emptiness were so easy to dismiss How we touched without touching? Voices From afar arriving home through our voice –Together—we opened a door You are loved you are loved You are loved for what you are 1 Can be read as two poems or as one poem, a contrapuntal
October 11, 2025 at 3:09 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd Sundays in Rio: amber vanilla musk. A sweet powdery comfort. Also contains pink pepper. I layered it with molecule 02.
September 21, 2025 at 5:52 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd molecule 01 iso e super :woody amber musky sweet. Love it! fimgs.net/mdimg/perfum...
Molecule 01 iso e super, a woody musky amber animalic powdery edt.
September 14, 2025 at 3:26 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd Sunday in Rio. Nostalgic...reminds me of something... lasts 6-7 hrs. Perfume mist. $26. Top: pink pepper, Ambrette Absolute, Mid: Vanilla, Orris Concrete, Champaca Pure Jungle Essence, Dry: Amber Musk, Upcycled Orcanox. More mature than say Cheirosa 62, which I love and smells like cookies
Sundays in Rio Fragrance Profile: Top: Pink Pepper, Pear, Ambrette Absolute Mid: Warm Vanilla, Orris Concrete, Champaca Pure Jungle Essence Dry: Amber Musk, Upcycled Orcanox Perfume mist
September 13, 2025 at 12:46 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
Perverts took a bit to warm up to. This is a gem. Ethel Cain's Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Southern Gothic Americana Shoegaze
The cover for Ethel Cain's Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You... it's a picture in a brown marble print photo album. In the picture , a young man faces the wall. You cannot see his face. According to lore this is likely late 80s- early 90s, corresponding with Ethel Cain's early years. Cain & Tucker were born in the early 70s. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Southern Gothic
August 17, 2025 at 3:21 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
I started gardening late this year and my sunflowers are still opening/emerging.
Giant yellow sunflower courtesy of Baker's seeds. 7 and 8 feet flowers. Titan sunflower from Baker's seeds. 9 feet tall, head still developing. Mostly a beanpole this summer Tithonia! Mexican sunflower! 6 feet tall.
July 31, 2025 at 2:31 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
In this thread I introduce my co readers for tonight's reading, please consider joining us...
Both devouring wolf devouring a wolf, 729-25 7:00 to 8:00 Eastern standard Time, featuring John neves Katie kempel Tara Elliott, join us for a night of poetry to launch Cassandra Whitaker's wolf devouring wolf devouring a wolf. Register here: https://tinyurl.com/2vtnunku, free
July 29, 2025 at 11:20 AM
casswhit.bsky.social
Come join us tonight for poetry! I'll be reading 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 wolf poems, my friends will be reading from their new books/ manuscripts etc!

7/29/25 7-8 pm est...register below

Virtual Book Launch: Wolf Devouring A Wolf Devouring A Wolf, Jackleg Press

www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-bo...
Join us for a night of poetry to launch Cassandra Whitaker's wolf devouring a wolf devouring a wolf free register here https://tinyurl.com/2vtnunku, featuring John Nieves, Katie Kemple, Tara Elliott, 7/29/25, 7-8 EST, from Jackleg Press
July 29, 2025 at 11:11 AM
casswhit.bsky.social
12/ poems from Big Man from Chestnut Review, available here:https://bookshop.org/p/books/big-man-katie-kemple/22434837?ean=9781965158128&next=t
Eating disorder meat cute. Watching James gandolfini in a rom-com, his big vulnerable body, strong and hurt, his tenderness toward the female lead, who of course has an eating disorder, reminds me of my father. My mother. Bookends and mirror twins of America's number one industry and obsession colon weight. In the movie, the jumbo popcorn scene must be tempered with a discussion about extra butter, a shaming, a crushing of the soft white fluffiness into a fat bug. My childhood was filled with bags of microwave popcorn, dampened with diet coke. My distinct lower abdomen, house to the intestines, a pantry of sorts. My dance teacher once told me: that's where you need to drop the weight. For the rest of that summer, I ran every day. My dad like to tell us how far he used to run, before the busted knees before the weight piled on. I heard it is shame we all knew Mom could beat him in a race, she ran every day, a taught sun tan bone. the lesson: keep moving keep moving keep moving. In the movie gandolfini gets the girl. I blush to see them kiss, as if they were my parents. When the credits roll, gandolfini's end recalls itself. Like my dad, the path to his heart blocked up. Nowhere to run. Those big guys to slender for this earth. I wish they could have eaten in the open, savor it every finger licking moment in their wild butyraceous bodies Candid I made data plate of sunny side up eggs brought it to him on the overstuff sofa navigating furniture too large for a condo. The hutch behind his shoulder contains miniatures of his trips with mom: swizzle sticks in an Irish shot glasses, a Swiss wood man nutcracker, pastel Bermuda cottages. In front of him: reruns of Seinfeld election coverage incontinence ads. Only the glass coffee table dared reflect his life back. He hidden beneath newspapers. He ate off a dish with a village painted on it. People laughing. Festive houses. The runny yolks provided a sunny sort of day. He ate watching tv. I left him that way. I left him because he liked it that way. Clothes to store slowly, hearing through the crack. And aperture: I took his final photograph.
July 22, 2025 at 11:44 AM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd Molecule 01, iso E Super ---an edt---so far similar to the others ...lasts 7 hrs plus. I like powdery notes, my partner wants to smell like woods. We're enjoying this discovery set.
Molecule 01, Woody, musky, amber, animalic, powdery. 4 stars, 7 h longevity, strong sillage, abstract rectangular bottle with abstract sciency art spelling out Molecule 01
July 11, 2025 at 1:43 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd Molecule 04 sandalwood edt. My partner picked the discovery set up. I really like this one. Citrus and sandalwood Javolin. Like 02, which I also liked, it shimmers in and out, sometimes I can't detect it and then other times it's loud.
Molecule 04, Woody, powdery, warm spicy, balsamic, aromatic.
July 10, 2025 at 11:18 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd Molecule 02...my partner and I continue dissociating with books and scents when not organizing locally...It's a skin scent, very little sillage. Musky, sweet. I'm on the fence about ambroxan notes. One of those your skin but better experiences. From a discovery set

fimgs.net/mdimg/perfum...
Molecule 02, amber musky scent. Picture of a bottle with abstract sciency graphics. Notes ambroxan
July 4, 2025 at 7:33 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd I have a travel spray of this sexy incense/woods perfume. Reminds me of Opium (the balsamic tones) at times, at times Vanille Fatale (the leather) before they reformulated it. Great for date night, or great for long stretches of reading/writing/creating/dreaming
Ebene Fume ( black smoke) perfume from Tom Ford. Woody Amber Smokey balsamic warm spicy fresh spicy aromatic leather accords.
May 25, 2025 at 1:16 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
Trying hugelkulture gardening this year. Instead of seven rows I have three mounds to tend. Weeding is much easier on my back and knees.
Two seven foot long hugelkulture mounds, which are sloping raised beds on top of rotting wood, compost, manure etc. drought resistant frost resistant gardening
May 25, 2025 at 1:09 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
Many thanks to Philadelphia Stories and Keith Kopka for giving this poem a home! This bride poem is less epithalamium and more exploratory of my own family history with alcoholism and cruelty...
For the Bride in my DNA Village shuttered against night, clay stove fired up, the kettle steaming in the damp. Her position set, the old Dutch-German requires it, a cook to bank the fires to prepare the meals. His bed? She has her own, a right to refuse the man; she made him sign his mark upon the deed she’s folded up, squared in her belongings, a quilt she patched with her mother, a bronze knife, a single coin to pay her funeral. The bride could be called young in polite nations, here she is the cook, a lover if she permits it. There is no church, no dowry, not even a dress beyond what she made on her last name day, stitched like her comfort depended on it, the dress, a sturdy enough coat against cold, rain, the haymaking weather she will cook in, every day, for the rest of her days, with a man who agreed to pay her, shelter her, and fuck her with child, in her own time, or his own time, should he drink or take to anger, as men do. She is given flowers to cover her from evil, a bit of dirt from her father’s house, a bit of ash from her mother’s hearth. She doesn’t believe evil is darkness, she understands darkness divides evil into shadow, nothing can be trusted with the eye. When the old man picks her up he whispers, I’ll keep demon’s fingers from your ankles, and carries her into the house, and puts her down like a basket of beets. He salts the stoop, strikes candles against the known. They eat a stew with bread. He drinks to shatter her place. She hears the crack of the whisky cask and tumbles into a well of worry. He visits her in those first hours of darkness, the journey hardly off her, to keep you safe from it, from the evil that would take you right outside the door. She knows she has no choice in the matter, she’s heard her mother’s bed clatter; the demon is in the gaps between spirit and man, how often he lifts it to his lip, how often he puts it away.
May 17, 2025 at 2:16 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd a lovely Spanish interpretation of Tom Ford's Sahara Noir. Love me some incense perfumes... Divain 658
Labdanum, Cypress, bitter orange and aromatic calamus middle nodes incense beeswax cinnamon Egyptian papyrus Moroccan Rose and Egyptian Jasmine bass Egyptian bomb Amber landanum, benzoin, cedar, oud and vanilla.
May 15, 2025 at 5:56 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd Molecule 01+ ginger. Very fresh clean fragrance from Germany. Quite strong for an edt, A plus
Molecule 01 + Ginger accords fresh spicy Woody fresh musky Amber citrus. Features a square ish bottle with abstract circle label design
May 11, 2025 at 1:46 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
Beach Roses and Sweet William. My gardens are tendered towards wildness, mix of busy-ness and experimental ...I mostly just try to keep the wisteria (which my partner ❤️❤️❤️) from overtaking the roses. The SW was an impulse two years back
Pink beach rose flower Pink beach rose cluster Pink and crimson Sweet William Pink and crimson Sweet William
May 4, 2025 at 3:18 PM
casswhit.bsky.social
The Irises are up and out this weekend
Purple and white bearded Iris Purple and white bearded Iris
April 27, 2025 at 10:08 AM
casswhit.bsky.social
Pre-sales for my weird queer book of poems about emptiness, desire, addiction, and bodies is live--- get it here! bookshop.org/p/books/wolf.... From @jacklegpress.bsky.social
Cover of devouring a wolf devouring wolf by Cassandra Whitaker. Cover art features a elfin figure wearing curled shoes, and a pointy outfit that covers or obscures the head.
April 25, 2025 at 11:55 AM
casswhit.bsky.social
#sotd Flowerbomb by Viktor & Rolf
Floral, patchouli, white floral, woody, powdery, citrus, sweet, musky, warm spicy, Rose accords, Flowerbomb by Viktor & Rolf
April 25, 2025 at 11:35 AM