Dave Bonta
@davebonta.bsky.social
Poet and web publisher from the northern tip of southern Appalachia specializing in erasure poetry, ecopoetry, videopoetry and modern haiku. Books include Ice Mountain: An Elegy; Failed State: Haibun; and Breakdown: Banjo Poems.
https://davebonta.com
https://davebonta.com
October 16, 2025 at 12:34 PM
My latest erasure poem appears to be in the voice of maybe an urban planner? You tell me. I just find 'em.
www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/in-t...
www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/in-t...
September 1, 2025 at 12:43 PM
My latest erasure poem appears to be in the voice of maybe an urban planner? You tell me. I just find 'em.
www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/in-t...
www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/in-t...
One of the fun things about specializing in erasure poetry is that I often come up with poems that are a bit over my own head. Here's today's.
www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/comm...
www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/comm...
August 17, 2025 at 9:40 PM
One of the fun things about specializing in erasure poetry is that I often come up with poems that are a bit over my own head. Here's today's.
www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/comm...
www.vianegativa.us/2025/08/comm...
I feel like a declaration of martial law can't be too far off now
August 9, 2025 at 11:13 AM
I feel like a declaration of martial law can't be too far off now
love this chyron from today's Breaking Points
August 7, 2025 at 12:01 AM
love this chyron from today's Breaking Points
This is how to do a poet photo! via @robmclennan.bsky.social
robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/07/12-o...
robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/07/12-o...
July 14, 2025 at 6:09 PM
This is how to do a poet photo! via @robmclennan.bsky.social
robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/07/12-o...
robmclennan.blogspot.com/2025/07/12-o...
Today's erasure poem from @samuelpepys.bsky.social www.vianegativa.us/2025/07/fire...
July 13, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Today's erasure poem from @samuelpepys.bsky.social www.vianegativa.us/2025/07/fire...
reminding myself that not everything i write has to be relevant or address The Crisis in some way, that it's ok just to have fun in a poem www.vianegativa.us/2025/07/sake/
July 8, 2025 at 7:21 PM
reminding myself that not everything i write has to be relevant or address The Crisis in some way, that it's ok just to have fun in a poem www.vianegativa.us/2025/07/sake/
Talk about a sense of vocation! Carolyn Forché on Swiss German writer Robert Walser, from blacklawrencepress.com/books/oppres...
June 27, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Talk about a sense of vocation! Carolyn Forché on Swiss German writer Robert Walser, from blacklawrencepress.com/books/oppres...
putting the sex into sexguttata
June 21, 2025 at 9:41 PM
putting the sex into sexguttata
Watching the sun come up over a Walmart from the window of a motel so characterless I don't even remember the name of it, somewhere near California
June 15, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Watching the sun come up over a Walmart from the window of a motel so characterless I don't even remember the name of it, somewhere near California
This spider on my porch just now: "Although the species was first described in 1842, females were first described in 1980.[3] This results from the male's behavior of wandering about in search of mates, while females, which reside in tubes, are rarely found." en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphodro...
June 13, 2025 at 12:26 PM
This spider on my porch just now: "Although the species was first described in 1842, females were first described in 1980.[3] This results from the male's behavior of wandering about in search of mates, while females, which reside in tubes, are rarely found." en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphodro...
Today's erasure poem from the Diary of Samuel Pepys:
all alone in a chest
I found a fine ship
the war has little boys
in fear of death
but hope is old and thin
a light in a well
www.vianegativa.us/2025/06/salv...
all alone in a chest
I found a fine ship
the war has little boys
in fear of death
but hope is old and thin
a light in a well
www.vianegativa.us/2025/06/salv...
June 6, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Today's erasure poem from the Diary of Samuel Pepys:
all alone in a chest
I found a fine ship
the war has little boys
in fear of death
but hope is old and thin
a light in a well
www.vianegativa.us/2025/06/salv...
all alone in a chest
I found a fine ship
the war has little boys
in fear of death
but hope is old and thin
a light in a well
www.vianegativa.us/2025/06/salv...
Some recent erasure poems
May 25, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Some recent erasure poems
May 15, 2025 at 2:03 PM
April 10, 2025 at 5:25 PM
A very good mail day! Grateful to eBay sellers who import new books from the UK. I've been reading Wendy Pratt's blog for several years, but this is the first collection of hers I've picked up, and it's excellent.
March 1, 2025 at 8:25 PM
A very good mail day! Grateful to eBay sellers who import new books from the UK. I've been reading Wendy Pratt's blog for several years, but this is the first collection of hers I've picked up, and it's excellent.
I guess there's never been a better/worse time to promote my 2020 collection of #poetry FAILED STATE. The review is from Modern Haiku. davebonta.com/failed-state/
March 1, 2025 at 1:00 PM
I guess there's never been a better/worse time to promote my 2020 collection of #poetry FAILED STATE. The review is from Modern Haiku. davebonta.com/failed-state/
Looking forward to this sequel to Penn State Press's earlier anthology COMMONWEALTH. This time, one of my friends in academia remembered to tell me about it, and I guess they were short on poets from my area, so I'm in with a poem referencing limestone quarrying.
February 19, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Looking forward to this sequel to Penn State Press's earlier anthology COMMONWEALTH. This time, one of my friends in academia remembered to tell me about it, and I guess they were short on poets from my area, so I'm in with a poem referencing limestone quarrying.
Twitter's Grok now does literary analysis of tweets with the click of a button. This is just the sort of fatuous, point-missing BS I can remember generating as a hung-over undergraduate student of comparative literature.
February 14, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Twitter's Grok now does literary analysis of tweets with the click of a button. This is just the sort of fatuous, point-missing BS I can remember generating as a hung-over undergraduate student of comparative literature.
Today's erasure poem from @samuelpepys.bsky.social at Via Negativa www.vianegativa.us/2025/01/wint...
in the fine clear frost
this winter makes us
I find my mind better
spend less time lost
in the fine clear frost
this winter makes us
I find my mind better
spend less time lost
January 26, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Today's erasure poem from @samuelpepys.bsky.social at Via Negativa www.vianegativa.us/2025/01/wint...
in the fine clear frost
this winter makes us
I find my mind better
spend less time lost
in the fine clear frost
this winter makes us
I find my mind better
spend less time lost
something I've been struggling to articulate. yes.
January 7, 2025 at 1:11 PM
something I've been struggling to articulate. yes.
from the ridgetop above my house, i can see three snow squalls, one to the east, one to the west, and one to the south. looks like the sun is shining off to the north. it's bitchin cold with a howling wind. i love it.
January 4, 2025 at 8:04 PM
from the ridgetop above my house, i can see three snow squalls, one to the east, one to the west, and one to the south. looks like the sun is shining off to the north. it's bitchin cold with a howling wind. i love it.