Jill Bergantz she/her
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jillbergantz.bsky.social
Jill Bergantz she/her
@jillbergantz.bsky.social
350 followers 390 following 56 posts
Journalist by trade. Poet by heart. Conceptual artist when words fail. | Community of Writers, deYoung Museum, Tupelo Press, Barrow Street, Trampset, 404 Ink | jillbergantz.com ig @jillbergantz | Black trans lives matter. 🏳️‍🌈
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jillbergantz.bsky.social
Resistance is everywhere.
Truth-telling matters.
Mutual aid will get us through.
September 1, 2025 at 8:44 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
& another, found, via High Country News (peep those prepositions)—
August 31, 2025 at 9:13 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
Happy #smallpoemsunday
@tomsnarsky.bsky.social
August 31, 2025 at 9:10 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
Which book in your public school library had a magnetic hold on your heart? Show me. Tell me why.

My school was rural, tiny, K-8 so—“Search for a Living Fossil.”
I met a brilliant female protagonist in these pages. She learned for the sake of learning. She lived far away. Men believed her. O, wow.
The cover of a book, cream-colored with navy blue title “Search for a Living Fossil: The Story of the Coelacanth.” In faint mint green the writer’s name appears above the title: Eleanor Clymer. Below the title it reads “Illustrated by Joan Berg” in even fainter mint green. The book is worn from use. There is a navy blue scientific-style line illustration of a coelacanth, a type of fish, on the cover. Scattered below the coelacanth are four different types of tropical shells, illustrated similarly, also in navy blue. In faint mint green, the same style of illustration, sea grasses are barely visible. They rise from behind the shells and the fish to the top of the cover. Entering from the left side, just below the title, are a few streaks of very light blue; these are more gestural. They’re evocative of currents of water. This edition is from 1963. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York, library binding.
August 7, 2025 at 8:23 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
This sign lives in my window. (Wave to James Crews, who deserves a kindness parade. I don’t say it lightly!✨)

His books are beautiful; they see a better world for everyone. The newest, “Love Is for All of Us,” could come via mail💌💌💌

www.battenkillbooks.com/book/9781635...
Two people smile while holding up a bright yellow diamond-shaped road sign. The sign reads KINDNESS ZONE.
July 27, 2025 at 8:44 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
Because I am lucky beyond belief—and for reasons I will never be able to comprehend—writers & poets & editors & artists & librarians & historians & archivists held me up when I could not.

They’re humans who understand the power of holding something in your hands when things fall away.
A postcard with an image of Emily Dickinson in blue on a lavender background. On the top is an excerpt from one of her poems. “I took my Power in my Hand— And went against the World—“ Emily Dickinson At the bottom it reads “a major in English is a major in discovery” The postcard is held by a hand above the books “Choice Words— Writers on Abortion”Edited by Annie Finch and “The Palace of Forty Pillars” by Armen Davoudian The back of a postcard reading “I love you— J.” I has a Tomie dePaola stamp, mostly obscured by a USPS mailing barcode. In the top center the words “The Mount Edith Wharton’s Home” are faintly visible. It’s held in front of a bookcase and some books. “The Beat of an Immigrant Chicano” by Juan Felipe Herrera is visible in the background.
July 27, 2025 at 8:12 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
Listen: there have been years I couldn’t send even one postcard back.

These years I taped the incoming love & kindness to my kitchen cabinets. It kept me eating, and it kept me reading, because that’s where the beauty was.
A woman stands in front of cabinets collaged with postcards. She is wearing a black dress with brightly-colored dinosaur print. Her hair is pinned up. Her eyes are downcast, almost closed, and her eyeshadow matches the colors of the dress pattern—bright pink and green. Her facial expression is placid. A woman stands in front of cabinets collaged with postcards. In this photo, there are even more postcards than the last. She is wearing a red blouse. On the blouse is a button, black with white text that says, “Fight poverty of the mind.” A second button says, “I read banned books.”
July 27, 2025 at 7:56 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
One of the kindest people I know sends postcards to me often, many handmade.
(Take a moment with this beauty. It’s an erasure poem!)

It’s not transactional, this kindness; which is necessary, which is what we talk about when we talk about love.
A handmade postcard taped to a wooden cabinet. The handmade postcard is an erasure poem of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 21, with the great majority of the lines crossed out in black ink, some words left out in the open, and the remaining words that comprise the erasure poem circled in green ink . The resulting poem reads as follows: not with me as a painted heaven my love is wary.
July 27, 2025 at 7:38 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
Image of the prose poem titled “My Mother’s Body” by Gessica Sakamoto Martini
May 10, 2025 at 4:40 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
Okay, okay everybody meet the brains behind the operation: Violet Dog
April 28, 2025 at 4:33 AM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
Today’s poem is by James Crews; listen: he brings kindness with him on his travels in the sweetest way, just like “the blue air that will carry you everywhere you need to go.”

Y’all, go buy a book of his to feed your heart. 💜
April 15, 2024 at 6:02 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
The closest Arby’s is 50 miles out but fill this house on up: Mercy’s on her way & Violet’s waiting
A smiling orange and white corgi dog sits on a couch facing the camera. Her mouth is open and her pink tongue is visible. There are stacks of newspapers on a table behind her, bundled with string.
November 25, 2023 at 2:00 AM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
“We could show you how to heal the sick, we said.
We could help you feed every nation, commune
with the all-seeing energy that palpitates
through all known forms of matter.
Nah! they said. Teach us to vaporize a mountain!
Teach us to turn the moon into revenue!”
—Matthew Olzmann, ‘The Earthlings’
November 18, 2023 at 8:04 AM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
H.D., Hilda Doolittle, thank you for these words, for “Helen in Egypt,” for you: rest in poetry. (1886-1961)
November 8, 2023 at 7:44 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
Reader, the editor walked off the job with me. #hotlaborsummer
October 13, 2023 at 2:32 PM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
City mouse, country mouse.
Oakland City Hall in Oakland, CA. Two planters and a bench in front of an ornate, gray building. There are three signs in the windows on the second floor. The first says “Save Oakland.” The next two say “”No More Violence” and have an international no symbol around an outline of a handgun on them. Bright yellow grassy foothills are in the middle ground of this picture. In the foreground is a two-lane highway. Above the hills there is a blue sky with wisps of clouds. It is late afternoon. The light in the sky is low and casting shadows on the hills.
October 3, 2023 at 9:33 AM
jillbergantz.bsky.social
“Last Day,” a poem about labor & solidarity, will be out on Oct. 1 in “Which Side Are You On?” an anthology that takes its name from labor activist, poet, and songwriter Florence Reece’s most famous tune.

If you feel moved to purchase, please do so from your favorite local bookseller 💜
A Message from the Editor printed in a newspaper announcing the editor’s resignation and the resignation of the newspaper’s reporter, effective as of the current issue.
September 20, 2023 at 11:04 PM