Stephen Cramer
@stephencramervt.bsky.social
Writer of poetry, hot sauce aficionado, & lover of ampersands. Winner of the National Poetry Series, The Louise Bogan Award, & finalist for the Vermont Book Award
Pinned
Books
Shakespeare RedactedFor Stephen Cramer, the possibility of collaborating with the greatest author of all time was too great an opportunity to pass up. In these blackout poems, Cramer used the first…
stephencramer.wordpress.com
Anyone totally into the worlds of A) Shakespeare and B) blackout poems? I know! Who isn't, right? Hello!
If you want to check out a project that combines both of them, give this book, Shakespeare Redacted, a click. :)
stephencramer.wordpress.com/books/
If you want to check out a project that combines both of them, give this book, Shakespeare Redacted, a click. :)
stephencramer.wordpress.com/books/
Esquivalience: a made-up word that appeared in the New Oxford American Dictionary in 2001. The dictionary stated that the word was related to the French “esquiver” (to evade), but it was actually used as a copyright trap, like "paper towns" in maps, to catch any plagiarism from other dictionaries.
November 18, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Esquivalience: a made-up word that appeared in the New Oxford American Dictionary in 2001. The dictionary stated that the word was related to the French “esquiver” (to evade), but it was actually used as a copyright trap, like "paper towns" in maps, to catch any plagiarism from other dictionaries.
"Poets are primarily interested in death and commas." -Carolyn Kizer. I don't know. I also really like ampersands.
September 17, 2025 at 9:02 PM
"Poets are primarily interested in death and commas." -Carolyn Kizer. I don't know. I also really like ampersands.
"Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings." --W.H. Auden
July 30, 2025 at 6:14 PM
"Great art is clear thinking about mixed feelings." --W.H. Auden
“What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity.” ― William S. Burroughs
July 5, 2025 at 1:39 PM
“What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty and above all it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits out quantity.” ― William S. Burroughs
"The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
June 28, 2025 at 3:24 PM
"The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder." --Rumi. I don't think it's an accident that he left out "soulless, idiotic, incompetent, arrogant racist."
March 10, 2025 at 7:45 PM
"Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder." --Rumi. I don't think it's an accident that he left out "soulless, idiotic, incompetent, arrogant racist."
"Resist much, obey little." Yeah, Grandpa Walt!
March 7, 2025 at 12:07 AM
"Resist much, obey little." Yeah, Grandpa Walt!
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." Eff yeah, Thomas Aquinas!
February 20, 2025 at 5:08 PM
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." Eff yeah, Thomas Aquinas!
"You think evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots. It doesn’t come like that. Look at the language. It begins in the language." —Joseph Brodsky
February 16, 2025 at 9:25 PM
"You think evil is going to come into your houses wearing big black boots. It doesn’t come like that. Look at the language. It begins in the language." —Joseph Brodsky
"Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." —Yeah, Anton Chekhov!
February 3, 2025 at 2:39 PM
"Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." —Yeah, Anton Chekhov!
"During the darkest days of the AIDS Crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced at night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for... Keep fighting, keep dancing." --Dan Savage
January 30, 2025 at 2:26 PM
"During the darkest days of the AIDS Crisis, we buried our friends in the morning, we protested in the afternoon, and we danced at night. The dance kept us in the fight because it was the dance we were fighting for... Keep fighting, keep dancing." --Dan Savage
"This is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!” --Toni Morrison
January 20, 2025 at 9:54 PM
"This is precisely the time when artists go to work—not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!” --Toni Morrison
Thinking back to when my kiddo was 11 and rereading Animal Farm. Isa came across the sentence "Mollie refused to learn any but the six letters that spelt her own name" and said, "but Dad, Mollie only has five letters." I'm not trying to say that my kiddo is smarter than George Orwell, but...
January 15, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Thinking back to when my kiddo was 11 and rereading Animal Farm. Isa came across the sentence "Mollie refused to learn any but the six letters that spelt her own name" and said, "but Dad, Mollie only has five letters." I'm not trying to say that my kiddo is smarter than George Orwell, but...
"Love...is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light... In those moments when life...occlude(s) our own light from our view...there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another." Yeah, James Baldwin!
January 6, 2025 at 8:17 PM
"Love...is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light... In those moments when life...occlude(s) our own light from our view...there is still a clear-eyed loving person to beam it back. In our best moments, we are that person for another." Yeah, James Baldwin!
Psyched to be holding the new book! stephencramer.wordpress.com/2024/11/25/s...
Shakespeare Redacted!
Hey, gang! The possibility of collaborating with the greatest author of all time was too great an opportunity to pass up! In these blackout poems, I used the first and last pages of each of Shakesp…
stephencramer.wordpress.com
December 5, 2024 at 6:24 PM
Psyched to be holding the new book! stephencramer.wordpress.com/2024/11/25/s...
"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you." --Anne Lamott
December 5, 2024 at 5:00 PM
"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you." --Anne Lamott
Anyone totally into the worlds of A) Shakespeare and B) blackout poems? I know! Who isn't, right? Hello!
If you want to check out a project that combines both of them, give this book, Shakespeare Redacted, a click. :)
stephencramer.wordpress.com/books/
If you want to check out a project that combines both of them, give this book, Shakespeare Redacted, a click. :)
stephencramer.wordpress.com/books/
Books
Shakespeare RedactedFor Stephen Cramer, the possibility of collaborating with the greatest author of all time was too great an opportunity to pass up. In these blackout poems, Cramer used the first…
stephencramer.wordpress.com
December 5, 2024 at 4:58 PM
Anyone totally into the worlds of A) Shakespeare and B) blackout poems? I know! Who isn't, right? Hello!
If you want to check out a project that combines both of them, give this book, Shakespeare Redacted, a click. :)
stephencramer.wordpress.com/books/
If you want to check out a project that combines both of them, give this book, Shakespeare Redacted, a click. :)
stephencramer.wordpress.com/books/
"We now exist in the kind of world Orwell was predicting, and the simple insistence upon accurate language has become a political act. Nothing is more obvious than what our politicians are doing to our language, so that if poets insist on the truth or...
December 3, 2024 at 2:47 PM
"We now exist in the kind of world Orwell was predicting, and the simple insistence upon accurate language has become a political act. Nothing is more obvious than what our politicians are doing to our language, so that if poets insist on the truth or...
"Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." --Rumi
December 2, 2024 at 10:57 PM
"Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." --Rumi
Every once in a while I'm listening to a song by Bill Evans, and I'm like... huh, how very un-Bill-Evans-like is this? And then, like magic, it turns into perfect Bill Evans. I'm not sure how he does that, but every time he does I'm so happy.
November 25, 2024 at 1:41 AM
Every once in a while I'm listening to a song by Bill Evans, and I'm like... huh, how very un-Bill-Evans-like is this? And then, like magic, it turns into perfect Bill Evans. I'm not sure how he does that, but every time he does I'm so happy.
"We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one." --Yeah, Confucius!
November 24, 2024 at 4:23 PM
"We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one." --Yeah, Confucius!
"The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more." --Erica Jong
November 23, 2024 at 11:29 PM
"The trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more." --Erica Jong
"There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule." --Mark Twain
November 14, 2024 at 11:52 PM
"There is nothing to be learned from the second kick of a mule." --Mark Twain
Checking out the new digs. Any poetry folk who want to connect out there?
November 14, 2024 at 3:59 PM
Checking out the new digs. Any poetry folk who want to connect out there?