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upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
upfromsumdirt
@upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
6.4K followers 2.1K following 21K posts
poet & nyeusiphile.

poetry collections: Deifying A Total Darkness; To Emit Teal; The Second Stop Is Jupiter; & The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife
👠👠 + 🎣👨🏿‍🦳 + 👰🏿‍♂️
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upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
L I E S !!!! — all lies!!
screenshot of my denied attempt to upload a gif with a message saying that bluesky's server lacks the capacity to do so.
November 18, 2025 at 7:26 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
this gif probably just uploads as a regular jpg...
November 18, 2025 at 7:05 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
the disney+ black prince storyboard blues
THE DISNEY+ BLACK PRINCE STORYBOARD BLUES to die the hero as cinema with soundtrack blaring a black hole leaping across the void smiling into the camera into the languages of light the dawn on your shoulders your boots full of stardust and twilight… but better yet to not die the hardluck knight the hero with a sly smile left for dead / but instead forever rising / many many sequels later. well-scripted. well-funded. & black; the franchise of your cameo fabled.
November 18, 2025 at 8:53 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
from idaltus 1 & 2
(the shoes of the fisherman's wife)
this is the excavation of self; the part (for poets) where the aspects of cannibalism catches on / where writing is as cannabis taking us high on sentience, on algebraic sentence structure, and self-equation. poetry is the archeology of awkward science; it is the removal of the oblongatas where the mainstream has metastasized, hatching its corporate slang in the sealed sarcophagus that is America.
November 18, 2025 at 8:46 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
certainly screams in frustration... i dont know if he beats in anything while doing it...
screenshot of the trailer for Adaptation in which nick cage is screaming.
November 18, 2025 at 8:08 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
was there ever a better name than Pearl Primus?
yellow poster with black and white photo of a dancing woman. large text reads "princes" and "pearl primus" black and white photo of a dancing woman striking a pose photo of dancing woman in mid-leap a woman with arms outstretched sticks a leg out to the side mimicking a slide.
November 17, 2025 at 2:18 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
bernald's (dont call him 'bernie'!) good people! kentucky's next wendell berry the way he represents rural living (tho, like me, originally from louisville) - it was an honor to have my art grace his debut collection, English Lit.
photo of my hand holding up a copy of bernard's poetry collection, english lit. on the cover is an illustrated close-up of brown-skinned woman's face, her eyes are entirely cosmic & full of starry night time sky.
November 17, 2025 at 1:12 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
im not doing it; no dms it is.

im upfromsumdirt on gmail for anyone needing to reach me...
screenshot of email asking that i verify my age to continue using bluesky dm containing a disclaimer that says "generated by ai. mistakes are possible."
November 16, 2025 at 8:06 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
post your favorite star trek character. wrong answers only.
photo of 7 ft tall Bolanji Badejo of Nigeria dressed from the neck down in the skeletal rubber monster costume as the lead creature-antagonist from the movie, Alien.
November 15, 2025 at 11:13 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
today @ Books By The Banks in Cincinnati: this travel-weary couple... 10am to 4pm

yall can even catch me on a poetry panel, moderated by Zinnia Stewart, alongside Artress White and Alissa Sammarco.

the shoes of the fisherman's wife
praisesong for the kitchen ghosts
digital poster for the books by the banks event in cincinnati at the hamilton county public library at 800 vine street. saturday, november 15, 10am to 4pm upfromsumdirt and crystal wilkinson sitting on concrete steps posing for the camera. he's wearing blue work coveralls and she's wearing a white dress with orange and black flowers on it. they both are wearing yellow shoes. she smiles with her teeth and he looks like smiling is painful to him.
November 15, 2025 at 10:56 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
what light BEYOND yonder window?
WHAT LIGHT THROUGH BEYOND YONDER WINDOW & if you must know— the worn & beleaguered mer-man fills his deep atlantic pockets to the brim with the heads of benthic seahorses & the heady poems of mythic black folk both floating to surface in ambush of sky & if you wish to know— i open mouth and wallow you you swollen fish hallow in my navel i scale the gleam in your eyes, my medulla gasping for reflective rapture until (in all the underwater caves of verse) ((pocketing a disassembled sun)) the horizon gently surrenders furl, the milium of morning sun—its vicious onslaught of curious dawn; our united ilia flaring towards chorale until the ocean between us is indiscernible our conjoined niche devoid of crestfallen sorrow : a drawning :: an undrowning my heart, bloated from your smile; muffled by your light—this, tho, tbh, we both know you already know & yet you marvel to why i’m emotionally concussed my corneas reshaped to your fictitious cameo my heart bending to your grace filters your shadow & that i am visibly wracked should go without question as your refusal to laud me with decisive vow canonically vexes but, shrew, it was your house demanding in excessive dowry i build you this balcony —don’t vacate now your avouchment to leap! you saw my stygian tongue and assumed it meant bawd when it said bard so now refuses to bow & construe a lyric for thine own comfort (therefore when i clepe there is no wherefore) & since you refuse to know— my anachronisms bear a raft, neither sundeck nor rift —my oceanic timbres swaling through umbras rising through haptic dark—but, soft! (not soft.)
November 13, 2025 at 2:45 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
dionne brand on catastrophe, acknowledgement, & surviving it.
The economies of writing replicate these economies of catastrophe, where Black life as continuous life is unfathomable. Where Black thought is unthinkable as continuous, as possessing a set of demonstrably, historically acquired knowledges. One's writing - writing that is part of a set of knowledges and continuities- enters the narrative-making machinery of racial capital and works against these economies. Hopefully. For those of us who live in the ongoing catastrophe, it does not matter if ruling administrative apparatuses assign the catastrophe an unofficial status, or if they assign the catastrophe a reality-for-some status, or if they say the catastrophe is nothing out of the ordinary, or if their word for catastrophe is profit, or if their word for catastrophe is benefit, or if their word for catastrophe is wealth or if their word for catastrophe is democracy; or if their phrase for catastrophe is good life; or even if they say there is no catastrophe. There was a catastrophe and therefore there is a catastrophe. The word for catastrophe is car. The word for catastrophe is boat. The state of catastrophe is exposed. The word for catastrophe is street. The word for catastrophe is photograph. The word for catastrophe is news. The word for catastrophe is lumber, is factory, is field, is oil, now, is monocrop, is virus, now.
November 13, 2025 at 9:57 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
L's UP!
illustration of the university of louisville cardinal mascot wearing a white letterman sweater with a red L on thr front and black canvas sneakers on its feet dunking a basketball.
November 12, 2025 at 3:33 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
well, well, well... what have we here?

40% OFF ALL BOOKS (hard or soft cover!) AT UPK WHEN USING FROSTY25 AT CHECKOUT?

👁👁
hey... that includes my book!!
👁👁

& GOOD UNTIL JANUARY THE WHAT?!?!? 👀👀

www.kentuckypress.com
photo of The Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife poetry collection screenshot of website's holiday sale banner advertising 40% off all books when using frosty25 at checkout
November 8, 2025 at 10:27 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
upfromsumdirt's
GAUNT SHADOW
a multicellular crepuscle grows in the gut of the solemn dark poet poet where gaunt shadow is the singularity bestowing voice to god: the scoliosis in a single ray of light. the black poem stands all the way back measuring every bend in the universe, the black poem, itself, invisible upon first viewing.
November 7, 2025 at 12:07 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
oooh, wanda... ❤️❤️❤️

...yes!
7 fear drives you to tears and out of the house during arguments with Mama for long walks on sweltering summer eves. the moths come, collect on grainy stucco porches, are hosed away at sunrise. you stare at shaded windows, struggle to decipher the lives inside. who are they? do they see you out here watching? won't some sympathetic someone invite you in for tea? cars are being washed and turtle-waxed by loving hands. preteeners play dodgeball on vacant lots. the librarian admonishes you for staying so late and not having brought your card. palms nod against the neon rainbow sky. the moths come. and the starlings. and the dragonflies. you know something important is going to happen. to you. hurry, you whisper, please hurry
November 5, 2025 at 8:26 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
some of the poems in my Fayre Gabbro suite are ekphrastic, based on wyeth, manet, hopper, etc.

"in the orchard" is based on wyeth's Christina's World (below) & other paintings where white women lay or lounge in fields/rivers/sofas in softened romanticisms; black women rarely appear delicate in art-
painting of a dark-haired woman weating a pinkish-white dress with a black belt; she is laying in a green pasture with her back to the viewer as she stares off towards the distant horizon where a farmhouse sits. a barn with stables is further back in the distance.
November 5, 2025 at 7:55 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
😂
screenshot of reply from @ empatheticgrinch . 4y ago that reads: Musicians disagreeing with Lenny Bernstein is my favourite horror sub-genre.
November 5, 2025 at 4:39 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
certainly!

im still wanting to write a collection of gibran & neruda inspired love poems...
when making love, leave room for levitation. bite down, but not so hard to break the skin. when using other utensils: consider the tongue, the torso, the collarbones, & shoulder blades. in emergencies, the nape, too, can be a handkerchief; every makeshift limb a floatation device. lol: GIBRAN & LORCA & RILKE & NERUDA & UPFROMSUMDIRT —the romance classicists: their extant kisses a complete collage
November 5, 2025 at 12:46 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
the 4 collections that have inspired my writing the most over the past three years, especially for my current work in progress:

mina loy*
wisława szymborska
ishmael reed
aime césaire

(*not myrna loy as ive typo-idly have written before)
4 books of poetry form an uneven square laying atop my bedsheets: the last lunar badeker by mina loy, ishmael reed's new & collected poems: 1964-2006; view with a grain of sand by wisława szymborska, and the collected poetry of aime césaire.
November 5, 2025 at 12:35 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
"Everything is coda in a never-ending world,' writes Tolu.... spiralling through a myriad of histories, experiences, & dictions, the language's momentum is modulated by Oloruntoba's deft control of line and syntax."

- eduardo c. corral speaking on tolu's collection, unravel.
"Everything is coda in a never-ending world,' writes Tolu Oloruntoba in his spectacular third book. Spiralling through a myriad of histories, experiences, and dictions, the language's momentum is modulated by Oloruntoba's deft control of line and syntax. This tension, this craft, enables Oloruntoba to slow and to explore the bewildering and fascinating ruptures in self-making, world-making. This is symphonic and soaring poetry" EDUARDO C. CORRAL, author of Guillotine
November 5, 2025 at 1:04 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
"Oloruntoba draws on a wide frame of references, from Norse mythology to modern gaming and the work of contemporary artist Wangechi Mutu, creating a thoroughly modern and unique ecopoetics."

- poetry foundation for each one a furnace.
text from a book blurb for the poetry collection, each one a furnace, that reads: "Oloruntoba draws on a wide frame of references, from Norse mythology to modern gaming and the work of contemporary artist Wangechi Mutu, creating a thoroughly modern and unique ecopoetics." - poetryfoundation.org
November 5, 2025 at 12:57 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
some mighty wonderful poetry; tolu is an amazing writer, yall...
photo of two poetry collections by tolu oloruntoba laying on a wood floor: unravel, on the left, and each one a furnace, on the right.
November 5, 2025 at 12:36 AM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
the only time ive ever cried at the end of a graphic novel... that decaying hand in the grass? just the hand of some dead child out in the forest now serving as the apartment complex for a host of fairies.
photo of bookcover illustration of a small, grass-high blonde-haired fairy in a white dress with blue polka dots. she stands in a lush field of clover and other green leaves surrounding the decomposing hand of a murdered child. the words Beautiful Darkness are scripted at the top. the book is by fabien vehlmann and kerascoët (pseudonym for marie pommepuy)
November 2, 2025 at 12:28 PM
upfromsumdirt.bsky.social
upfromsumdirt
MAGMA OPUS
our grift temple is a house white whether bright blue or deep red but marrow demands a moratorium... an assembly of ashes with the prismatic voices holding maroon within the ribcage: and thus: a stirring. a movementing. every hair standing as a wick in yearning every open pore a bonfire their lapping flame an epigraph for poems of the night in ritual cleansing: the black spiritual manuscript editing its table of contents.
November 2, 2025 at 11:13 AM