#Lia Purpura

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

("Will-o-the-wisp and Snake," Hermann Hendrich)

[Strange Company]

* * * * *

"Today it rained hard for much of the afternoon. It got dark fast, let go a hard, final downpour, and now the streets are clear and sharp-smelling. The light, these long last days of summer, is low enough to jewel and yellow, blur, and now, if I tilt my head, rainbow all the drops hanging from the phone line. It's that the colors weight the drops, slick them with fire and sea greens in shifts.

I walk through this rain thinking at one time I would point this all out to you in person, hold these drops on the wire against those astral stalks, iridesce the water, roll a pearly drop toward you, fray and sift asparagal light. But now you live in another city and you, in another country, and you (who have not yet even made an appearance here) and I no longer speak of such things.

But I want the shine to live. And before I know it, I am offering, tilting into the light and bringing forth . . . something: fine beads aloft, an abacus of pearls, say. I'm sowing some new green, but it's for you, Reader, whom I both know and do not know, who both exist and do not exist, who constitute an elsewhere far, further than I can imagine, years, maybe centuries away.

Whose elsewhere is a balm and a comfort." 

- Lia Purpura  :: Rough Likeness

 [via whiskey river]

[dk-thrive]

morning, morning, morning

There's the thing I shouldn't do and yet, and now I have the rest of the day to make up for, not undo, that can't be done but next time, think more calmly, breathe, say here's a new morning, morning, morning, (though why would that work, it isn't even hidden, hear it in there, more, more, more?)

- Lia Purpura, Resolution (Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 8, 2016, by the Academy of American Poets.)(via Whiskey River)

[johnesimpson]

You Feel Something Tugging at the Rug Beneath Your Feet

Eleanor Lerman, Tim Nolan, Roz Chast, et al.: 'You Feel Something Tugging at the Rug Beneath Your Feet'

[Image: a page from cartoonist Roz Chast’s 2023 book — a “graphic novel,” but not really — called I Must Be Dreaming. The book is about, well, dreaming, and consists mostly (as with this page) of accounts of Chast’s own dreams.] From whiskey river: Strange Life It’s as if you are alone in a room in an empty house and there’s music playing somewhere, the kind of music that you always knew…

[Read the rest]

[solipseismic]

2022 poetry rec list

wrapping up this year w another poetry rec list! this year i’ve leaned a lot more into actively reading and writing much more poetry and hope to be publishing a compilation of my work (hopefully!) this time next year as well :) once again, i’ve tried to link what i could back to original sources + authors but a few of these link to tumblr posts / screenshots. this one is MUCH longer so i’ve organized it into my fav 15 + the rest below the cut!

top fifteen:

desert hymns no.2 (@/prophetfromthecrypt)

despite my efforts even my prayers have turned into threats (kaveh akbar)

erishkigal specializes in butchery (joan tierney)

for the dogs who barked at me on the sidewalks in connecticut (hanif abdurraqib)

fricatives (eric yip)

hammond b3 organ cistern (gabrielle calvocoressi)

let your father die energy drink (daniel lavery)

morning prayer with rat king (kaveh akbar)

not even this (ocean vuong)

on coming back as a buzzard (lia purpura)

the swan (@/tinyghosthands)

sometimes i wish i felt the side effects (danez smith)

song of the insensible (andrew kozma)

space boy wearing skirt (lee jenny)

the stars are warm (chung ho-seung)

everyone else:

14 lines from love letters or suicide notes (doc luben)

blood makes the blade holy (evan knoll)

border patrol agent (eduardo c corral)

carpet bomb (kenyatta rogers)

death comes to me again, a girl (dorianne laux)

desert (john gould fletcher)

do you consider writing to be therapeutic? (andrew grace)

dust (dorianne laux)

first will and testament + missing persons (sam sax)

fish (richelle buccilli)

for the feral splendor that remains (caconrad)

glitter (keaton st james)

gravedigger (andrew thomas huang)

heart condition (jericho brown)

it is maybe time to admit that michael jordan definitely pushed off (hanif abdurraqib)

leaves (lloyd schwartz)

letter to s, hospital (emily skaja)

metaphors for my body on the examination table (torrin a greathouse)

miss you. would like to grab that chilled tofu we love (gabrielle calvocoressi)

my brother, asleep (steven espada dawson)

my brother out of rehab, points, (ron riekki)

my cat is sad (spencer madsen)

notes from jonah's lecture series (tanya olsen)

publick universal friend contends with orthgraphy & meditates in an emergency (day heisinger-nixon)

red stains (allen tate)

red shift (david baker)

salvage (hedgie choi)

shoulders (naomi shihab nye)

social skills training (solmaz sharif)

the 17-year-old & the gay bar (danez smith)

the desert dispels this hallowed ground of coarse insinuations (julia wong kcomt)

the twelfth day (rosanna warren)

two-mom energy drink (daniel lavery)

two poems (rachel nelson)

two times i loved you the most in a car (dorothea grossman)

un [naming] / trans (after golden) (angelic proof)

valentine for ernest mann (naomi shihab nye)

vi. wisdom: the voice of god (mary karr) 

WAITING (keaton st james)

what mary magdalene said to the young transsexual (elle emerson)

wild geese (mary oliver)

worms (shyla hardwick)

[smellofwings]

“l d c h i o h d o” 

features the poem “future perfect” by lia purpura

[elizabethanism]

[postconnaissance]

Jean-Luc Nancy - Corpus (tr. Richard A. Rand)

[ademella]

currently reading

[therisingfog]

[littlebearblues]

from lia purpura's the smallest woman in the world you can find the full essay here

[existential-celestial]

think more calmly, breathe, say here’s a newmorning, morning, morning,

Lia Purpura, from “Resolution"

[poem-today]

A poem by Lia Purpura

Belief

Light being wavy and particulate at once is instructive— why wouldn't other things or states present as both/and? For instance I both believe and can't. Holding these together produces a wobble, I think it's time to take seriously as a stance.

Lia Purpura

Listen to Lia Purpura read her poem.

[johnesimpson]

The Practice of Counter-Inevitability

Lia Purpura, Jennifer Moxley, et al.: 'The Practice of Counter-Inevitability'

[Image: “Something Like (But Not the Same As) Inevitability,” by John E. Simpson. (Photo shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.)] From whiskey river: Probability Most coincidents are not miraculous, but way more common than we think —it’s the shiver of noticing being central in a sequence of events that makes so much seem wild and rare — because what…

[literaryhousepress]

Our newest title, Scream (or never minding), by Lia Purpura made it to Small Press Distribution’s Nonfiction Bestseller List for October-December 2017! Go, little chapbook, go! 😱

[dk-thrive]

I have no idea what this means, but this means.

I read Dickinson when I was really young. And remember very clearly, not understanding at all what she was saying and thinking I have no idea what this means, but this means.

~ Lia Purpura Reads Carl Phillip's  "White Dog" (The New Yorker: Poetry, Podcast, June 21, 2017)

[mimenicodes]

Allegories | Lia Purpura

That crag, in its hunching, suggests a shawl under which we can slip our burdens, since we alone among creatures bestow likenesses for assurance we really exist, and name boulders and peaks Widow's this, Widow's that, so others might navigate by the forms of our grief.