#lyd havens

[fly-underground]

my poetry new book, VIRAHA, released today!

VIRAHA is a collection birthed out of a space of enduring loneliness, a celebration for the hope of life, that never stays dead for long. These poems repurpose and invent mythologies, situating human fragility and resilience as part of the natural world: every broken heart, lost love, failed dream is as ordinary and bewildering as the sunrise, as a bird in the sky. This is a book about the hard work of continuing. 

i wrote the bulk of this book during the first year of the pandemic. it’s the book i’ve always wanted to write and i’m so proud of these poems, that feel so much like my true writer’s voice.

get your copy of VIRAHA here today!

and i’m actually doing a virtual reading TONIGHT (december 13th) at 7:30pm EST with the incredible Lyd Havens (aka @heartmagician) and i would love to see you there—you can check out the event details here!

[startrippings]

Lyd Havens, 'I only misgender myself when Fleetwood Mac comes on'

[highspeedhighcarbon]

One of my favourite activities is guessing which athletes are willing to pay tax and which one isn’t. Like it’s so funny wdym you live in Monaco

[crushpdf]

Ronan & Gansey & Theo & Boris: orange juice

[ @art-fraud / lorde / @sunsbleeding / lyd havens / (unknown) / wolfgang tillmans / @freecssgons / donna tartt / adriaen coorte / uncredited / maggie stiefvater ]

[kitnita]

jason robertson for nhl network, nov. 7, 2022; photo by sergei pelski, may 5, 2022 // post by mclennonyaoi // jake oettinger's exit interview may 31, 2023; photo by zak krill, jan. 16, 2023 // jason robertson in the background of jake oettinger's draft video; tweet by sadderlizards // quote by theotreptos // "the pull of you" by the national; 40 goal scorer, jason robertson // "float" by harbour; photo by tom fox april 13, 2023 // "alternate methods of sexting" by lyd havens; photo by sam hodde, jan. 21, 2023 // tweet by matt defranks; quote from jake oettinger's postgame dec. 1, 2022 // "alternate methods of sexting" by lyd havens.

[schuylerpeck]

I’m so happy to announce the launch of my newest work, The Ghosts’ Share of Rent! Please join me to welcome this book into the world and grab a (free!) ticket to the virtual event, hosted by Party Trick Press and with an introductory reading by Lyd Havens. There will be poems & antique photos & laughs & lots of love. Add to the fun and dress in a different era! (I will be!!) Grab your tickets here and find more info on my Instagram.

instagram: hiitssky

[crowtrobotx]

You're into poetry as I noticed, and I loved the one you wrote for Karl a lot, something I'm regretting being a ghost reader of and eventually not giving an actual feedback. Anyways that was not my point haha

What are your favourite poets and poems if you have any?

Oh thank you so much! I appreciate the compliment all the same. 🤗

I have a deep fondness for Mary Oliver - “Wild Geese” is of course my favorite of hers. She was born/raised in the same area as I was, so a lot of her stuff really resonates with me. E. E. Cummings (“[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]”), Richard Siken (“Scheherazade”), Ada Limón (“Lies About Sea Creatures”), Audre Lorde (“Recreation”), Trista Mateer (“I Swear Somewhere This Works”), Neil Hilborn (“Our Numbered Days”), Caitlin Conlon (“I Didn’t Want to Cry Over This”), Blythe Baird (“Theories About The Universe”), Joy Harjo (“Eagle Poem”), Lyd Havens (“The act of loving myself is also an act of becoming”) and Ocean Vuong (“Torso of Air”) are other favorites of mine!!

That was… far too many lol I am so sorry. There’s so many more and I am always happy to share with anyone - I never grew out of my teenage angsty poetry phase and I’m all the better for it.

[heartmagician]

Person who wrote this poem here (I picked such a bad time to forget to put my name on this lol)—it is wild to me that this poem is still getting consistent notes after 5 years, & has as many notes as it does. I’m gonna tell you the truth, I’m in a pretty dire financial situation where I have no idea how I’m going to feed or transport myself for the next week, when I finally get paid at my new job. And the thought of even a tenth of the people who liked or reblogged this sending me 1-5 bucks… I can’t comprehend it. And it’s not gonna happen. But if you do like this poem, & have a couple bucks floating around—

V*nm0: Lyd-Havens

C4sh-pp & P-yP4l: LydHavens

I know times are hard for so many of us, & the shame engrained in me about asking for help is kicking & screaming rn. It has been for the last like, two months (& beyond). But here I am. Thank you for reading, both this & the poem. xoxo ♥️

[unfathomable-understanding]

« He wasn’t fine because he was still so fucking angry at everything, and Father still wasn’t here. 

[…] Because he was still so angry with his father. »

The art of burning chapter 30 // @hella1975 (archives of our own)

[ID: screenshot from Avatar : the last airbender « the day of the black sun » episode. Zuko is redirecting lighting towards his father Ozai. End ID]

Avatar : the last airbender // Michael DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko (Nickelodeon, Netflix)

[if you’re raised with an angry man in your house, there will always be an angry man in your house.]

Cut // Catherine Lacey (The New Yorker)

[…]

I still identify

as a spiteful bitch. The gold dust settles

on my cheeks, but I don’t. The tables

have turned,

And now my father is afraid of me.

Damn my fury, damn my forgiveness.

[…]

When I was still a girl, I cut my all my hair off

in mourning, Twice. When I was still a girl,

I found my grandmother’s childhood braid

framed in the attic. She sliced it off herself

while angry at her own father. I sleep

with scissors next to my bed, just in case.

I practice a running start. I tell the mirror

what I want to tell my father:

you will never get away from the sound

of the [ ] that hates you.

I only misgender myself when Fleetwood Mac comes on // Lyd Havens

Credit bundle :

The art of burning chapter 30, @hella1975 • Avatar : the last airbender, Michael Dante DiMartino & Bryan Konietzko • Cut, Catherine Lacey • I only mis-gender myself when Fleetwood Mac comes on, Lyd Havens

[bostonpoetryslam]

I had a writing teacher in middle school who really loved poetry, and urged me to keep writing outside of school after he found out I was going through some really dark personal difficulties. I mostly kept my work to myself until I was fifteen, and started competing in poetry slams. At that point in my life, I was lonely and feeling like nobody cared what I had to say. Both writing and performing poetry showed me otherwise.

Lyd Havens, interviewed for Mass Poetry

[kavikshiraj]

Dear me, much like beginnings endings are un-linear. Is finality a spectrum? I deserve every love letter, including this one.

from Lyd Havens

[lifeinpoetry]

Luck is more than green. It's a whole limb, stretched out in awe and teaching itself all the ways to say always.

— Lyd Havens, from “Sonnet for all the flowers not yet in my hands,” published in Homology

[kitchen-light]

I was twenty years old and the college freshman mistook me for the next decade. Typical.

Lyd Havens, from their poem “XX”

[aridante]

lullaby, chuck palahniuk // compel, lyd havens // landscape with black coats in snow, richard siken // an unofficial rose, iris murdoch // a great and terrible beauty, libba bray // rebecca, daphne du maurier // haunted, beyoncé // almost heaven, judith mcnaught // the princess diarist, carrie fisher // halloween, naiche lizzette parker.

[elkomie]

Book asks! 4, 7, 40 and 43

4. What is your favourite book this year? -- kitchen by banana yoshimoto <з stories about big important emotions that are grounded in daily life details. stories that say 'life is painful and full of grief and wonderful' with an 'and'

7. A book you were hyped about but ended up being disappointed by it? -- the secret commonwealth .

40. Least favourite book to movie/TV show adaptation? -- i'm sure there are worse ones but the first that comes to mind is the hdm show, which is not terrible or anything but isn't Right either

43. Do you follow any bookstagrams, bookblrs or booktubers? If yes, recommend some? -- lyd havens' bookstagram and newsletter (it has book/poem recs among other things); i don't think i've read any recs from these yet, but i did save some to my list. it's not really my default scene, but i ended up following some poetry people so i'm dipping my toes in the kind of things they read

book asks

[heartmagician]

“Our first date was a month ago.

We’d laid next to the river and mimicked the current, my hand between your T-shirt and the warm of your back, your ear pressed to my heart. I didn’t mean to ask it aloud: where did you come from?

Only recently, a wasp died in the center of my life— and now here you are, like so many delicious fig seeds.”

—from “Pine” by Lyd Havens, published in Wax Nine