#thesealeychallenge — Public Fediverse posts

A lovely past #TheSealeyChallenge choice, from Opaat Press (via @annickmacaskill) https://x.com/bookgaga/status/1824431473492947057

Not able to do #TheSealeyChallenge justice myself this year, but loving what others are posting, including https://x.com/cjsarett/status/1957111476604506173

Learning a lot from what everyone is posting for #TheSealeyChallenge ... https://x.com/poemtoday/status/1957029981327929428

Learning a lot from what everyone is posting for #TheSealeyChallenge ... https://x.com/SealeyChallenge/status/1956382938402013562

Enjoying everyone's new posts, and also relishing looking back at my #TheSealeyChallenge posts from previous years ... https://x.com/bookgaga/status/1425814093752045579

Enjoying looking back at my #TheSealeyChallenge posts from previous years ... https://x.com/bookgaga/status/1561350982507802626

Looking back at some of my #TheSealeyChallenge posts from years past: https://x.com/bookgaga/status/1563544600513761283

Enjoying #TheSealeyChallenge posts blossoming all over the place: https://x.com/simeonberry/status/1954273161970901126

@bookstodon This is one of my #TheSealeyChallenge posts from a previous year ...

@poetry Some more of my #TheSealeyChallenge posts from previous years ...

@poetry Looking back on some more #TheSealeyChallenge posts from previous years ...

@poetry Ah, looking back on #TheSealeyChallenge posts from previous years ...

@robmclennan @bookstodon Revisiting a #TheSealeyChallenge post from 2023!

"I tear colonizing rhizomes
from my rented rectangle of allotted earth
and they regenerate as my hands cramp
and bleed."

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #TheSealeyChallenge
Life Cycle by Allison LaSorda (2025 Opaat Press / @annickmacaskill) https://tinyurl.com/mv4zvtxv

"Late summer mornings
I slept in your side, in the sun,
and to all your wishes in my sleep I wished 'Yes.'"

#TodaysPoem #poetry @poetry #TheSealeyChallenge
Awake, This Summer by Jean Valentine from Light Me Down - The New & Collected Poems of Jean Valentine (2024 Alice James Books) https://tinyurl.com/bdum5pez

@poetry My last #TheSealeyChallenge post from last year!

As I mentioned, I kinda bit off a bit more than I can chew reading-wise this month (there are worse problems, right?), so I'm not going to be able to juggle Proust *and* #TheSealeyChallenge. Instead, I'll reprise some of my past #SealeyChallenge posts and those of others ...

OK, I think I have this figured out.

I've recently taken on the genuinely delightful challenge of reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time (Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright 6-volume edition https://tinyurl.com/2s47sx9p).

I want to focus and keep up good momentum on this literary adventure ... which forces me to admit I can't do that *and* #TheSealeyChallenge poetry challenge in August.

31/31: CRYING DRESS by Cassidy McFadzean (2024 House of Anansi Press) https://tinyurl.com/yc5ahtuh

"You comfort and calm me

A landscape like Iceland

The sound flowers make:

their tiny roots amplified"

New Bucolics

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

30/31: DAYLIGHT by Roya Marsh (2020 MCD x FSG Originals @fsgbooks https://tinyurl.com/yrvkzbvz

"results say i’m hers

in history

in old law

in old English

say her great greats

owned my greatest

on this soil.

“wow,” she say

and i hold my tongue. tight. between molars.

’til it bloody and useless"

in broad daylight black girls look ghost

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

29/31: FO/UR by Jo Ianni (2023 Ex-Puritan / 2024 Apt 9 Press) https://tinyurl.com/4huw8nac

"be
am"

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

28/31: NO MEETING WITHOUT BODY by Annick MacAskill (@annickmacaskill) (2018 Gaspereau Press) https://tinyurl.com/bdvyjnfe

"God bless it all, the whir, a sound like
promises and winter,

through Sherbourne and Castle Frank;
rarely are you this far east.

End of the day and you still love him,
him and his *fucking blue eyes.*"

Ode on the Afternoon

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

27/31: CREELAND by Dallas Hunt (2021 Nightwood Editions) https://bit.ly/33tr1D3

"next time, i will dance with
you, Raymond, and we
will stomp our boots so
hard we'll create sparks that
rise to the heavens, that
call forth clouds and yellow
thunder"

Dancing Yellow Thunder

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

@anikeaten #TheSealeyChallenge sure makes the month of August go quickly, doesn't it?

26/31: THE LIFE OF TU FU by Eliot Weinberger (2024 New Directions) https://tinyurl.com/54vk9cm6

"Here the men sit and the women stand; the men stay home and the women climb the mountains, collecting firewood.

The landscape is beautiful, the weather terrible, and they call their temple Taking Poison."

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

"The taste of your skin is an almanac."

#SundaySentence (+ #TodaysPoem & #TheSealeyChallenge!)
from Your tongue is as long as a Tuesday by Jay Besemer (knife | fork | book) https://tinyurl.com/59xfw7bw

25/31: DARWIN'S BEES AT NOTRE DAME by Kim Fahner (2019) https://tinyurl.com/yvrk56t9

"and then, hopeful and persistent,
two hundred thousand tiny honey bees,
all gossamer wings, all wonder -
new sparks rising."

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

24/31: I CAN FOCUS IF I TRY by Michael Flatt (2023 knife | fork | book) https://tinyurl.com/yc85trtb

"If a dog barking was once the loudest sound a person would hear, then let the exponential intensification of prosthesis be indicated by its howl."

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

23/31: VIRGIN by Analicia Sotelo (2018 Milkweed Editions) https://tinyurl.com/3m6kfaez

"I hate how everyone is either a tiny black horse or a big fat gnat, sans fucking purpose."

Philosopher King

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

22/31: THE ALBERTINE WORKOUT by Anne Carson (2014 New Directions) https://tinyurl.com/d98h7d3z

"Nouns name the world, adjectives let you get hold of the name and keep it from flying all over your mind like a pre-Socratic explanation of the cosmos."

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

21/31: PINHOLE POETRY VOLUME TWO SELECTED edited by Erin Bedford (2024 Pinhole Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/bdzf56ax

"Oh, Sunday evenings: slabs of silence, loops of gloom; maybe
in lieu of this only happening to me, we could stare together
at the mute moon, channel the focused burn of the extraordinary?"

Oh, Sunday Evenings by Heather Birrell

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

20/31: YOUR TONGUE IS AS LONG AS A TUESDAY by Jay Besemer (2023 knife | fork | book) https://tinyurl.com/59xfw7bw

"Everyone's boots want to find your doorstep. Yours grow filthier by the moment. You've come home."

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

19/31: SIREN by Kateri Lanthier (2017 Véhicule Press) https://tinyurl.com/2rscrkrc

"All the cries of the world! Something to sell, swallow, sorrow.
Your uncontrolled kindness
Rains on the void."

Guanyin Lamp

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

18/31: APPLES AND ROSES by Frances Boyle (2019 above/ground press) https://tinyurl.com/5e2x8mjh

"This is not a time machine

this is our life and the spin of the wheels is a wending wash of the long
distant road of brick and time and the way the sound catches the screen door,

sings itself to morning, brings the light and 30 seconds to sing a life"

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

17/31: RUIN by Neil Surkan (2023 knife | fork | book) https://tinyurl.com/bdh2hw9h

"Queer, I learned
to inspirit broken places.

Wanting grace so badly for myself,
I filled every opening."

Ruin

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

16/31: PILLOW TALK by Rebecca Salazar (2024 Opaat Press / @annickmacaskill) https://tinyurl.com/2hb7s52m

"we caught fire
in all the wrong ways. how does a phoenix
miscarry her own rebirth. no flaming
sex, no little death, only burnt earth."

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

15/31: OBITS. by tess liem (2018 Coach House Press) https://tinyurl.com/4m7aue67

"when the big lights clunk on
& the grass-stained pitcher
walks the batter to first base

the crowd is quiet &
grief, like a swing,
hits you out of the park."

Obit.

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry

14/31: AT MARSPORT DRUGSTORE by Al Purdy, with appreciation by Charles Bukowski (1977 The Paget Press) https://tinyurl.com/yn4navea

"the clown mask crumples in laughter
translated as disbelief in anything
including ourselves as children
we inherit the world and each other
and we must be grateful for everything
while there is time."

Stop Watching

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

13/31: I MADE YOU A MIXED TAPE by Dave Bidini et al (2024 West End Phoenix) https://tinyurl.com/yzy7yavm

"I made you a mixed tape. I left it in your locker. I hid it in your shoe. I taped it to your door. I gift-wrapped it and put it in a gift bag, then left the gift bag on the subway."

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

12/31: THE TRADITION by Jericho Brown (2019 Copper Canyon Press) https://tinyurl.com/3j45sddu

"We few left who listen to the radio leave
Ourselves available to surprise. We pray
Unaware of prayer. We are an ugly people."

Deliverance

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

11/31: THE LONG DEFEAT by Patrick Connors (2024 Mosaic Press) https://tinyurl.com/5n95auu8

"I'm going to take a vacation from bitterness.
I'm going to take the week off
from trying not to enjoy life
until I can change the world."

Vacation

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

10/31: PINHOLE POETRY VOLUME ONE SELECTED edited by Erin Bedford (2023 Pinhole Poetry) https://tinyurl.com/bdzf56ax

"the money tree is a heart
gripped before it grows,
limbs extended
with discipline and risk"

Money Tree by @JessicaLeeMcmillan

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

9/31: THE STAIRWELL by Michael Longley (2014 Wake Forest University Press) https://tinyurl.com/eyn6ptuw

"two flowering currants'
Summer hum, the cherry tree that after
Many barren years produced five pears,
The sickly apple tree, the beautiful
Poisonous laburnum"

The Trees

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

8/31: A BALTIC FRIDAY EARLY IN GREY by Adele Graf (2017 above/ground press) https://tinyurl.com/39ndzn7e

"their amazing were killed to met the possible
any there after family and passed
became again front even any there Latvian
wouldn't he home
what inside prison that the visitors see
in its to it deep mind
a Baltic Friday early in grey"

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry #VerseThursday @poetry

7/31: REMEDIES FOR CHIRON by m. patchwork monoceros (2023 Radiant Press) https://tinyurl.com/4be24895

"In a recent trip to the Laundromat
Crammed into scrunched gathers
I found myself."

How to Fold a Fitted Sheet and
Other Things I Never Learned From My Mother

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

6/31: DEVIANT by Patrick Grace (2024 University of Alberta Press) https://tinyurl.com/4h82zcxf

"It lasted a short time. The last time
the light burned out above me

on the road away from home,
my hands held nothing but glass."

Heatwave

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

5/31: INCREMENTALLY by Penn Kemp (2023 @hempress) https://tinyurl.com/2s3jp2j6 & https://tinyurl.com/mr38jebt

"Once having known you the certainty of seeing you move some
times through my mind and

all ways
through my heart"

Won

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

4/31: BEAST BODY EPIC by @AmandaEarl (2023 AngelHouse Press) https://tinyurl.com/3xvbf33x

"Medusa will come to turn me into a stone angel I will be placed on
the third floor with the others piled up to gather dust stacked and
neglected wings encased in marble I never once flew except in my
dreams"

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

3/31: THE WORLD KEEPS ENDING, AND THE WORLD GOES ON by Franny Choi (2022 Ecco / HarperCollins) https://tinyurl.com/2s43m29z

"Dystopia bone-tired after hours at home;
Dystopia can’t read a book without thinking about the trees;
Dystopia can’t talk about it without panicking;
Dystopia of hold music;
Dystopia of platitudes;
Dystopia of garbled logic spun and spun in the head"

Science Fiction Poetry

#TheSealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry

2/31: THE SIZE OF PARADISE by Dale Martin Smith (2024 knife | fork | book) https://tinyurl.com/bdms2j7s

"A toddler whacks sheep manure with a vinyl sword."

#TheSealeyChallenge #SealeyChallenge #31Books31Days #31BooksInAugust #todayspoem #poetry @poetry