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Author of MOTHER BODY and THE BOOK OF ALICE
No one is free until we're all free.

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Right now, I'm in Lewisburg as a visiting poet for the Bucknell Seminar for Undergraduate Poets. More than 10 years ago, I first came to this same seminar as a student, only a handful of poems to my name and a master's program on the horizon. It has been a surreal return.

Now, I am the one witnessing the future of poetry as it is happening. Now, I am the one mentoring the Junies, responding to their poetry, breaking bread with young writers who are brilliant and eager and kind. I never thought I could be here again. I never thought that the first day I stood in this chapel in the Stadler Center, which the good folks here call the poetry church, that I would one day be return at the dawn of my second book dropping for preorders, that I would have a second book, let alone the first one. That I could come so far.

If that ain't the wildest dreams of my ancestors come true, who is.

Thanks for riding through this wild life with me. Thanks for giving me purpose, momentum, and change. Thanks for reading my silly words and listening. Thank you for the love you give. I'm just out here trying to love and be loved. I'm lucky to have found so many loving people.

And if you wanna pre-order a copy, a heads up that, for the first print-run only, you'll receive a red-letter edition of The Book of Alice. May this book be the first of many miracles for all of us. by @poemsandcake

The Dodge Poetry Festival is special. So many beautiful, powerful, necessary voices—collaborating toward the home we make together. Forever grateful to live with these makers, these listeners hungry for the good, good word. Forever grateful to live. by @poemsandcake

Hope to see y'all at @njpac this weekend cuz Dodge Poetry Festival, here I come! 💙 by @poemsandcake

Heartbroken to announce that I will not be at the Brooklyn Book Festival tomorrow. If there is one thing living through Helene has taught me, it's that I ain't infallible and I should take the weather very seriously. I do not have the time or resources for delays and cancelations, so I'll play it safe and just stay put.

Wishing all those in NYC a very safe, very dry, very exciting celebration of literacy, literature, and community. I hope the future returns me to you. by @poemsandcake

Rounding out this Fall's festival circuit with a trip to my mother's old stomping grounds, Brooklyn, for this year's Brooklyn Book Festival @bkbookfest

Gonna be in conversation with writers that I deeply admire so I already know, like the audience, I'll probably be weeping in their brilliance and taking a lot of notes.

NYC, if you in the area, come be moved with me.

And don't forget to check out the list of other amazing events, now live on the Brooklyn Book Fest website. by @poemsandcake

Giddy and grateful to announce that this Southern shawty finna be back in Newark, NJ to perform at this year's Dodge Poetry Festival 🎉

And y'all, if you haven't seen, the line-up of poetry stars this year is so luminous the night sky is jealous.

Come out to @njpac October 15-17 for the Dodge Poetry Festival. I can't wait to perform on this stage and hope to see you there! Tickets at njpac.org/dodgefest #dpf26 by @poemsandcake

Georgia family, imma be back in them city streets come early October for this year's Decatur Book Festival. And when I say the lineup is 🔥 I mean it's gonna be hotter than the backside of my sweaty knees.

I'm making three festival stops this Fall, and will be putting the word out about the other two a little later but when I say I hope I can see some y'all at one of em, I mean I'm tryna hug on your neck and live in the bounty of your beautiful faces. Come thruuuu. by @poemsandcake

Accidentally realized I'm the Audio of the Day feature on Poetry Foundation while looking up Browning's "The Last Duchess" for my Studies in Poetry class this Fall.

If you, too, are looking up examples of your favorite persona poems, maybe mine could join the fold in your classroom this semester?

Listen to me read "The Sow Speaks to Noah" on the Poetry Foundation, and in the audiobook format of THE BOOK OF ALICE, available where ever y'all be buying books. by @poemsandcake

Sealey Challenge: Day 3

Diamond Forde’s The Book of Alice.

I’m grateful to have held a few long and generative conversations with Diamond about religion, inheritance, and all the memories we bear. This one’s a reread, and I’ve shared a few of my favorite poems ✨

“i was raised in the way of field mice, low
nose scrounging against
any sound shuffled up
in the mud & i feel safest
rising like smoke” by @poemsandcake

As you work out your collections for @thesealeychallenge, I cannot say enough about these collections from @pbw_poet @chelsea_rathburn @kayleb_rae @theoceanisgay @rickeylaurentiis and @cnsebree, whose work I have had the chance to sit and grow with this summer, and whose resonances will sing in me for the rest of the year. Thank you, to these poets, for the gift their work brings. by @poemsandcake

$Hello little universe, it's me. Celebrating another turn around the sun. And every year, I am still surprised—at my own insignificance, my smallness, and that I live in a world and in time just large enough and long enough that all I worry about, wonder about, and mourn will whittle down in time to thick dust in the galaxy's armpit. But for now, I'm here. Reckoning with the fact that in all that vastness, that insurmountable inconsequentiality, there's us, here, now—the consequence of the stars—breathing and laughing and learning to live with a love too big to be held in just ourselves. This year, as every year, you have poured into me just a fraction of that love, and in so doing, you have taught me about my bigness. You have taught me the totality of this universe, summed up right there in the space between us. Love, know that in all of the turns I have left in this little universe, I will love you. Know that it is because of you that I have already accomplished the most significant act I will ever do. It's my birthday. Here's to another year coming to love you. And thank you for loving me. by @poemsandcake$

Today is this cutie's birthday. Please join me in celebrating my little sister, @angel_foxette as she celebrates turning 33. I can't express how grateful I am to honor my sister. She is all that I aspire to be—truly remarkable, unforgettable, loving, and growing. She also makes excellent pound cake and smiles with her whole heart. I love my sister. Happy birthday, Ana! by @poemsandcake

Diamond Forde

@poemsandcake