Amsterdam Review

Excited to be reading at York Literature Festival as part if the #IWD2026! maybe see you there? I'll be reading some poems from my @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social collection #constructingawitch

📷 New {unedited}

#photography #photo #photographer #artshare #fotografia #filmsky #artsky #photosky #booksky #moviesky #Photographie #Laphotographie #art #naturephotography #snow #landscapephotography #composition #snowstorm #snowart #blizzard #snowscape #snowdrift #edwardhopper #andrewwyeth #hey

Let me tell you a story about the kingdom of the forest with its root-pulls and crown-sways and its systems of fungi, how it feels to belong to a realm where thought is decision honed over time and shaped only by memory, to follow patterns in plants and watch the arc of clouds to know where to shelter let me tell you what I’ve seen out there in the forest where every movement matters and each pause carries weight, what it means to see a roe deer pick its way through elm shadow tilting its ear at the onset of rain, the curve of a hindleg caught on lichen, the strange tic-like starts in its eyes that have learned not to blink, its body sinewed and patterned to fade into brushwood

Read my poem "The Crossing," a finalist for The Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest 2025

hataaliinotes.substack.com/p/the-crossing

#poetry #writingcommunity

Photo of poet Selima Hill by Jill Furmanovsky. Selima is wearing a black headband, a purple and black scarf and round silver earrings. She pictured against a white wall with shadows on. She is looking away from the camera and is smiling.

Selima Hill was in conversation with @nathanielking.bsky.social for this two-part @poetrylondon.bsky.social online exclusive.

In this rare interview, Selima discussed her poetry, and her recent experience of being presented with The King's Gold Medal for Poetry.
poetrylondon.co.uk/openreach-pa...

Feeling so lucky to get to read with these beauties. 🧡

A girl is born then twisted, unfolds a gluttonous body, popping each beachball moon into a wide yellow mouth. Once, I could peel back the face of a planet like a clementine or sit in a creek & abstract

"How to fight embodiment? Expand / against embrace, shake radiation like a dog, / strip, condense, reconfigure."

A poem by 𝗟𝗶𝗹𝗮 𝗥𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗻 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity

They say things come back to where they’d been before, like some sort of comet feelings. You just need to know how to wait for them, you need to wear out, standing still, countless pairs of boots. This means the acacia tree that was cut last fall will shoot up briefly from its old root. That you will love me again in a few billion light years.

Read 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑾𝒂𝒊𝒕 by 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐮 (transl. 𝐃𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐥 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐍𝐞𝐦𝐨) in the Fall issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity #translation #Romanian

When my older brother died I began seeing a child psychologist named Patrick Rose who practiced out of a basement space. He was tall and freakishly thin and wore a green and red African dashiki extravagantly beaded along the neckline. He chain-smoked Larks and had a small fan next to his chair which was supposed to direct the smoke upward towards the bunker’s only open window but seemed to have the opposite effect of blowing it straight at me. The first thing he told me was that he himself had lost a sibling when he was around my age – an older brother, just like me

After his brother’s sudden death, a young boy is sent to a therapist whose own unresolved grief seeps into every session. Can his unconventional methods heal them both?

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#writingcommunity #fiction

Remembering 𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬 𝐙𝐮𝐤𝐨𝐟𝐬𝐤𝐲, born on this day in 1904, one of the most important modernist poets. "Since the past is a wall between two windows / one who does not lean out no longer sees."

#writingcommunity #literature

Air, fire, water, earth: each element matched with a cardinal direction. Air with the East. The inhale is inspiration, expanding breath, a promise not yet embodied. Fire with the South. Breath at the apex, burning with creation and destruction.

"The exhalation is the letting go. / The emptiness is what is left."

A poem by 𝗔𝗻𝗻𝗲 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity

Read 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝗹 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗡𝗲𝗺𝗼's @danielnemo.bsky.social study on how we came to mistake our own constructs for the world itself, in an invitation to look for the cracks where the underlying reality seeps through.

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#essay #reality #writingcommunity #hors-serie

Congratulations to 𝗝𝗮𝗻𝗲 𝗭𝘄𝗮𝗿𝘁 @janezwart.bsky.social whose debut collection is out on Feb 3 from Orison Books.

Read two of her poems first published in Amsterdam Review: bit.ly/jane-zwart

and buy a copy here: www.orisonbooks.com/product-page/oddest-oldest-saddest-best-poems-by-jane-zwart

Delighted to tell you that the very popular ROOTS exhibition will have a second outing from the 9 - 31 January 2026. Do join us for the launch & poems in Green Acres Gallery Wexford town Sat. 10 January 2026, 3 pm. Entry free & all welcome. @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

I’m not good with people. I can’t exactly say why. I’m just not. I think I was a normal child. I don’t think anything happened to me when I was a kid. But my memories of childhood are hazy. Shards of memories. Shifting scenes like in a kaleidoscope. Sometimes I feel like I didn’t have a childhood at all, like I went from baby to adult and mostly skipped everything else in between. To improve my people skills, I work on empathy with my co-workers. After all, I’m the lead operator for The Archway Project, even though Mr. Mallory, my boss, would never have bestowed that title on me. Mr. Mallory barely tolerates me. But Mr. Archway appears to favor me and chose me to lead. I have no idea why he did.

Read 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑮𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒎 𝑮𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒑 by 𝗠𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗹 𝗟𝗼𝘆𝗱 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝘆, a look at the surreal theater of professional life and what it means to have work ethics when the work itself is meaningless.

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#writingcommunity #fiction

Really interesting reflections on poetry collection as concept album here, alongside some great recommendations (delighted to be among them)
@bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

A girl is born then twisted, unfolds a gluttonous body, popping each beachball moon into a wide yellow mouth. Once, I could peel back the face of a planet like a clementine or sit in a creek & abstract

"How to fight embodiment? Expand / against embrace, shake radiation like a dog, / strip, condense, reconfigure."

A poem by 𝗟𝗶𝗹𝗮 𝗥𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗻 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity

📷 from the Vault

#photography #photo #photographer #artshare #fotografia #filmsky #artsky #photosky #booksky #moviesky #Photographie #Laphotographie #art #blackandwhite #bnwphoto #bnw #b&w #streetphotography #exterior #corridor #hallway #passage #dichirico #dreamlike #gleaming #metaphysical #light

Waking is a parachute jump from a dream. Free of the suffocating whirl, the traveler dives toward the green zone of the morning. Things flare up. From the soaring skylark’s perch, he makes out the giant tree root system’s subterranean, swaying lamps. But above ground, the greenery stands in a tropical current with raised arms, listening to the rhythm of an invisible pump. And he sinks toward summer, lowered into its bright crater

Read 𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝗹 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻 𝗡𝗲𝗺𝗼's @danielnemo.bsky.social new translation of 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒍𝒖𝒅𝒆 by Tomas Tranströmer, now complete with literary analysis.

hataaliinotes.substack.com/p/prelude

#poetry #poetrycommunity #translation #Swedish #Transtromer

A Timeless Mirror-World Narcissism, Trauma, and the Purge of Time

Narcissists "experience a kind of temporal void, an endless repetition of old patterns with no true progression, accompanied by feelings of emptiness and a nagging fear of death."

Read my study on narcissism here:

hataaliinotes.substack.com/p/a-timeless-mirror-world

#psychology #mentalhealth

Finally, falling like paratroopers, the leaves are blanketing the ground and the piles are starting to take shape and I want to kick and jump into the biggest heaps, like I did when I was a child, a rather mischievous one the more I recollect.

"The world is a mess, but then it’s always been, / tragedies ongoing no matter how I write / against them."

Two poems by 𝗧𝗶𝗺 𝗦𝘂𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘁 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity

Always delighted to stumble upon another response to The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Spending the afternoon with @jesstraynor.bsky.social stunning new poetry collection. @bloodaxebooks.bsky.social

The jacket worn thin like a pack of wolves. His face a shard of marble. Surrounded by his letters in a grove rustling with scorn and errors, the heart blows like a scrap of paper through the inhospitable passages. Now sunset prowls like a fox across this land, igniting the grass in a flash. The sky is full of hooves and antlers, and below it the carriage glides, shadowlike, between my father’s lit-up homesteads.

Read my new translation and literary analysis of 𝑮𝙤𝒈𝙤𝒍 by 𝐓o𝐦a𝐬 𝐓r𝐚n𝐬t𝐫ö𝐦e𝐫, a haunting portrait of the Russian writer in a tribute that affirms the enduring awe one artist can feel toward another.

hataaliinotes.substack.com/p/gogol

#poetry #poetrycommunity #translation #Swedish #Transtromer

​Every night's an arthritic, pissed off bird careening through sleep's misshapen spinal cord, throbbing without surcease. If its skull could speak, what would it say? Undeterred, would its mouth shape tongueless tidings or slurred debate, sentences locked in a rhinal snort or rasping like a scratchy vinyl recording? And what could be more absurd

"I try to insert my will but receive / only the bump and grind of joints refer- / ring pain"

A poem by 𝗥𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘁 𝗢𝗸𝗮𝗷𝗶 @robertokaji.bsky.social in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity

Any yet coolness, and seeming unconcern...

One of my visual poems from "Classic Crimes," done with embroidery. I didn't promote my book, which came out late May, because of some awful personal stuff that hopefully someday will end. ANYWAY, if you're so inclined & buy my book I will happily send you a collage postcard to thank you. You pick.

​I was disoriented by our monad of Judeo-Christian bees. The slight curve of my back makes a depression in the sand when I breathe in. You were the amputee in the Bible reciting Freudian slips in the honeymoon suite. I tried to carry you through the enchanted forest like in that Russian movie. I couldn’t tell if you were sleeping or gnawing on my hand. The shadow of the palm tree tiptoed across your face as the vodka dribbled down your chin. Once we reached the PBS station, your womb collapsed. Each vowel was a rat darting out from under the oven.

"You promised me that there were lava flows on the dark side of the moon. / I acted on your insufficient faith."

A poem by 𝗝𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗼 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘀 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity

We’re pleased to announce our nominations for the next Pushcart Prizes! @suzyeynon.bsky.social, @msstefaniekirby.bsky.social, @paulvermeersch.bsky.social, @danielnemo.bsky.social

Read them here: bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity

Anything that exists to process, exists to fail. Ask yourself-- what’s the point of a kettle without water, or a clock without time? For example, take this exercise weight: it has one job, which it achieves through burden. Put it down on the scale’s flashing face, like a baby or a brick. Then see if the machine stutters its sums, if its verdict is wrong

"Listen, / we are all soft brains straining / to translate whole worlds."

A poem by 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗻𝗮 𝗚𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗶 in the Fall 2025 issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview

#poetry #poetrycommunity

Five Stanzas to Thoreau A poem by Tomas Tranströmer translated from Swedish by Daniel Carden Nemo

✨ This is the kind of literary gem that you’ll want to find on Bluesky. Finally a #translation of Tranströmer’s Five Stanzas to Thoreau that breathes new life into the poem. Complete with text commentary. Go read it.

@danielnemo.bsky.social #poetry #writingcommunity #tranströmer #swedish

‘I learn by going where I have to go’ — an interview with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Marie Howe Marie Howe, winner of this year’s Pulitzer Prize for poetry, talks to Martin Wroe about saints and the spiritual

An interview with American poet Marie Howe featured in the @churchtimes.bsky.social. She was talking to @martinwroe.bsky.social about her poetry, including her @pulitzerprizes.bsky.social winning retrospective What the Earth Seemed to Say: New & Selected Poems.
www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

At once symbolic and immediate, grounded and searching, capturing not just what is seen, but what is felt beyond the edge of perception, Bentsman's photographs invite the viewer to discern where one sense gives way to the other—or whether the distinction even holds at all.

M𝐎N𝐎C𝐇R𝐎M𝐄 𝐂I𝐍E𝐌A𝐓I𝐂

#Photography by 𝗝𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀𝗺𝗮𝗻 @jasonbentsman.bsky.social in the Fall issue

bit.ly/AmsterdamReview