Toby Altman

Lansing! I'm throwing a party next week to celebrate my new book ~and~ my new exhibit at the Lookout Gallery! Come celebrate with me and Esther, Juno, Austin, Dennis, Laurie, Charisma, Divya, Margaret, Gabi, and Jeremiah:

Heading out for some readings this fall! See you soon—

Tonight!

Talking Jewel Box with Lloyd Wallace over in the beautiful new issue of Asymptote:

Summer Series is back! Next Thursday at the Fish Ladder

Very happy to have a poem from Jewel Box in Poetry Nightly, the best and most radical archive of contemporary small press writing. If you're not following along, you're missing a living archive of hidden, radical, and vibrant publishing practices: poetrynightly.com/2026/07/09/j...

It’s pub day for Jewel Box! This book is many things—memoir, map, ornament, essay, poem, history, image. As it makes its way, officially, into the world it loves and critiques, I hope that it finds you. Wherever and whoever you are. <3 www.essaypress.org/altman/

Summer series is back! This summer we're going to be hosting readings out and about in Lansing. First up: Fenner Nature Center, next Thursday, with Mike Copperman, Kelly Hoffer, Tari Tari Griffin-Muñiz, and Lindsey Webb! Rain location is the Fenner Visitor Center Classroom.

Thrilled—thrilled!—to announce that my new book, Jewel Box, is available for pre-order from Essay Press! Come for the weirdo concrete poems, stay for the searching critique of colonialism in the upper midwest: www.essaypress.org/altman/

I'm editing a folio for Annulet this fall called "What Kind of Poetry World Should We Have?" Looking for brief essays, meditations, manifestos, provocations—in search of a more accessible, livable, and radical space in which to make poetry together. Full CFP below:

Tonight!

This Friday! We welcome legendary poet Tracie Morris to campus for an original performance at the Broad Museum. Do not miss!

I'm collecting MFA personal statements for students—anyone, particularly fiction/non-fiction writers, willing to share with them??

This is gonna be a fun one: we commissioned Tracie Morris to create a new performance piece, in dialogue with the Broad's new show—a light installation which submerges the museum's central gallery in total darkness. Tracie will perform in, and in response to, that darkness. One night only!

Happy last night of AWP to all who celebrate! See you here:

Tonight!

Saturday!

We're doing an offsite! See you at AWP—

Big things coming this spring at The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU! Hope to see you there—

This year's Chicago Poetry Center silent auction is live! So much good stuff here, including a few items from yours truly: manuscript and individual poem consultations, a Chicago book bundle. CPC is the realest poetry org out there; help them thrive! www.accelevents.com/e/cpc2026ann...

I wrote another poetry chapbook last year, called Belly Full Of Hell. Donate $15+ to Chicago Abortion Fund and I'll send it to you. It wouldn't exist without @browatch.bsky.social

We are thrilled to welcome the new Michigan Poet Laureate, Melba Joyce Boyd, to Lansing next week. She'll give a reading on Friday, November 14th at 7pm at the East Lansing Public Library, and a workshop the following morning at the Library of Michigan as part of the Poet's Roundtable conference.

This week at the RCAH Center for Poetry! Join us for readings from Esther Belin and Jo Troxell, and help us welcome Esther to town!

Tonight!

Summer Series is back this week—w/readings from Suban Nur Cooley, Korey Deans, Bianca Rae Messinger, and Adam Mitt!

We are hiring a tenure track poet! I’m so excited / spread the word… wesleyan.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/career...

Tari is unable to join us tonight, but fortunately the great Ruelaine Stokes is going to read in her stead! Don't miss this—

Tomorrow night!

excuse me...wat

INTRODUCING: Summer Series, a set of relaxed, off-campus readings from the The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU, featuring local and national poetic luminaries. Summer Series I, featuring Sarah Carson and Tari Muñiz will be July 12th at 7pm at Hooked Lansing!

George Oppen, with news that stays news

Given that we seem to be in a moment of crisis for literary organizations and literary funding more broadly, which organizations do you see responding to the moment in radical / interesting ways? Brainstorming for a ~thing~

huge thanks to phil kostov for this elegant and thoughtful review of Discipline Park: rhinopoetry.org/reviews/toby...

"Music is simply trying things"—Alice Notley, from the first poem of her Iowa MFA Thesis, 1970. Thinking of her, and all of those who were lifted by her—

some ppl are really still living in the 20th century

I'll be in New York on Friday to read with Laura Jaramillo & Aristilde Kirby! hope to see you there— poetrysociety.org/events/make-...

the pope is from chicago

Increasingly Powerful Trans Person Capable Of Using Every Single Bathroom At Once

Today's Featured Poem: "One acquires an especially lush gender." by Toby Altman (@browatch.bsky.social), from Issue 1 of Rampage Party. Read here: poems.com/poem/one-acq...

I'm back in @poetrydaily.bsky.social with a poem I wrote wandering around in Target: poems.com/poem/one-acq...