@derekmong
Poet, essayist, editor, & translator. Latest poetry collection: When the Earth Flies into the Sun. Cont. Ed. at Zocalo Public Square. Prof. of English at Wabash College. Married to the inimitable Anne O. Fisher.
If you’re willing to complete this anonymous survey (7 mins), and enter your email (not connected to your survey responses), you could easily get a Starbucks gift card. She’s sending them out randomly to entrants. 2/2
regisu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Men Friends (and Fam): Liz Moody--a best selling author, generally cool person, and a member of my fam--is running a scientific study about, among other things, the amount of novelty in your life. Her sample size, though, is very low on men. 1/2
Today at Wabash College!
I'm very pleased to host David Baker at Wabash College on Tuesday, Feb. 17 (next week)! I've been at Wabash for a decade now, and it's a delight to finally bring my old prof and friend to our little campus for a poetry reading.
Please do mark this one in your calendars. You won't regret it.
This semester's Humanities Colloquia at Wabash College will feature a poet, a pirate, and a professor. I'll be playing the poet. Come join me this coming Monday for a reading. Lunch provided!
The Wabash College English Department has an open Visiting Assistant Professor position. If you or someone you know would be a good fit--we're looking for a candidate in Rhet-Comp who can teach Business Writing--please forward this ad!
www.wabash.edu/employment/?...
If there’s a better obituary for an evil cartoonist than an A.I. generated version of his character that fucks up the defining detail of its design, I can’t think of it. No notes. 👨🏻🍳 💋
My short essay is part of the "Centennial Reflections" on Jeffers's Roan Stallion, Tamar, and Other Poems. Check out essays here by my pal Jesse Nathan, as well as Brenda Hillman, Christopher Benfey, David Lehman, Dana Gioia, and many others! (2/2)
ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/cgi/viewcont...
The world's falling apart, but I'm still revelling in this bucket list appearance in a scholastic journal: Jeffers Studies. I'm more of a poet & critic than a scholar, so it's a real joy to publish an essay on Robinson Jeffers's "Continent's End." (1/2)
ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/cgi/viewcont...
I could rewatch this video of an ICE officer falling on his ass thanks to Minnesota ice all goddamn day.
Giving up on the Nobel Peace Prize in favor of a Wag the Dog slide into the foreign policy of 2003. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?!
Attention Poets: we'll be reading for At Length in January! See below:
weiss does not know how to run a news organization, and so she's doing what she does best: hosting fatuous "debates" involving the people in her group chats www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...
If you're a law enforcement agent, and you're intimidated by snowballs, it's time for a new fucking line of work.
www.youtube.com/shorts/eTEQC...
Thanks to those GOP State Senators here in Indiana who voted for democracy tonight! And for the Democrats who needed no convincing whatsoever.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/11/u...
Poets! We'll be opening up @atlengthmag.bsky.social for submissions on January 1!
The sentence fragment can offer some genuine syntactical punch, but not when you follow it with a series of dependent clauses ("which," "which, "which") that all amount to a run-on. This is pretty bad prose.
Walt Whitman’s epic long poem, Promotion of Myself
As the season of rampant consumerism commences, let us remind you that At Length is a free and widely accessible literary journal. No cost to read and no cost to submit. Let us be your long-form oasis as the mayhem begins.
And let's not forget the casual racism of these "Speaker Hakeem" posters; his title would be "Speaker Jeffries." Gotta blow that Islamophobic dog whistle.
I don't even like Deery--that wiener gave us SB 202, an attack on higher ed. But at least he believes in the constitution on this issue. 2/2
Micah Beckwith might be the most loathsome guy in Hoosier politics, what with his book-banning mania and his campaign of "retribution" (his word) against Spencer Deery (W. Lafayette, R) for not joining in an undemocratic, off-cycle re-districting. 1/2
indianacapitalchronicle.com/2025/11/19/p...
And I can TOTALLY spell "annunciation" correctly when writing copy for all of the internet.
Friends--we've got more long-form literature for you!
@affisher.bsky.social, Preeta Samarasan,
@carsonwirtz0.bsky.social, and I put lots of sweat and effort into getting these gems out into the world every couple of months. Take a gander when you've got a chance!
That's our obligatory, feed-the-hungry-guys-at-lunch-time pizza! We do poetry right at Wabash.
This is happening next week at Wabash College! Hopefully it's the first of many: Hoosier poets reading in triplicate on campus. Free and open to all!
Thanks to @ronslate.bsky.social and Jonathan Farmer for this interview about When the Earth Flies into the Sun! The book celebrated its first birthday last month!
Tim Hunt recently invited me to chat about three Robinson Jeffers poems alongside my own. Our conversation, which you can read (or listen to) below, was a total delight.
Thanks for this, Tim, and for your Selected Jeffers, which has accompanied for over 20 years.
huntt.substack.com/p/robinson-j...
Hoosier writers old and young (including students!): we've got a chapter of Writers for Democratic Action (@indianawda.bsky.social) up and running, and we'd love for you to join! Resist authoritarianism--like Orwell did before you--with your pen. DM me to join.
sites.google.com/view/indiana...
I'm so proud of Lafayette and West Lafayette, where the #NoKings crowds were so huge that hundreds were turned back from crossing the Myers Pedestrian Bridge.
And big love to the "Hoosier Hogs Stand with Portland Frogs" guy. Yes to this. All of this. All the goddamn time.
