Steven Leyva

If you want to pre-order my second collection from @BlairPublisher you can at the link below. blairpub.com/shop/p/the-opp…

This argument always gets hung up on prestige programs and flattens the broader MFA experience. I went to a state school for free, my classmates were working adults, several alumni run notable presses. A fancy degree might open some doors but it won't make you a better artist.

@markplasma It’s like “what if there was a whole MFA for that?” 😅 ubalt.edu/schools-and-co…

very seriously, it anyone wants to learn this I will teach you

my MFA didn't get me into the New Yorker but it made me write, design and publish my first book. it honed so many of the skills I needed to make BRUISER. that's real shit.

if you're mad about "MFA writers" it's because you keep reading legacy publications that mostly publish "MFA writing" and expecting a new experience. you are bored because you are boring.

fwiw my program isn't even funded. I took advantage of a tuition remission opportunity while working full time; many classmates found similar ways in. huge props to the UBMFA for opening their arms to an incredibly diverse range of mostly working and lower-middle class writers

pergolalit.com/poetry/steven-… New poem from Hood College’s Lit Mag, Pergola

IYKYK

Let’s go!

One last poem for 2025? Either way, here's "Ars Poetica: Dirges" in Brown Bag. Scroll to the bottom of the page to read this @sdleyva inspired ars poetica brownbag.online/issue-11/

The Smashing Pumpkins still hit. That’s it. #uncrecs

Poem and the Poem that inspired it

Last chance to submit for the Wren Poetry Prize, which recognizes a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd poetry collection. Winner receives $1K advance against royalties and gets to work with Blair. No reading fee. Send by Sat, Nov 15—but the portal closes early if we reach 300 submissions first!

Pssst. Got a 1st/2nd/3rd book of poems that needs a good home? Send it my way! I'm the final judge of this year's Wren Poetry Prize for @BlairPublisher. NO reading fee. Get your entry in soon—when we reach 300 submissions, we close the Submittable portal. blair.submittable.com/submit

Come to @prattlibrary this SAT 9/27 @ 3 pm to celebrate the launch of AMERICA'S FUTURE with @WWPHPress! Readers include @sdleyva, @snarkysyntax, @ZorinaExie, Matt Hohner, Annie Marhefka, Adam Schwartz, & Cherrie Woods! Also streamed here: youtube.com/watch?v=gkeXe4…

Reading 📖, literacy, & critical thinking are probably the most valuable job skills in this moment of techno-fatalism and fascist hysteria. Poems, Novels, & Memoirs are the strength training for the muscle of your imagination. Journalism is the cardio. Conversation the cooldown

Flum manages to make the reader an intimate outsider, rather than simply a voyeur. Steven Leyva washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/features/on-po… press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…

Day 20 ( 28 . 08 . 2025 ) Poem by Steven Leyva, published in “Poetry Magazine” (December 2024)

Day 30: After "Ars Poetica with Zydeco" by Steven Leyva Original poem in "The Understudy's Handbook"

😭👏 Townsend to Ostapenko: “You can learn how to take a loss better”

Wonderful poems by Steven Leyva, "Antiphona,' in particular. bearreview.com/11-2/steven-le… #poetry #poem #Poems #Poets