“This whip-smart collection is a playful celebration of feminine power. Sysko’s witty debut skewers the patriarchy in poems that explore and upend the various societal roles women are expected to play…Sysko uses her impressive observational gifts and knack for finding the humor in the absurd to deconstruct stereotypes and present more authentic ways of expressing …
Join me for “Finding Your Poetic Temperament,” a 4-week generative workshop at writers.com. I’m teaching this fun generative workshop–for the second time!–on Thursday evenings 7-9pm EST, starting 7/29/26. It’s a riff on Gregory Orr’s “four temperaments,” which I think of as the Myers-Briggs of poetry personality. We’ll harness habits, activate avoidances, and pathfind to greater …
My latest “Be Kind Rewind: Where Poetry Meets Proust” features poet Diamond Forde discussing Truth as an invitation, Beauty as a form of survival, her favorite high school English teacher…and her latest collection THE BOOK OF ALICE, in Tupelo Quarterly‘s Issue 37. Read the interview
Poet Hannah Rosenberg’s debut with Macmillan has dropped and Hannah’s coming to Wilmington! Join L.J. as she moderates Hannah’s Author Talk at Huxley & Hiro bookshop on 12/12/25. Get more info
Tupelo Quarterly Contributing Editor L.J. Sysko introduces a tribute to Gerald Stern with essays and poems by contributors Toi Derricotte, Ross Gay, Ed Hirsch, Anne Marie Macari, Campbell McGrath, Yesenia Montilla, Mihaela Moscaliuc, Carey Salerno, David Stern, Barbara Ras, and Michael Waters. Tupelo Quarterly Issue 36. Read the complete tribute