For Renee Nicole Good
Killed by I.C.E. on January 7, 2026
by Amanda Gorman
They say she is no more,
That there her absence roars,
Blood-blown like a rose.
Iced wheels flinched & froze.
Now, bare riot of candles,
Dark fury of flowers,
Pure howling of hymns.
If for us she arose,
Somewhere, in the pitched deep of our grief,
Crouches our power,
The howl where we begin,
Straining upon the edge of the crooked crater
Of the worst of what we’ve been.
Change is only possible,
& all the greater,
When the labour
& bitter anger of our neighbors
Is moved by the love
& better angels of our nature.
What they call death & void,
We know is breath & voice;
In the end, gorgeously,
Endures our enormity.
You could believe departed to be the dawn
When the blank night has so long stood.
But our bright-fled angels will never be fully gone,
When they forever are so fiercely Good.
Dear writer friends- I’m leading a new, six-week, 2-hour generative workshop on Wednesday nights, beginning September 3rd. Email me for details if you’re interested: [email protected]#amwriting
Trump, dismantling the Department of Education will have your children so smart. By the time they're 19, they will be able to turn on their laptop like Barron
These are lies coming from Russian media. I completely self-funded my humanitarian trip to Ukraine. There was no funding from USAID and certainly no payment of any kind.
💯 percent false.
The Trump administration is scrubbing the CDC’s website of documents on reproductive rights issues, sexual health, intimate partner violence, and more.
I'm trying to save them.
You can find the deleted docs at https://t.co/8XlteewbRp - I'll be adding more over the weekend.
To teach #writing to the talented young, I often quote Stephen Dunn’s line: ‘Don’t follow me, I’m lost.’ Lostness—uncomfortable as it is—means you’re inside the mystery that beautty burbles up from.
Psst: Would love writers, friends, lit journals, editors— in other words, folks I used to see more around these parts—to follow me in the bright and shiny blue place. Drop your handle in comments if inclined!
@Rachelnycroo.bsky.social
This will make the platform much more difficult to use for women, who will now have no way to mitigate the surveillance and harassment of hostile, abusive men.