Other Things That Could Be Called The Tortured Poets Department

The LiveJournal community, circa 2005

The university café where English adjuncts hold their office hours

My tenth-grade ELA class when I ask them to write one (1) poem

The subject line of Submittable email notifications

Bard College

Any and all bars named after Oscar Wilde

Literary Twitter

The reception for the Nobel Prize in Literature the year Bob Dylan won

An MFA workshop forbidden from writing any more poems about birds

English professors walking by the new $80 million STEM building

The comments section of a think piece about the TV show Dickinson

Coffee shops with horoscope-themed drink specials that have run out of oat milk

Poets surreptitiously checking for their names in the “Notable” section of The Best American Poetry anthology

The Best American Poetry anthology

The Moleskine display at Target

The Ticketmaster waiting room minutes before Taylor Swift tickets are released