Nikchick

@nikchick.bsky.social

1823 Followers 1168 Following

COO and co-owner of Green Ronin Publishing. Lifelong book lover, 10+ year Seattle Arts and Lectures volunteer. ❤️ TTRPGs, food, music, travel, and solitude. Anti-racist, neurospicy, intolerant of bigots and bullies.

James Purefoy (L) and Michael Kenneth Williams as Hap & Leonard
Bowl of black beans salad
A map marking thousands of acres of currently burning wildfires surrounding the Ely arra
Gazpacho
One quart of Kirkland organic unsweetened vanilla almond milk and one quart of Tazo green tea matcha latte concentrate make a tasty iced beverage.
Greek Salad with Gnocchi
Huevos Rancheros ingredients: corn tortillas, eggs, salsa, refried beans, topped with some lightly dressed greens
Mise en place for Mushroom Paprikash
Nicole with her What the Actual Fuck coffee mug.
Selkie von Snoot, the brindle greyhound, sleeping in the sun on her new outdoor bed.
A product spread showing the Wardens of the Blue Rose book, campaign notebook, fold out color map, sticker sheet, and enamel pin.
Black t-shirt with a starless simplified United States flag. Underneath the pixel font reads we are nit ALL jerks
Several pallets stacked with boxes have been delivered to the warehouse and sit in a tight space waiting to be unpacked and shelved.
there is no poem greater than feeding someone there is no poem wiser than kindness there is no poem more important than being good to children there is no poem outside love's violent potential for cruelty there is no poem that ends grief but nurses it towards light there is no poem that isn't jealous of song or murals or wings there is no poem free from money's ruin no poem in the capital nor the court most policy rewords the devil's script there is no poem in the law there is no poem in the west there is no poem in the north poems only live south of something meaning beneath & darkened & hot there is no poem in the winter nor in whiteness nor are there poems in the landlord's name no poem to admonish the state no poem with a key to the locks no poem to free you
Gunderson In her mean-mouthed kitchen, the crepes flipped perfect. Butter-tender, brown- freckled, thin as pudding skin, custardy, rolled tight with jam glittering garnet, white storming confectioner's sugar, slit with a side-turned fork. l ate while Jerry Taft explained windchill, while she stood at the stove reading readiness with a dull knife, While I paged sales: ALDI, D’Andreas, Suburban Life. When I ate, I didn't smile. That's why she liked me best. JOANNA NOVAK
And whom do I call my enemy? An enemy must be worthy of engagement. I turn in the direction of the sun and keep walking. It’s the heart that asks the question, not my furious mind. The heart is the smaller cousin of the sun. It sees and knows everything. It hears the gnashing even as it hears the blessing. The door to the mind should only open from the heart. An enemy who gets in, risks the danger of becoming a friend.
INSTRUCTIONS ON NOT GIVING UP Ada Limón More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor's almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it's the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world's baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I'll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I'll take it all.
HOW CAN BLACK PEOPLE WRITE ABOUT FLOWERS AT A TIME LIKE THIS dear reader, with our heels digging into the good mud at a swamp's edge, you might tell me something about the dandelion head & how it is not a flower itself but a plant made up of many small flowers at its crown & lord knows I have been called by what I look like more than I have been called by what I actually am & I wish to return the favor for the purpose of this exercise. which, too, is an attempt at fashioning something pretty out of seeds refusing to make anything worthwhile of their burial. size me up & skip whatever semantics arrive to the tongue first. say: that boy he look like a hollowed-out grandfather clock. he look like a million-dollar god with a two-cent heaven. like all it takes is one kiss & before morning, you could scatter his whole mind across a field.
Kansas Rules J. Yolen Who would have guessed, flat as it is, that Kansas has a sharp spine, acknowledging women can make their own body choices, the Supremes tried to dance on the corpse of freedom, the spikes of their fascist boots leaving marks in the flat soil that will be erased by the prairie winds, trampled into nothing by lines of voters, and turned under in time by America's plowshares.
Gratitude Do not think I am not grateful for your small kindness to me. I like small kindnesses. In fact I actually prefer them to the more substantial kindness, that is always eying you like a large animal on a rug, until your whole life reduces to nothing but waking up morning after morning cramped, and the bright sun shining on its tusks.
Body, Mind of the Ransacked Thrift Shop Jane Hirshfield #NationalPoetryMonth Body, mind of the ransacked thrift shop: I here bequeath you. Knees: yellowing articles clipped from the news. Blood: mosquitoes reject it. Closets: time now to empty. Books: go. Like an old dog, I'll find my one exactly-dog-sized pond of sun. I'll sleep, rIl swim. I'll keep with me only one habit too hard to lose: I'll still bark at what passes.
April I wanted to speak at length about the happiness of my body and the delight of my mind for it was April, night, a full moon and— but something in myself or maybe from somewhere other said: not too many words, please, in the muddy shallows the frogs are singing. Mary Oliver
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud WILLIAM WORDSWORTH (1770–1850) I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed-and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
A Palestinian Might Say BY NAOMI SHIHAB NYE What? You don't feel at home in your country, almost overnight? All the simple things you cared about, maybe took for granted.. you feel insulted, invisible? Almost as if you're not there? But you're there. Where before you mingled freely... appreciated people who weren't just like you... divisions grow stronger. That's what "chosen" and "unchosen" will do. (Just keep your eyes on your houses and gardens. Keep your eyes on that tree in bloom.) Yes, a wall. Ours came later bur... who talks about how sad the land looks, marked by a massive wall? That's not a normal shadow: It's something else looming over your lives.
"At the time of the October Revolution, the Russian intellectual elite had been both a part and a partner to the European conversation about God, power, and human life. After fifty years of purges, arrests, and, most damaging, unrelenting pressure on what had become an isolated thought universe, the Russian intellectual landscape was populated by barely articulated ghosts of once vibrant ideas. Even Communist ideology was a shadow of its former self, a set of ritually repeated words that had lost all meaning." The Future Is History Masha Gessen
A turmeric-colored soup with onions, spinach, tomato, and wild rice.
A loaf of cheddar herb soda bread.
Nicole sits in an airplane seat, tired and slightly smiling at the camera.
THE SALT STONES Seasons of a Shepherd's Life By HELEN WHYBROW
Men Explain Things to Me by REBECCA SOLNIT
Nicole in tortoise-shell glasses and a burgundy coat looking into the camera.
GEEK LOVE A NOVEL by KATHERINE DUNN
Drift The UNMOORING of AMERICAN MILITARY POWER Rachel Maddow
THE SHATTERED KING by CHARLIE N. HOLMBERG
VERA WONG'S UNSOLICITED ADVICE for MURDERERS by JESSE Q. SUTANTO
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jaqueline Harpman, translated by Roz Schwartz
Detective Aunty by Uzma Jalaluddin
Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
Trickster’s Choice by Tamora Pierce
Stardust Grail by Yume Kitasei
Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis
The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian.
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz
Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz
Faebound by Saara El-Arifi
The Poppy War by RF Kuang
destiny of the republic by candice millard
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle