Tara Skurtu

@taraskurtu.bsky.social

2283 Followers 749 Following

Poet/Writer. Writing Coach. Forthcoming Book: Faith Farm (March 16, 2027, @unboundedition.bsky.social). CEASEFIRE NOW FREE PALESTINE. 🍉 🖕🧊

Siri Hustvedt’s blurb for Tara Skurtu’s forthcoming book of poems, Faith Farm: With their swift, agile transitions from the demotic to the elevated, from the everyday to the transcendent, from brevity to extension, from lyricism to narrative, the poems in Faith Farm act on the reader by surprise. The result is an extraordinary book that charts the wrenching, joyous, painful, and sometimes funny truths of a life as it changes. —Siri Hustvedt
Hand writing with fountain pen in purple ink on white sheet of paper on wood desk: fuck ICE
FREE DR HUSSAM "THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU WILL SEE ME... THEY BROUGHT ME HERE TO KILL ME. I DO NOT SEE MYSELF LEAVING HERE ALIVE. THIS IS THE END."
Blond smiling baby Tara, lying on towel on the grass with arms outstretched
JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME Free Ahmed Shihab-Eldin
MORNING LOVE POEM Dreamt last night I fed you, unknowingly, something you were allergic to. And you were gone, like that. You don't have even a single allergy, but still. The dream cracked. Cars nose-dived off snow banks into side streets. Sometimes dreams slip poison, make the living dead then alive again, twirling in an unfamiliar room. It's hard to say I need you enough. Today I did. Walked into your morning shower fully clothed. All the moments we stop ourselves just because we might feel embarrassed or impractical, or get wet.
Poem: Anyone’s Son ​--for the family of Trayvon Martin This poem wants to write itself backwards. Wishes it were born memory instead, skipping time like a record needle stuck on the line of your last second. You sit up. Brush not blood, but dirt from your chest. You sit up. You’re in bed. Bad dream. Back to sleep. You sit up. Rise and shine. Good morning. This is the poem of a people united in the uniform of your last day. Pockets full of candy, hooded sweatshirt, sweet tea. This poem wants to stand its ground, silence force with simple words, pray you alive, anyone’s son—tall boy, eye-smile, walk on home.
BLOOD-BORNE run out into the streets through the garden shrapnel everywhere is dangerous imagine begin again there are no streets there are no streets where the garden had been truth we choose our own everyone back inside where we began run out into the streets run out into the streets there are no streets through the garden where the garden had been shrapnel everywhere truth is dangerous we choose our own imagine everyone back inside begin again where we began there are no streets run out into the streets
NEW YORK CITY ICE OUT FORGOOD STAND WITH MINNEAPOLIS STOP ICE TERROR, DEFEND OUR COMMUNITIES RALLY & MARCH VAN 23•4PM•UNO1 SO
JAN 20 STOP ICE TERROR! •RALLY & MARCH— 4PM—BRYANT PARK
OFFERING STREET Every bush and bulb I'd planted in our small square plot I pulled out that morning by the roots. Walked each, one by one, to a pile of trash by the curb: the living wall of evergreens, budding lavender lining the walk to our door; the blood-brown calla lilies, daffodils, irises, pink peonies, white hyacinths. Everything I'd buried on Offering Street. And watered. Everything possible to predict: all you said that was that wasn't. What I didn't know and couldn't name the wet grey clay released, whoosh, into my grip. I never wanted to be a gardener. I wanted to garden.
SHAME Overnight, someone has epoxied a bright pink dildo onto the Virgin Mary outside the Sacred Heart Church. It's Sunday. From the café window I watch a woman cover her son's eyes and make the Sign of the Cross as they head past the statue's outstretched arms, up the steps. A stranger at a neighboring table says, Worse than the time some asshole in Hopkinton stole the plastic baby Jesus right out of the manger. I remember that. A sign in red paint: Shame on you if you stole Jesus! I saw it on the news at Braintree Station that Christmas eve. The camera panned a field of lighted reindeer. Then Mary, palms in prayer at her chest, and Joseph, on one knee, admiring a basket of snow.
The English Department Presents... A Poetry Reading With LLOYD SCHWARTZ Winner of the 2025 David Ferry and Ellen LaForge Poetry Prize at Suffolk University Thursday, November 20 5:00-6:00pm The Poetry Center (Located in the Mildred F. Sawyer Library, 73 Tremont St) Refreshments will be served! Photograph by Spencer Ostrander Lloyd Schwartz is FrederickS. Troy Professor of English Emeritus at UMass Boston, Poet Laureate of Somerville, editor of Elizabeth Bishop, and longtime music critic for NPR's Fresh Air. His numerous awards include Guggenheim, Academy of American Poets, and NEA grants for his poetry and the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. His latest books are Who's on First? New and Selected Poems (U of Chicago) and, coming next spring, "Artur Schnabel and Joseph Szigeti Play Mozart at the Frick Collection (April 4, 1948) " and Other Poems (Arrowsmith)
Brooklyn Poets FUNDRAISING AUCTION BID @ BIT.LY/BKP-GIVE THROUGH NOV. 30TH 1 HOUR CONSULT with Tara Skurtu All proceeds from the auction will support Brooklyn Poets' operations, including fellowships, workshops, readings and free programming at our community space.
ARREST NETANYAHU STOP THE GENOCIDE MARCH TO THE UN SANCTION ISRAEL FRI. SEP 26 • 9AM TIMES SQUARE NYC ALL OUT TO NEW YORK CITY!
Unbound Edition Press Author Page Authors: Tara Skurtu (alongside black and white headshot of Tara: white woman with wavy blond hair in sleeveless jean shirt, silver magic pencil necklace, looks at camera--photo credit Spencer Ostrander) Tara Skurtu is the author of the poetry collection The Amoeba Game and the chapbook Skurtu, Romania. The recipient of two Fulbright Fellowships, a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship, the Marcia Keach Poetry Prize, and two Academy of American Poets prizes, she has taught creative writing at Boston University, the BU Prison Education Program, and Transilvania University of Brașov. Tara is a member of the Brooklyn Poets Board of Directors. She lives in New York, where she teaches poetry and coaches writers worldwide. Her book of poems, Faith Farm, will be published by Unbound Edition Press.
Book Illustration of three kids, arms up, mouths open. “A screaming song is good to know in case you need to scream.”
Two raggedy teddy bears holding a handmade protest sign with a peace sign and capital red lettering: FREE PALESTINE.
On sidewalk, Mahmoud Khalil, left, Tara Skurtu, right, smile. Mahmoud points to Tara’s shirt: image of Columbia letterhead on which someone has written in red marker “I ain’t reading all that, Free Palestine.”
Stop starving Gaza Mass March for humanity all out to New York City Saturday, August 16 2 PM Bryant Park NYPL steps
DEATH MACHINE because the dead couldn’t speak people were dying death lived and those who witnessed spoke didn’t speak when they needed
ONLINE October 5-12 Sundays, 10:30 AM-1:30 PM ET Register by September 28th Brooklyn Poets Writing The Poems You Need To Write with Tara Skurtu "You should write that," people say to us more than we can count. But the honest, truthful, at-stake writing that matters most comes from inner need, not the outer shoulds of what others want. In this online, generative two-session workshop we'll rediscover how to write-and keep writing-what we need to write.
Street sign of two figures riding bicycles, and over them someone has stuck two stickers: FUCK TRUMP FUCK ICE
Il won't be able to write from the gravel Fanny Howe I won't be able to write from the grave so let me tell you what I love: oil, vinegar, salt, lettuce, brown bread, butter, cheese and wine, a windy day, a fireplace, the children nearby, poems and songs, a friend sleeping in my bed— and the short northern nights.
Script on white paper on wooden desk: “Protect Trans Youth.”
Black and white sticker on metal street post in Brooklyn: “FUCK I.C.E.”
Unnameable Books Brooklyn 615 Vanderbilt Ave. May 12 at 7:00 PM DEREK JG WILLIAMS RELEASE PARTY WITH TARA SKURTU, LUISA CAYCEDO-KIMURA, & AARON CAYCEDO-KIMURA
INSTRUCTIONS IN TIMES OF EMERGENCY Turn the radio low but listen. A slow rustle. (A dictator.) Do not turn (though some Turn) against A neighbor. Do not look A beached And bloated body in its face. Do not plead To God. Witness The executions. Your human self, keep it Alive. A type Of flame. Your lizard self, Your toughest skin, Wear it. Shut your door Against the night. Keep your door shut Against the creeping Night.
In Person June 19-July 31 Thursdays, 6:30 - 9:30 PM Register by June 12th Brooklyn Poets "Getting Your Poems Out There: A Submission Intensive with Tara Skurtu" "This seven-week, in-person workshop will get your submission game into gear. We'll revise and edit a batch of poems to send to lit mags and comprehensively work through and demystify all parts of the submission process.
BOOK LAUNCH Thomas Dooley I Rio Cortez | Ata Moharreri | José Olivarez | Tara Skurtu | Jason Schneiderman | Nour Al Ghraowi "Poetry curation seems to be an eye for feeling. In this collection, every poem is a revelation." -FLORENCE WELCH POETRY IS NOT A LUXURY POEMS FOR ALL SEASONS Tuesday, May 6, 2025 | 7pm Recirculation, a project of Word Up 876 Riverside Dr, NY, NY 10032
Book cover: black Text over outlines of golden brown leaves over blue green background: "Poetry curation seems to be an eye for feeling. In this collection, every poem is a revelation." -FLORENCE WELCH POETRY IS NOT A LUXURY POEMS FOR ALL SEASONS
Martini with two olives and a caper berry , glass of bubbly wine on wooden bar top.
Jane Kenyon What Came to Me I took the last dusty piece of china out of the barrel. It was your gravy boat, with a hard, brown drop of gravy still on the porcelain lip. I grieved for you then as I never had before.
NEW YORK CITY EMERGENCY PROTEST STOP THE GENOC DE TUESDAY MAR 18 TIMES SQUARE 6:00 PM W 43RDST & BROADWAY ARMS EMBARGO NOW!
Why Bother? Because right now, there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words.
That Year In my family people who were eighty-two were very different from people who were ninety-two The eighty-two year old people grew up it was 1914 this is what they knew War World War War That's why when they speak to the child they say poor little one... The ninety-two year old people remember it was the year 1905 they went to prison they went into exile they said ah soon When they speak to the grandchild they say yes there will be revolution then there will be revolution then once more then the earth itself will turn and turn and cry out oh I have been made sick then you my little bud must flower and save it
Gods The ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond and jade, Sit silently on their temple shelves While the people Are afraid. Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That the people themselves Have made.
ECONOMIC BOYCOTT $ DON'T BUY STUFF FRIDAY FEB 28 WEHAVE POWER NO AMAZON WALMART TARGET FAST-FOOD GAS OK SMALL BUSINESS USE CASH
Sonoran Bloom Fan palms splay like fingers, even the ocotillo widens, reaching for rocks serrated across the thin pale sky-nothing conceals itself here. Wild catclaw curls, roots strain — one slake, one brief betrayal & desire with her swaggering comet trail ignites the scarlet buglers, explodes the Venus blazing stars beyond the thirsty sands.
REVOLUTIONARY LETTER #10 These are transitional years and the dues will be heavy. Change is quick but revolution will take a while. America has not even begun as yet. This continent is seed.
Poem: MORNING LOVE POEM Dreamt last night I fed you, unknowingly, something you were allergic to. And you were gone, like that. You don't have even a single allergy, but still. The dream cracked. Cars nose-dived off snow banks into side streets. Sometimes dreams slip poison, make the living dead then alive again, twirling in an unfamiliar room. It's hard to say I need you enough. Today I did. Walked into your morning shower fully clothed. All the moments we stop ourselves just because we might feel embarrassed or impractical, or get wet.
Tara, white woman wearing light grey Brooklyn Poets sweatshirt and a magic pencil necklace, with shoulder length, shaggy-wavy, dirty blond hair with wavy bangs, looks at camera.
TO A POOR OLD WOMAN munching a plum on the street a paper bag of them in her hand They taste good to her They taste good to her. They taste good to her You can see it by the way she gives herself to the one half sucked out in her hand Comforted a solace of ripe plums seeming to fill the air They taste good to her
Island Langston Hughes Wave of sorrow, Do not drown me now: I see the island Still ahead somehow. I see the island And its sands are fair: Wave of sorrow, Take me there.
Page from book: Black and white illustration of three kids screaming above text: “A screaming song is good to know in case you need to scream”
For a Moment Her small body rides in my arms as I run to the hospital. There is no electricity and the inner hallways are a forest lined with cots. The girl I carry is dead, I know that. The pressure of the explosion tore apart her thin veins. I know she is dead, but everyone who sees us runs after us. You are alive for a moment, when living people run after you.
Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, is seen in his medical coat approaching Israeli soldiers and tanks storming the hospital. He is now detained for running the last hospital serving northern Gaza amid Israeli attacks,” writes Anas Al-Sharif.
Selfie: Tara in keffiyeh smiling carrying tree at night
Hand-sewn Christmas tree ornament of half a watermelon hanging in tree with white lights
[...] You have entered the tunnel. There is a light in the endless tunnel. Every word you think of has already been written by you or others who skim the spume of their seas. They love to travel. They love you more when you're dead. You're more alive to them dead. Resuscitated, you enter the tunnel you've been walking toward, marched toward, expelled into, dug with your spleen, the graveyard of your blood. Your mass, excised, clears your margins. The passive voice is your killer's voice. From time to time, they vote. From time to time, language dies. It is dying now. Who is alive to speak it?