Julia DeFranco
@juliadefranco.bsky.social
Chronically ill Unitarian Universalist and lover of fantasy novels. He/him or she/her.
Reposted by Julia DeFranco
Need to make sure @whysharksmatter.bsky.social’s new book becomes a NYT Bestseller
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The biggest threat to marine biodiversity is not climate change, plastic pollution, or oil spills- it's unsustainable fishing practices. And while solutions to this problem exist, many people find them confusing or contradictory.
“Why Sustainable Seafood Matters” is now available for preorder! Here’s what it’s about, and why I decided to write it.
I am thrilled to announce that “Why Sustainable Seafood Matters,” my second book, is now available for preorder through my publisher Johns Hopkins University Press! Use code HWSSM for 3…
www.southernfriedscience.com
June 9, 2026 at 10:59 PM
Need to make sure @whysharksmatter.bsky.social’s new book becomes a NYT Bestseller
bsky.app/profile/whys...
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about alliteration and assonance and what it means to make art.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
about alliteration and assonance and what it means to make art.
because I have a book of poems by Robert Frost and decided to write one of them out and then was thinking about the poem, and about how poems change when you read them silently vs read them out loud vs memorize them, and got to interrupt my husband (working from home) and talk his ear off
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
because I have a book of poems by Robert Frost and decided to write one of them out and then was thinking about the poem, and about how poems change when you read them silently vs read them out loud vs memorize them, and got to interrupt my husband (working from home) and talk his ear off
many of the hobbies and recreational activities I used to enjoy are no longer available to me.
And, at the same time, there are many activities that I can still do that are enjoyable and satisfying. My emotional range is not much different. I can still, for instance, get inordinately excited
And, at the same time, there are many activities that I can still do that are enjoyable and satisfying. My emotional range is not much different. I can still, for instance, get inordinately excited
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
many of the hobbies and recreational activities I used to enjoy are no longer available to me.
And, at the same time, there are many activities that I can still do that are enjoyable and satisfying. My emotional range is not much different. I can still, for instance, get inordinately excited
And, at the same time, there are many activities that I can still do that are enjoyable and satisfying. My emotional range is not much different. I can still, for instance, get inordinately excited
I'm not in fact getting up at dawn to go outside. Many days I don't get dressed until mid-afternoon. My ability to do paid work is more or less non-existent, my ability to do *volunteer* work is extremely limited, I don't do very much housework, my social life has significant restrictions,
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
I'm not in fact getting up at dawn to go outside. Many days I don't get dressed until mid-afternoon. My ability to do paid work is more or less non-existent, my ability to do *volunteer* work is extremely limited, I don't do very much housework, my social life has significant restrictions,
I would have to get across how life is simultaneously narrow and more limited, and also just life.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
I would have to get across how life is simultaneously narrow and more limited, and also just life.
III. Sickness
I've had chronic fatigue syndrome for over a decade now, and mostly I don't talk about it (what is there to say? and how to talk about it without other people thinking I'm offering them a puzzle to solve?) but if I was going to explain what life is like with this illness,
I've had chronic fatigue syndrome for over a decade now, and mostly I don't talk about it (what is there to say? and how to talk about it without other people thinking I'm offering them a puzzle to solve?) but if I was going to explain what life is like with this illness,
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
III. Sickness
I've had chronic fatigue syndrome for over a decade now, and mostly I don't talk about it (what is there to say? and how to talk about it without other people thinking I'm offering them a puzzle to solve?) but if I was going to explain what life is like with this illness,
I've had chronic fatigue syndrome for over a decade now, and mostly I don't talk about it (what is there to say? and how to talk about it without other people thinking I'm offering them a puzzle to solve?) but if I was going to explain what life is like with this illness,
That's a thing about being in nature and in solitude in nature and having a specific emotional experience that had to happen in that specific context. Anything else the poem might mean has to start from that understanding, attempting to express the inexpressible moment in time and space.)
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
That's a thing about being in nature and in solitude in nature and having a specific emotional experience that had to happen in that specific context. Anything else the poem might mean has to start from that understanding, attempting to express the inexpressible moment in time and space.)
you can't possibly accurately understand what he's trying to say about anything else. Sometimes you go outside around dawn and everything is quiet and empty and still and ... transcendent. And it doesn't stay. You're not going to get that same feeling at three in the afternoon.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
you can't possibly accurately understand what he's trying to say about anything else. Sometimes you go outside around dawn and everything is quiet and empty and still and ... transcendent. And it doesn't stay. You're not going to get that same feeling at three in the afternoon.
(As with a lot of Robert Frost, I'm not super opposed to looking for Big life-meaning type stuff in them, but I think you have to *start* with appreciating the poem as expressing a thing about nature and being in nature that's hard to express, and if you miss that thing
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
(As with a lot of Robert Frost, I'm not super opposed to looking for Big life-meaning type stuff in them, but I think you have to *start* with appreciating the poem as expressing a thing about nature and being in nature that's hard to express, and if you miss that thing
And of course, "dawn" and "down" and "day" alliterate, and they're all on the stressed syllables so it's just such an incredibly line phonetically. And right before the last line, which has no alliteration either, as if to emphasize that all goodness and beauty is gone.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
And of course, "dawn" and "down" and "day" alliterate, and they're all on the stressed syllables so it's just such an incredibly line phonetically. And right before the last line, which has no alliteration either, as if to emphasize that all goodness and beauty is gone.
I was going off about this with my husband, and he pointed out the incongruity of dawn going "down", and I think that does so much! The sense of things being wrong or off, the parallel with the fall of man evoked by Eden in the previous line.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
I was going off about this with my husband, and he pointed out the incongruity of dawn going "down", and I think that does so much! The sense of things being wrong or off, the parallel with the fall of man evoked by Eden in the previous line.
And then there's no assonance at all in the last line! Every other poem in the line has at least one repeated vowel sound. The last line is abandoned.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
And then there's no assonance at all in the last line! Every other poem in the line has at least one repeated vowel sound. The last line is abandoned.
Anyways. It's a very fun poem to say out loud, and a very fun poem to memorize because the words are so consciously chosen. Even small words like the "so" in "but only so an hour", that could have been "for" except the "so" has the same vowel sound as "only".
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
Anyways. It's a very fun poem to say out loud, and a very fun poem to memorize because the words are so consciously chosen. Even small words like the "so" in "but only so an hour", that could have been "for" except the "so" has the same vowel sound as "only".
and the -ly and early are joined by being in the same word. Huh.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
and the -ly and early are joined by being in the same word. Huh.
you know, just writing this out I think I got that wrong, I don't think "leaf" sounds connected to the start of the line because er and ee are similar, it's more likely to be because the -ly in early alliterates with leaf, and of course the er in early
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
you know, just writing this out I think I got that wrong, I don't think "leaf" sounds connected to the start of the line because er and ee are similar, it's more likely to be because the -ly in early alliterates with leaf, and of course the er in early
has repeated er, uh, and ur sounds and all of those are really close to each other, and the er er of "her early" sounds similar to the ee of leaf...
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
has repeated er, uh, and ur sounds and all of those are really close to each other, and the er er of "her early" sounds similar to the ee of leaf...
recover since with that very word we suddenly switch to assonance, "her early". I don't know if there's a special word for it when poets use similar vowel sounds that aren't quite the same, but I do think it matters that "the sad, somewhat uncertain rustling of each purple curtain"
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
recover since with that very word we suddenly switch to assonance, "her early". I don't know if there's a special word for it when poets use similar vowel sounds that aren't quite the same, but I do think it matters that "the sad, somewhat uncertain rustling of each purple curtain"
fundamentally artistic in nature.
II. This poem
This poem! It's got so much going on in such a short space. The alliteration of "her hardest hue to hold" (4/5 words in the line alliterating, 3/3 stressed syllables) and then the first word of the next line also alliterates! But there's no time to
II. This poem
This poem! It's got so much going on in such a short space. The alliteration of "her hardest hue to hold" (4/5 words in the line alliterating, 3/3 stressed syllables) and then the first word of the next line also alliterates! But there's no time to
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
fundamentally artistic in nature.
II. This poem
This poem! It's got so much going on in such a short space. The alliteration of "her hardest hue to hold" (4/5 words in the line alliterating, 3/3 stressed syllables) and then the first word of the next line also alliterates! But there's no time to
II. This poem
This poem! It's got so much going on in such a short space. The alliteration of "her hardest hue to hold" (4/5 words in the line alliterating, 3/3 stressed syllables) and then the first word of the next line also alliterates! But there's no time to
Does making the first "leaf" in "so leaf subsides to leaf" gold enhance the original intent of the poem (a special leaf turning into an ordinary leaf) or detract from it (a thing "subsiding" to itself should perhaps be jarring or confusing)? There is a need to make choices that are
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
Does making the first "leaf" in "so leaf subsides to leaf" gold enhance the original intent of the poem (a special leaf turning into an ordinary leaf) or detract from it (a thing "subsiding" to itself should perhaps be jarring or confusing)? There is a need to make choices that are
Obviously writing someone else's poem down is not the same as writing a poem. But it can *interpret* a poem in a way that's a little bit like playing someone else's musical composition. When some words are written in gold, not writing a word in gold emphasizes its non-golden-ness.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
Obviously writing someone else's poem down is not the same as writing a poem. But it can *interpret* a poem in a way that's a little bit like playing someone else's musical composition. When some words are written in gold, not writing a word in gold emphasizes its non-golden-ness.
An adaptation or a translation alters the original work, and a very skillful translation can do things with the new language that are consistent with the overall intent of the original work that cannot be expressed the same way in the first language.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
An adaptation or a translation alters the original work, and a very skillful translation can do things with the new language that are consistent with the overall intent of the original work that cannot be expressed the same way in the first language.
who have their own interpretations of tempo and dynamics and so on. A novel only really exists while being read, the characters and events imagined differently by each reader, often differently each time it's read and then imagined yet a different way in memory.
June 9, 2026 at 5:46 PM
who have their own interpretations of tempo and dynamics and so on. A novel only really exists while being read, the characters and events imagined differently by each reader, often differently each time it's read and then imagined yet a different way in memory.