Bread pot

We're incubating empathy and looking ahead in issue 188 of your weekly poetry shot

Some baguette
and a round semolina
bread with yeast, as Berbers make it;
zaatar spiced melting pot -
our table.

What is your favorite type of bread? Is it one you grew up with, or one you discovered later? For me, it’s all of the above. Recently, we had some bread local to where we live (in France, so yes, baguette) and also a delicious semolina bread made by a local baker with Berber roots. I’ve been thinking about bread quite a lot lately, thanks to my friend Chris and his CoCreated community. He challenged us to talk about bread. And so I did, amongst other things through poetry.

I met Chris on Farcaster, a sufficiently decentralised social networking protocol, that is the playground of predominantly crypto-focused people. Crypto is not really the right term, but one that is most familiar to the people who are not in these circles. We ourselves like to call it Web3, the internet version that is decentralised, self-custodial, immutable and permissionless. The version of the internet as it should be. One where you don’t pay for access with your private data, and one where creators are not only valued, but paid.

Substack, where you find this newsletter at this moment, the platform that helps me send these messages to you, is a kind of in-between solution. You could call it part of the Web2.5 version of the internet. I like Substack. Maybe I even love it. It is home to so much amazing content. Just check out my recommendations to find a sliver of that.

However, I spent most of my time in Web3, and the challenge with that is that it keeps getting harder to go back in time. Back to Web2.5. So, I’ve made a decision to start moving my newsletter fully to Web3. For now, as I’m setting up the new home, you will keep receiving my newsletter as you were used to. But in the next few weeks, the change will be fully implemented, with an end goal of moving the newsletter and you, my amazing subscribers, to another platform.

Not much has to change for you. The transition will be as smooth as possible. I will keep you informed. And, if you are staying with me, you will at one point receive this newsletter from a different platform.

This is also a good time for you to reevaluate how valuable this newsletter is to you. I would love it if you stay subscribed and will move with me, but I will still love you if you choose that this is a great moment to get one newsletter less in your inbox.

The plan is to migrate in the second half of April.

PS: You can collect the poem as in the image above as a digital collectible.

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Poésie de la vie

Writing poetry every day helps you to make sense of the world, strengthen your writing skills, build up your creative confidence, have fun and so much more. In the spirit of the National Poetry Writing Month, which has already for many years actually been an interNAtional POetry WRIting MOnth (NaPoWriMo), I have shared a list of 30 word prompts with my Web3 community. One word for each day of this month I like to call the Onchain Poetry Writing Month (OnPoWriMo), for poetry published on blockchains. Whether you do that or not, whether you are a poet or not, I can highly recommend joining in. You can use the words in the list above. In whichever order you choose. Pick a word and write a poem with or inspired by that word. Can you guess what I did today?

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Poetry elsewhere

One of my favorite poets has released new work this week. She is doing groundbreaking work, using an AI she has trained herself with her own words, and then working together to create poetry. Sasha Stiles is brilliant, and kind and showing how onchain poetry and the world of Web3 are bringing new opportunities. The prices for her unique artworks show that there’s a market for poetry and that she is breaking that wide open. All poets can benefit. From her new collection, you can start with The First Quarter.

There’s always a multitude of facets in all of us. The sacred and the profane, as

Sherman Alexie

calls it in his poem Sylvia Plath in Paris. It’s a celebration of humanity, of feeling empathy for all of us, even if we have been on opposing sides in history, or our people have been the victims of The Other. Well, I can’t write it as well as Sherman Alexie can. Enjoy his Sylvia Plath in Paris:

Sylvia Plath in Paris

If you are looking for very creative poetry, that is available on a blockchain but can be acquired with dollars (or euros), look at this wonderful collection made by the poet known as OddWritings. It’s a collection of playing cards with poetry on them. Enjoy the Poetry Cards by Oddwritings: