Some Good Stuff… Seven links, and one gorgeous book.
But first, some poetry:
I garden in the soil of a song.
Walk barefoot through rows
of sheet music, picking strawberries
from the low notes, peaches
from the high notes. I feed myself
a chorus, and for the first time
in many months, I am full.~ Andrea Gibson, poet, dying of cancer and making it beautiful
Wait! March, not so fast! (The Daily Respite)
When was the last time you did a cartwheel? ( WOW- Women On Writing)
“From one creative brain to another.”
Book covers are so interesting (Lit Hub)
Hilarious “reviews” of Zillow listings (Jon Carson)
I love a good hiking story (The New York Times)
This gave me a good cry (Will it Ever)
Recent Reads
When I opened this book, I knew nothing about Kaveh Akbar, but by the end of the first page, I knew he was a poet. The structure holds together most of the time, but whatever confusion I experienced during the magical realism sections was forgiven by beautiful sentences.
“It seems very American to expect grief to change something. Like a token you cash in. A formula. Grieve x amount, receive y amount of comfort. Work a day in the grief mines and get paid in tickets to the company store.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!
The twists toward the end made me uncomfortable. I think the same emotional ends could have been made with different means, but this story isn't mine. I will be thinking about that twist, trying in vain to rewrite the ending for a very long time.
In case you missed it:
Influenced
Remember that scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Andy scoffs at the supposed seriousness of selecting a belt?... Behind Maranda’s vicious and iconic take-down is an important question: Where does influence stop and personal taste begin? In other words, do we make choices or “choices”?
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