“I have loved you like darkness loves the base of a throat yet songs I could sing for you won’t come. City of Lou Malnati’s and Giordano’s,” – Phillip B. Williams, “Declaration”
The Language of Music, The Charts of Poetry
“Professional writers don’t have muses; they have mortgages.” – Larry Kahaner
A Concerned Parent Helps Steve Bannon
“And I do think it’s true that men stole / the magical instruments of women // & we were too busy / with ordinary life / to worry about this” – Hoa Nguyen, “You Say The Land” from ‘HECATE LOCHIA’
Friday Links: Anti-Capitalist Black Friday Edition
“The supermarket shelves have been rearranged. It happened one day without warning. There is agitation and panic in the aisles, dismay in the faces of older shoppers.” – Don DeLillo, ‘White Noise’
The Public Utility of The Hellsite
“If there’s anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now” – Zaphod Beeblebrox, ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’
Friday Links: Black Futures Edition
“This is futuristic work—work that doesn’t just serve as a reminder that there will be black people in the future, but work that mines for an understanding…” -Hanif Abdurraqib, blurbing ‘Blackspace’
Cookbooks As Literature
“Great, I thought. It is not mango season and it is not mango country. And I knew those bright flavored gums would not cut it.” – Aimee Bender, “Fruit and Words”
Friday Links: Soft On Crime Edition
“We had been sailing for months. Salt in our sentences. We had been sailing—but the edge of the world was nowhere in sight.” – Ocean Vuong, “Immigrant Haibun”
Remember That You (And Your Little Pumpkins, Too) Will Die
“We did not have to knock down the door, as we had thought, for the main door seemed to open by itself with just the push of a voice…” – Gabriel García Márquez, THE AUTUMN OF THE PATRIARCH