“What would you have become if we left you— / a tectonic plate? It doesn’t matter” – C.T. Salazar, “Incident Number To Be Determined”
Sorry not sorry to be a cliché and do a drugs column the day after 4/20. I’ve been reading so much goddamned poetry, it was either this or more NBA playoff highlight clips. Since that’s probably coming next week, here’s something a little different.
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Headless John The Baptist Hitchhiking by C.T. Salazar: what, I’m not going to love a book by a self-described “Latinx poet and librarian from Mississippi” that’s called Headless John The Baptist Hitchhiking (italics for proper titler format and emphasis)? This is one of them “at turns brutal / at turns tender” books, which is one of my favorite genres of poetry. And as someone who grew up religious in the South, this book is a yes. Hey, speaking of unlearning vile institutions you grew up with…
R E D by Chase Berggrun: an erasure of Dracula written as the author was beginning their gender transition and contemplating womanhood in the face of monstrous misogyny. Need I say more? Portions of this book gesture towards a portrait of vampire as domestic abuser, a vital counter to 21st century vampire lit’s tendency to focus on superhuman powers.
Commando by E’mon Lauren: this collection from Chicago’s first Youth Poet Laureate is like if a SZA album was a book of poems set in Chicago, which is about the highest praise I can give a book.
Southside Rain by Quraysh Ali Lansana: fascinating to read this 1999 collection right after Commando (2017) and think about what has changed and what stays the same in Chicago southside poetry. Quraysh came up to Loyola for a reading in 2008 and was incredibly nice in person and generous with his time. He signed this book “One love” to me, which is an appropriate epigraph.
A Street in Bronzeville by Gwendolyn Brooks: throughout history, you can always find examples of people trying to look cool and having sex outside of wedlock. That’s what the dorks who landed at Plymouth Rock never understood.
Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks: add Gwendolyn Brooks to the Lisa Jarnot Memorial Tier Of Poets I Don’t Mind Rhyming. Kenneth Koch didn’t make this tier. I liked this collection less than A Street In Bronzeville—rhyming is really tough for me to handle—but the immense skill on display here! Such a sense of rhythm (different from meter) and such a sense of delight in language. I’m also a sucker for a “life story” collection. Hey, speaking of!
Maud Martha by Gwendolyn Brooks: y’all know I cannot resist a poetic novella. What is National Poetry Month without a little celebration of genre experimentation? Sometime, I want to do a reading unit on the poetic mini-novels of Chicago, like Maud Martha, City On The Make, and House On Mango Street. Absolutely taking suggestions for others.
LINKS!
The legal system in the United States is a shameful embarrassment that history should judge us harshly for. You might not be surprised, then, to learn that expunging marijuana-related convictions from people’s records is a deliberately slow and arduous process. To try to speed things up, Rep. AOC and Rep. Dave Joyce have re-introduced the HOPE Act, which would incentivize state-level expunging. Hang on, this can’t be right—it says Rep. Joyce is a Republican? Holy shit, getting weed convictions off people’s records is bipartisan! Imagine that. The Daily Zeitgeist had a pretty good breakdown in their B block Thursday. Some of these cases might be as simple as updating a website!
Over at The Triibe: Coldhard from Crucial Conflict reflects on weed legalization, 26 years after “Hay” came out. He and I may disagree on whether or not to trust dispensaries, but I never question a Black person being suspicious of suddenly-friendly white people.
Are you or someone you love struggling with drinking? Well, try weed! No, seriously, there exists a drug out there that can pleasantly soothe inhibitions and anxiety, but won’t wreck your liver. Anecdotally, I can attest to swapping cocktails for a Pepsi spiked with a low dose of Spring Lake Craft Infusions SURP does everything I want liquor to do, but none of the things I don’t want liquor to do. I am also excited to try Señorita’s (NA) Margarita this weekend (5mg THC).
Or if instead of taking my word for it, you can read a somewhat more-rigorously researched LeafWell article on marijuana’s potential for fighting alcoholism. (Mallory points out that of course LeafWell would this. To which I say, it was like, illegal to research this stuff for a long time, man)
Hey, while we’re talking about research the United States is woefully behind the proverbial 8-ball on, have you heard about psilocybin’s potential for treating PTSD and depression? I’ve never tried shrooms—honestly, despite the title of this column, I am pretty tame about drugs, never tried anything beyond liquor or weed—but I think this research should be talked about more. Especially given the state of how this country treats veterans (or makes war movies). Here’s Johns Hopkins on using mushrooms to treat depression.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris