“Wear some socks, I say, looking down at my own bare ankles.” – Diane Seuss, “I’m full of sadness”
Whenever my kid and his cousins are playing a game that does not involve teams, scoring points, or competition, yet inevitably devolve into arguments about who “won?” I tell them, “Frank O’Hara would say ‘and in a sense we’re all winning / we’re alive.’” Does this solve anything? No. Of course not. But we’re not talking about solving anything. We’re talking about Friday—which, you made it to Friday! Well done!
What I’ve Been Reading This Week:
Two books with witch boots on the cover—it’s poetry week! I was craving it. Few things more whiplash-inducing than reading 800 pages of Hitchhiker’s Guide and then swerving into contemporary poetry. Then again, skating that multimodal vert ramp is what I do, homies. So what’d I read? Oh, nothing, just a coupla all-timers—Four-Legged Girl by Diane Seuss and Toska by Alina Pleskova.
four-legged girl by Diane Seuss: my second time reading a Diane Seuss book, and I’m not telling anyone anything they didn’t already know when I say this book rules. These are poems written by a person who has lived life. From a rural childhood to New York-during-the-times-everyone-agrees-cool-art-stuff-was-happening, we the reader are melodically swept through time spent with Warhol and Burroughs, time spent writing smut novels or being a typist, time spent with a junkie boyfriend, time spent becoming a mother. Still: Diane Seuss is one of those people who the more she reveals, the less you feel you know. Couple that with the fact that these are top-tier poems. I mean—music, image, metaphor, swooping from thought to thought, the right words in the right order. These are poems I will read when I am stuck on my own poetry, to remind me how to write good poems.
Toska by Alina Pleskova: talk about leftist writing dealing with the catastrophe of our age! This is my second time reading the book cover-to-cover, but I revisit it frequently. It gets better every time. These poems are deeply moving while also being pretty casual, like Alina is seeing through the noise of contemporary life with a clearer lens that also has the angel of music whispering over her shoulder. There is the kind of hedonism I can get behind—humans were given five senses, and we should use them. If Diane Seuss is a book of poems from someone who has lived life, this book is poems of someone really living life, wringing every drop from the rag that is our existence. I can’t say enough nice things about it. Read this book.
LINKS!
Something to listen to while you browse? Hey, how about this—the first ‘regular’ episode of the Lazy & Entitled Podcast is up! We’re going to do at least one of these month. It’s a show about work, and it’s a show about being an artist.
Here’s Robert Evans at talking about what we do next, after failing to stop the rise of fascism.
In case you skipped that Robert Evans link—you really ourt not to, as its maybe the clearest-eyed case of how we got from 2015 to now, from someone who has spent that 10 years reporting on the growth of the neo-nazi movement—you missed the fact that United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has called for a General Strike in 2028. Read that call here, and mark your calendars for May 2028.
Voting is not where your power begins and ends in this country, Adam Conover reminds us:
If you work in the service industry, may you clean up in tips this weekend. Don’t let your customers or coworkers force you to drink if you don’t want to. If you don’t want to drink, you can always read leftist witch poetry.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris