“The rain slammed Alex’s windshield harder, as if the storm knew what was about to happen and wanted to warn him.” – Hailey Piper, ‘No Gods For Drowning’
Hey, time for another one of these! Fun to look back at the first one for this year and see the differences in books read. As always, I hope this is a fun found poem for you to read. May you be able to get some something out of this collage.
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“But I suit any space, the little boy whines. But I consume up to 30% less energy, the little girl squeals. But I’m made from recycled paper, the little boy whines. But I have a folding bin-lid, the little girl squeals.” – Paul Cunningham, “BATH & STORAGE”
“Now listen, I thought it out last night. And it struck me. What have I got to feel threatened about? Next to nothing. I broke up with my wife, I plan to quit my job today, my apartment is rented, and I have no furnishings worth worrying about. By way of holdings, I’ve got maybe two million yen in savings, a used car, and a cat who’s getting on in years. My clothes are all out of fashion, and my records are ancient. I’ve made no name for myself, have no social credibility, no sex appeal, no talent. I’m not so young anymore, and I’m always saying dumb things that I later regret. In a word, to borrow your turn of phrase, I am an utterly mediocre person. What have I got to lose? If you can think of anything, clue me in, why don’t you?” – Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
“The passive voice / is your killer’s voice. / From time to time, they vote. / From time to time, language dies.” – Fady Joudah, “[…]”
“A god who wants blood will find a way.” – Hailey Piper, No Gods For Drowning
“Who do I want to be intimate with today? Random strangers or my clitoris?” – Vi Khi Nao, My Ardent Love For The Pencil
“Koala caresses and no echo. Only wildfires and prisons of people. Prisons of people, prisons of people as far as the eye can see.” – Paul Cunningham, “BATH & STORAGE”
“yo what is up guys / today i am doing my best / to exploit tragedies / for increased revenue” – Paul Cunningham, SOCIOCIDE AT THE 24/7
“imagine telling your principal / you want whatever BRO is on” – Paul Cunningham, SOCIOCIDE AT THE 24/7
“There are various reasons why an individual would habitually consume large quantities of alcohol, but they all effectively boil down to the same thing.” – Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
“Rage on the grinding spot / Independence Day rag laundry day / my boy wears shark pajamas / Mother ran large food trays sore” – Hoa Nguyen, “Rage Sonnet”
“What it means to be / out of work: // Write a crime novel / Work at a food bank” – Hoa Nguyen, “I’m Stuck”
“Most guitarists can’t wash dishes.” – Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
“I want to strum / or mask this day” – Hoa Nguyen, “Independence Day 2010”
“Art works at the particle level. Tiny fragments of graphite in a pencil, tiny fragments of pigment suspended in oil. The thrill is manipulating these hundred billion little bits of stone into an image that will please you. People who want to make art, but can’t, are very unhappy. The only thing they can manipulate is people, and a person is a very unsatisfying particle.” – Isaac Fellman, Notes From A Regicide
“Developed in secret / at Harvard produced // by Dow Chemical / An efficient incendiary formula // perfected on Valentine’s Day” – Hoa Nguyen, “NAPALM NOTES”
“A poor person’s instrument // With an electric pickup and amp / you can make it sing // Welcome to the Hotel California” – Hoa Nguyen, “LEARNING THE ÐÀN BÂU”
“A saint she ain’t” – Hoa Nguyen, “HAGIOGRAPHY”
“The world goes on without me. People cross streets through no intervention on my part, sharpen pencils, and move fifty yards a minute east to west, fill coffee lounges with music that’s refined to nothingness.” – Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
“but not the violence of my father’s boot. i wondered // if mercy was the baseline for God & if so who would write / bibles about my mother? years later i would” – Mckendy Fils-Aimé, “reverence”
“Purple is the color of my scars. / Purple is my favorite color. / I’m forever in bloom.” – H Melt, “DYSPHORIA IS NOT MY NAME”
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“that night mom watched me break / into a fever & we realized something / more than her had put me in this world / & that it could take me back, if it wanted.” – Mckendy Fils-Aimé “the summer Mom said i put you in this world, i can take you out”
“Inexperience isn’t a sin, at your age.” – Isaac Fellman, Notes From A Regicide
“That’s why I carry crystals in my change purse; heed crocodiles, alligators, and cassowaries in dreams. Defeat in the cards—I know better, now.” – Jameela F. Dallis, “See Me Now”
“I want your gritty love / from an ocean of detritus—organic and plastic and unknown” – Jameela F. Dallis, “Nacre”
“and the light hides your body’s tented // armory. you’re building a moat. / scramble to the deep end and dig even farther, / that’s the only way they say you’ll get anywhere.” – Giovanna Lomanto, “untitled 001”
“how it feels for hands to touch regardless. you remember / you are ten feet taller than you anticipated you would be after / mortar and pestle took to spine. ground you / up, dried tenderly by the strings of your underwear” – Giovanna Lomanto, “gargle”
“we skimp out on dinner because we’ve eaten too many chocolate squares. / arguably, the sky is screaming itself open,” – Giovanna Lomanto, “the hum of the muni has always felt”
“she will be taught nothing of manners but everything of respect.” – Giovanna Lomanto, “in this universe, i (name my daughter monday)”
“The cat got frightened, bit the chauffeur’s arm, then farted.” – Haruki Murakami, ‘A WILD SHEEP CHASE’
“And now in the freezer, / It’s a cold ghost that doesn’t shrink. / It has no clue why it builds frost—” Belle Ling, “CONTEMPLATING THE COD”
“I fly to the future // to retrieve my demolished present / as a legible past. To see // what isn’t hard to see / in a world that doesn’t.” – Fady Joudah, […]
“From time to time in the dark of its loneliness, it had reminisced upon the trusting act that was loving, the spring sunlight of it, that could push comfort into the cracks of a long winter’s ice.”- Mina Ikemoto Ghosh, ‘Numamushi’
“If a ghost is the nameless memory of a person, named through remembrance, then a curse is the nameless pain of a deed, named through being known .” – Mina Ikemoto Ghosh, ‘Numamushi’
“In the water of the river’s words, the poison of the past scattered, became moonlight scales floating with a trace of mirror gleam.” – Mina Ikemoto Ghosh, ‘Numamushi’
“how fast is allegro, how relentlessly should I give / so love would relax its feet for me to paddle along?” – Belle Ling, “SPEED ODE”
“Local celebrities can be loved with more devotion and ferocity than the singers, actresses, or athletes who never walk the aisles of the same hardware store, the same supermarket, never near enough to be called to or touched upon their shoulders. In Santa Maria the locals were infatuated with Kane.” – Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, The Book Of Kane And Margaret
“Lullabies should be succinct, repetitive, and plain in their message. There should be animals in lullabies. Those animals should have jobs. The animals should be diligent workers…” – Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, The Book Of Kane And Margaret
“The intention wasn’t bad, but the effect was unpalatable. Like serving sherbet and broccoli on the same silver platter.” – Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
“Beyond a certain point, it ceased to be body odor and blended into time, merged with the light.” – Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase
“on trans street / there are / no prisons / no checkpoints / no police stations / no military bases / no detention centers” – H Melt, “ON TRANS STREET”
“Golf courses colonize already colonized land. / I long to be brave enough to trespass.” – Summer Farah, “THE BIRDS ARE CALLING”
“Wake up, Dreams! Let me give you a bath!” – Vi Khi Nao, My Ardent Love For The Pencil
“Each day I interact with my pencil—the more I appreciate her. The subtle things she says or does.” -Vi Khi Nao, My Ardent Love For The Pencil
“on trans street there are bungalows / courtyard buildings / & rent control” – H Melt, “ON TRANS STREET”
“and the streets do not care for our mornings, / and we do not flinch.” – Giovanna Lomanto, “domestic”
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“What did the fence and watchtower protect? Who is going to walk into the desert? What is welcome in the other side of the desert for any of us?” – Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, The Book Of Kane And Margaret
“I had a crush on a roly-poly when I was younger. He was the one who showed me I didn’t have to be a full-moon shape all the time. I could be more like the little hat a jellyfish wears. Or I could be a rind of bitter melon.” – Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi, The Book Of Kane And Margaret
“You must understand that at all times, I wanted this couple to scoop me into their arms, except for when they did, which was my cue to wiggle and break away and shout at them and run to my room.” – Isaac Fellman, Notes From A Regicide
“For months, I ate as if it was a performance. / Watermelon, overripe figs, anything to attract / a wasp, anything to incite panic, anything to start my heart.” – Summer Farrah, “READING MARY OLIVER IN LA VERNE”
“I learn independence through the cost of fruit / a walk in blazing sun / plastic bags full, weighing into the veins of my fingers. This, the first summer away from home.” – Summer Farah, “THE FIGS ARE MOLDING”
“Forgive me, for confusing recognition for solidarity. I am simple. It feels good to know someone feels bad in just the same way.” – Summer Farah, “I TELL ETEL ADNAN ABOUT MITSKI”
“Don’t tell your father! she said, and I never did.” – Molly Gaudry, Fit Into Me
“Full of nostalgia for rink-stink and competition…I declared the single goal of getting ready to try out for one of the DC Rollergirls teams, which appealed to me because at that time in my life I wanted to be surrounded by strong, tough women who would protect me on all sides as I made my way through various obstacles, literal and metaphorical.” – Molly Gaudry, Fit Into Me
“on trans street / no catcalling / is allowed” – H Melt, “ON TRANS STREET”
“Because on some level I can appreciate that she is probably not my biological mother. But I cling to it, this story, this fantasy, this just-barely plausible theory. Like anyone else I want an origin story. Because even when we know them to be unlikely, untrue, we hold on to our narratives, against all reason and against our better sense. Because who are we, otherwise? How else are we to attempt to make sense of ourselves?” – Molly Gaudry, Fit Into Me
“Connie began her eulogy: My father had a way of making commands into gentle questions.” – Molly Gaudry, Fit Into Me
“My narrator is so lonely, so desperate, she makes up a ghost to keep her company. And then makes up a ghost child for them to adopt.” – Molly Gaudry, Fit Into Me
“I saw my parents at a riot once.” – Isaac Fellman, Notes From A Regicide
“His way had never solved a problem, only caused new ones, as if that were all his police could do.” – Hailey Piper, No Gods For Drowning
“My first thought was that it must be remarkable to know whom you trust.” – Isaac Fellman, Notes From A Regicide
“At a certain point, a method of survival can become a pleasure—that’s why I love to cook—just as a method of pleasure can become one of survival. That’s why Etoine loved to drink.” – Isaac Fellman, Notes From A Regicide
“She preferred to cut a crisp figure than an elegant one, though she was known to slouch for the love of contradiction.” – OF Cieri, BACKMASK
“Anyway, she’s had good experiences with public defenders in the past. They were all badly overworked, but they were idealists, which made them good-natured under the heavy layer of burnout.” – OF Cieri, BACKMASK
“Chill thought they were of like minds when she started working for him. She now knew Mr. Hush was under the mistaken belief that misanthropy was a sign of genius.” – OF Cieri, BACKMASK
“patrolling my neighborhood. I want / trans musicians playing on my stereo / trans designers crafting my clothes / trans chefs filling my stomach / trans farmers planting my food / & trans gardens picking / flowers for my funeral.” – H Melt, “I DON’T WANT A TRANS PRESIDENT”
“He shook his head as if to slide this new knowledge into place.” – Hailey Piper, No Gods For Drowning
“Fate is many throats with one stomach.” – Hailey Piper, No Gods For Drowning
“You’ve got a real mission to help our people, but that won’t be easy for you either, because all you can think about is how much you despise authority, not what you can actually do to fight it.” – Isaac Fellman, Notes From A Regicide
“I know you’re afraid for me. But this thing isn’t going to stop with costumes and—and weird little pieces of street art. It’s going to get loud and ugly. I don’t want it that way, I don’t want it to come to a fight, I think there are other ways to make things change. There’s the kind of change where you do new things, and the kind where you refuse to do things, and I like that second one. But a fight is what people want, even if they won’t open their eyes to what they’re running towards. And when they get there, I don’t want them to hit a wall. I want people to have knives and guns in their hands, instead of—rocks and tools or whatever. I don’t want the Prince’s men and the army to just kill everybody the way they always have before.” – Isaac Fellman, Notes From A Regicide
Sorry you got an email,
Chris