What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week:<\/strong><\/p> It\u2019s a little hard to put a Content Warning on a blog when the main image has The Most Famous Sinner and The Most Cardinal Sin blaring directly from the cover image, but Maya Williams\u2019s debut collection of poetry has no patience for anyone who can\u2019t take a band-aid getting ripped off. <\/p> This collection has the rawness and vulnerability that you\u2019d expect from the brazen title, and it resists the exclamation point-riddled cliches that sentences like this usually end in, such as \u201cbut there\u2019s a real heart to these poems!\u201d or \u201cbut secretly it\u2019s hopeful!\u201d What this book does is really confront the reader with these raw feelings, with these no-good-answer-questions about the world and its violences, with this stripped-down look at the character of Judas and what he means. When Maya was on The Line Break a couple months back<\/a>, they said a strength of their writing was \u201ccrispness,\u201d and it\u2019s true. Often, that crispness lends itself to effectively brusque questions. <\/p> One more thing I love about this book: there\u2019s a multiple of voices here, without the poems explicitly announcing themselves as having multiple voices. I mean, contrapuntals are contrapuntals, but it\u2019s more than just that. It gave me Sonia Sanchez vibes<\/a> a little bit. Part of me wonders if the multitude of voices is a byproduct of Christianity\u2014I know when I prayed regularly, it sometimes felt like I had a running dialogue with God in my head. Maybe some people would call it Superego, but I don\u2019t care for Freud. Anyway, without the poems telling me they were doing it, it felt like the poems had a multitude of speakers, which is very cool. <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Remember how earlier I said \u201cto live is to scroll your phone?\u201d That\u2019s bogus. Do not take that to heart. I mean\u2014finish reading this column and text 10 friends about it\u2014but seriously, get off your phone. It\u2019s summer. Don\u2019t want to get off your phone? Reminisce about what life was like before phones with Dan Kois in <\/a>Slate<\/a><\/em>. <\/p><\/li> Really happy to learn early Chicago rappers were clued in to The Vampire Lestat <\/em>being bisexual. There\u2019s that and more in Leor Galil\u2019s <\/a>Chicago Reader<\/a><\/em> writeup of He Who Walks Three Ways and Chicago\u2019s very queer late 80s\/early 90s hip-hop scene<\/a>. Another detail I liked was Duro Wicks playing videotapes during open mic sets. Some of the most fun shows have video playing behind the band. Also shoutout to when The Boiler Room used to play skate videos on their fishbowl TVs. <\/p><\/li> I haven\u2019t had a chance to read it yet, but please check out the digital chapbook <\/a>Little Crimes<\/a><\/em> by Brooke Kolcow<\/a>, who is also the Deputy Editor and Snack Mechanic of . What little I\u2019ve read of B\u2019s work, I\u2019ve enjoyed, and what\u2019s a common refrain on this blog? We love art made outside of capitalism! Excited to dive into this, and please go purchase a copy for yourself. <\/p><\/li> Never a bad idea to link off to Blood Knife<\/em>, especially for this piece from Connor Wroe Southard championing human writing over AI<\/a>. I may be more anti-ChatGPT than even Connor\u2019s \u201cJohn Henry\u201d scenario at the end, but the point of \u201cthe \u2018better\u2019 of the machine and the \u2018better\u2019 of the human author [might not] exist on the same axis.\u201d The machines will always be measured against how well they can be us, which is frankly real loser shit from the machines.<\/p><\/li> We wrap up with another Chicago Reader<\/a><\/em> piece, a collection of interviews with trans elders<\/a>. As Culture Editor Taryn Allen notes in the intro, \u201cit\u2019s rare to encounter trans elders\u2026but beyond ignorance, cruelty, and hateful legislation, trans people can have futures.\u201d<\/p>![\"'Judas](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/fa353fa0-8598-45e5-934f-b3bef180e4fc_3024x4032.jpeg\")
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