What I\u2019ve Been Reading Lately:<\/strong><\/p> This week, I read a book that celebrates language in all its idiosyncrasies and power and beauty. I also read a book half by accident (more on that in a minute) that nevertheless worked some magic on me, spin cycled me until my heart felt cleaner. Made me grateful to have read it. I\u2019m talking, of course, about Indeterminate Inflorescene<\/em> by Lee Seong-bok and Heaven <\/em>by Mieko Kawakami. <\/p> Indeterminate Inflorescence<\/strong><\/em> by Lee Seong-bok, translated by Anton Hur: <\/strong>the kind of book you devour in a week for your blog, this is not. There are 470 aphorisms from the poet about poetry, collected by the poet\u2019s students, and they will all stop you like a construction barricade. This is a book you keep on your desk\u2014desk, not shelf\u2014and pick up whenever your writing starts to feel like too many leaves on a sewer grate during a summer shower. Or for poetry readers, this a great reference book on how to approach a poem. It reminds us why we read sometimes poetry, sometimes read novels, and sometimes read instruction manuals. <\/p> This is also, I recognize from the description above, the kind of corny shit your well-meaning but clueless grandmother gets you for Christmas when you say you\u2019re majoring in creative writing. Thanks, Grandma, I really needed Madeline Albright reminding me to breathe before picking up a pen<\/em>. Reader, that sort of book this is not. This is a good book. <\/p> Some favorites: <\/p> 40: \u201cWhen writing poetry, you need to roll the words around your mouth like candy. Beethover is said to have gotten the theme for a quartet piece when he overheard a debtor shouting, \u2018I don\u2019t have any money!\u2019\u201d<\/p> 41: \u201c\u2018Mug\u2019 is a more vibrant word than \u2018face.\u2019 Vernacular language is living language. Profanities and slang are poetic treasure chests.\u201d<\/p> 130: \u201cThere\u2019s a story about the sun and the wind betting on how to take the clothes off a man. If prose is the method in which the wind whips off the clothes, poetry is the sun\u2019s method. Because poetry uses indirect methods like levers and pulleys, it can exert a greater strength.\u201d<\/p> 198: \u201cPoetry is a near-death experience and a practice of death. Just as there can be no expectations of death, don\u2019t expect anything from poetry. Poetry is something no one can do anything about.\u201d<\/p> 225: \u201cA poem is the short journey from the known to the unknown. That journey creates knowledge, and when we return from that journey, we\u2019ve become a different person.\u201d<\/p> 331: \u201cIn the wide blue ocean, the fisherperson is at a loss as to where a net should be cast; this desperation, regret, triviality, and futility are the very colors and skills of poetry.\u201d<\/p> 412: \u201cJust a fisherman cannot predict what they\u2019ll catch, no one knows what will show up in their writing. Instead, try to maintain an attitude of discovering things without searching for them. Planning and predicting are only the beginning of things.\u201d<\/p> Heaven<\/strong><\/em> by Mieko Kawakami: <\/strong>dudes, idk if my brain\u2019s synapses didn\u2019t make the purple-to-red transfer at Belmont, but when I first heard about this, I heard it was a hurricane novel. I\u2019m really interested in disaster novels, especially ones grounded in realism rather than dystopia. Reader, this is not a hurricane novel. This is a pretty graphic and brutal middle school bullying novel. No question, I would have avoided it like Dale and Brennan avoiding that way home<\/a>. I am not normally one to shy away from difficult subjects, and I (very luckily) don\u2019t have bullying PTSD, but it is the kind of topic that is difficult for me to steel myself against. <\/p> By no means was I a popular kid in school, but I Had Friends (brag) and Loved Learning (nerd<\/a>) and therefore kind of enjoyed school, even amidst teen angst. Stories of people having different experiences hurts to hear, and you can psychoanalyze whether that\u2019s for \u201cas a parent\u201d reasons or \u201cI had plenty of friends who did experience bullying and the hours we teenagers spent on AIM trying to convince each other life was worth living is still a sore wound\u201d reasons, but a big thing is it just really fuckin bums me out when people have school experiences like Kojima or Heaven<\/em>\u2019s unnamed narrator (I will not<\/em> be referring to him as \u201cEyes,\u201d the only epithet he\u2019s given, thanks to a lazy eye. Solidarity, as a one-eyed person myself). <\/p> But that\u2019s two paragraphs of intro for a book that deserves more, because even though it is a subject I\u2019d typically avoid, I am so glad I read this book<\/em>. It\u2019s incredibly tender, incredibly moving, and, in addition to being moving, profoundly unsettling. It does that thing literature does, where it presents with a situation frankly and straightforwardly and offers no easy answers, no lasting solutions. But it is a narrative, and there are changes\u2014I saw some reviewer call the narrator \u201cflat,\u201d and I wholeheartedly disagree. The narrator is passive, sometimes to a frustrating degree. But this is a short novel that (forgive me) starts in media res\u2014much like the frog-in-the-pot feeling I imagine bullying victims must feel, you don\u2019t get a chance to adjust before something horrible happens. So while I very much reject Kojima\u2019s assertion that she and the narrator are bullying victims because they are supposed to be, I understand passivity and immobility in the face of unbelievable cruelty. Anytime I felt frustrated, I took it as a cue to empathize with the narrator more. <\/p> Because within the 177 pages of this novel lies some of the most breathtaking cruelty I\u2019ve ever seen committed to paper. And I\u2019ve read Blood Meridian<\/em> and various histories<\/a> of the United States<\/a>. The bullies here are as violent and unfeeling as Anton Chigurh or The Judge. Yuk yuk, and I thought my middle school years were bad, blah blah. It\u2019s a hard topic to sit with, and as such, I\u2019m grateful Mieko wrote such a thorough, tender mediation on the subject. I\u2019m glad I read it. I\u2019m not in a hurry to read it again soon. <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Got excited about reading up there and forgot to mention I\u2019m in Mexico City right now<\/em>. As such, I\u2019ve pre-written this and scheduled it. If anything wild happened since Tuesday, don\u2019t tell me. Picture me in front of a mural eating lengua tacos. You want something listen to? Brendan recently turned me on to Kevin Abstract and Brockhampton, so how about \u201cTennessee\u201d by Kevin Abstract feat. Lil Nas X?<\/p>![\"Heaven](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/82ea8dde-375d-4920-a0d1-2a79f3b831a3.heic\")
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