What I\u2019ve Been Reading This Week:<\/strong><\/p> Poems! Lots of poems. Reading two books a week was a way of trying to regularly incorporate poetry into my reading practice. Since poetry collections are shorter than novels, if I can help it, I\u2019ll be on a three long books\/three poems schedule each month. We got some great ones this week. I\u2019m talking, of course, about Black Pastoral<\/em> by Ariana Benson, Gatherer<\/em> by Todd Osborne, and Lake Michigan<\/em> by Daniel Borzutzky.<\/p> Black Pastoral <\/strong><\/em>by Ariana Benson: <\/strong>I never do this, but I would put this book down because I didn\u2019t want it to end. In fact, it\u2019s the first book I started and the last I finished. Ariana\u2019s poems are spellbinding, and not just because I love nature poems. She reminds me of Dan Beachy-Quick<\/a>, in the sense that I feel like these poems are trying to get at something sacred. But don\u2019t take this for some gentle, weak-and-grass-stained-kneed, we\u2019re-all-having-a-picnic poetics. She also reminds me of Nina Simone. Reading this book, you need to remember the significance of the boll weevil. You need to know about the Great Dismal Swamp (an inspiration for parts of Vine<\/a><\/em>). You need to reckon with \u201cwhy don\u2019t<\/em> I associate more Black poets with the pastoral tradition?\u201d You need, of course, to reckon with this country\u2019s history. But you will have these lyrical, gorgeous poems carrying you, and it will be an experience<\/em> when you read this book. Especially when you get to \u201cStill Life with Bouquet, Golden Spade (out of frame),\u201d my favorite poem in the collection with a title too long for the epigraph. Here\u2019s a bonus epigraph, I think you\u2019ll see who she\u2019s writing after: \u201cbe bloodied as thorns, we be blushed as trumpet <\/em>\/ lily<\/em>, as Damask rose. <\/em>things of beauty\u2014we. \/ we the bolls survived the gin, we the clouds \/ in our own sky, the birds too. we be dandelion<\/em>, \/ be red jasmine<\/em>, be jazz. we flush\u201d<\/p> Gatherer<\/strong><\/em> by Todd Osborne: <\/strong>shoutout to southern poets! I was lucky enough to meet Todd at AWP, when I was talking to the homie Casie Dodd at the table. Like me, Todd\u2019s originally from the suburbs of Middle Tennessee (doesn\u2019t quite ring out like the slums of Shaolin, does it?), and like me, Todd has a real appreciation for the natural beauty of that area. There\u2019s also a lot of radical tenderness (shoutout my beloved ) in this book, a lot of wrestling with how best to be a good person. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, but if my recommendation isn\u2019t enough, it was blurbed by hero of this blog Adam Clay, so. <\/p> Lake Michigan<\/strong><\/em> by Daniel Borzutzky: <\/strong>\u201cI am vehemently protective of my native city\u2026\u201d begins Patricia Smith\u2019s blurb of this book, presumably because the publishers wouldn\u2019t let her simply say \u201cfirst of all, shut the fuck up<\/a> about Chicago<\/a>.\u201d This is a book that deals with my city\u2019s legendary violence. Not in the racist, concern-trolling, \u201cwhy don\u2019t those<\/em> people<\/em> in those neighborhoods<\/em> stop shooting each other?\u201d No, this book is absolutely a product of the Daley\/Jon Burge<\/a> era and the Emanuel\/Jason Van Dyke<\/a> era. This is a city of police violence of mythic proportions, and Borzutzky takes aim squarely at the Ravenswood-dwelling mayor and the Lakefront Liberals who enabled him. Borzutzky is playing in the tradition of Aim\u00e9 C\u00e9saire, Pablo Neruda, Ra\u00fal Zurita, and yes, Gwendolyn Brooks. In the beginning, we see some protesters surrounding the mayor\u2019s house\u2014meant to evoke the protests of Laquan McDonald\u2019s murder\u2014and then the protesters are rounded up and taken to the beach, where they are held indefinitely, murdered over and over again, brainwashed, given hard labor, and all sorts of surrealism- and negritude-inspired horrors are multiplied until the language on the page accurately reflects the beatdown the living under neoliberalism and capitalism. It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve read C\u00e9saire, but the influence was immediate, unmistakeable, and genuinely rattling when applied to the context in which I live. This is a frightening, but maybe necessary, collection to read while thinking about Project 2025. I\u2019ll be returning to this soon, maybe in conjunction with Zurita\u2019s Song For His Disappeared Love<\/em>, a book I really adore that I didn\u2019t realize Borzutzky translated. <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> A new publication in <\/a>Scientific Reports<\/a><\/em> shows that researchers at Chubu University have discovered five new species of bioluminescent snails in Thailand<\/a>. Worth remembering, in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, that there is still a lot of this planet to learn about. <\/p><\/li> Hey, did you know that large birds can help carbon-hungry forests? Suzana Camargo in <\/a>Mongabay <\/a><\/em>reports<\/a> on a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change<\/em> about how fruit-eating birds\u2014those toucans on your cereal box?\u2014can aid in reforestation efforts. As with any good nature news, this comes with a huge HOWEVER\u2014deforestation will, of course, I mean I don\u2019t have to explain how deforestation prevents birds from doing zoochory, right? <\/p><\/li> Maybe I have to explain what zoochory is, since it\u2019s a word I just learned. It\u2019s animal-driven seed dispersal. Here\u2019s an explainer from Mongabay<\/em>. <\/p>![](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/eceffa94-cd6f-42ca-aa15-860e87b991dd_4030x2044.heic\"\/)
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