I feel like poems are full of language and we're all sort of full of language, like advertisements or news articles. And so I think a lot of poetry is concentrating that. It's sort of like an espresso shot of language.
Jane Shi has a new book of poetry, echolalia echolalia.
These are edge-dwelling times.
I'm currently reading If Women Rose Rooted by Sharon Blackie. I loved the first of her books I read, The Enchanted Life, and I have Hagitude on hold next.
The last time I went to XOXO, I read and finished Deep Work by Cal Newport on the bus down to Portland. This time, it was Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin keeping me company on the train.
I haven't been reading much this year. Here's a list of books I've borrowed from the library, but not finished:
- The Well-Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith
- Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
- Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez
- Extremely Online by Taylor Lorenz
- The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
- Consumed by Aja Barber
- Butts by Heather Radke
- Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Barbara Kingsolver
- Scattered Minds by Gabor Maté
- Endurance by Alfred Lansing
- Sula by Toni Morrison
- Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Feller
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe
- It's On Me by Sara Kuburic
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis
- The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
- Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver
- All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
You can see in this list my attempts to read fiction again, my return again and again to self-help, and that I am not immune to David Tennant and Michael Sheen's on-screen chemistry. Some of these books I'll borrow again. Some were just terrible, but I'm a completionist at heart—not of books, but lists. If you're not enjoying a book, give up. You have my permission. Sometimes, it's just not the right time.