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.

some books