Quote for the Day: February 13th, 2022

*On the Road: 50th Anniversary Edition* by Jack Kerouac

[…]the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Aww!’
Jack Kerouac, On the Road: 50th Anniversary Edition

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Quote for the Day: January 29th, 2022

When you make loving others the story of your life, there’s never a final chapter, because the legacy continues. You lend your light to one person, and he or she shines it on another and another and another.
Oprah Winfrey, What I Know for Sure

Poem for the Day: January 27th, 2022

American Deathbed by Jiarong Zhang

is boneboat. We make teeth 

from pennies for our American 

toothfairy. We hide them under our 

pillow next to our nectarine 

acetaminophen. Dali mouths 

opening to other mouths 

form this neck of history. 

I’m sucking my pregnancy 

test like a popsicle. I’m 

breastfeeding the sea. 

You’re in bed with 

your video game girlfriend 

except it’s you on the screen, 

you’re playing in the first person 

your lips are kissing your feet. 

You’re smoking a cigarette 

in the deportees club. 

You’re sitting on the toilet 

beside your female-gendered 

tub. I’m watching an old 

woman crawl up the hill 

of the city. I’m baptizing 

myself in the acidachelake. 

The sun is throbbing 

into my throat. For who. 

For who. I’m scalpel 

-ing an ebony. You’re Fishhawk 

Midnight. My naked legs 

bent into the Geese 

-Shaped V. Before we sleep, 

you look out the window 

to see what’s left of me. Out there, 

beyond the American Deathbed, 

you tell me there are lesions of 

kindness. There are birds 

jeweling our sleeps. There 

are hyacinths, just purring. 

I want my mother to see. 

On the moon, you say 

look closely to see 

a child’s TV 

playing infinitely on loop, 

just purring with gravity. 

I want the old song to play 

of my father snoring in his 

sleep. Mother yelling at me to 

leave. In this twilight, 

even anger is so pretty. 

Live for me.

I love how playful Zhang is with language in this poem. From the lesions of kindness to the hyacinths, just purring, every image Zhang conjures is haunting in its specificity while abstract in its execution. In the background of it all is an undercurrent of electricity waiting to zap the attentive reader. American Deathbed is one of those poems you can’t read just once, and the reader willing to give it the time and attention it deserves will not regret the decision.

Quote for the Day: January 20th, 2022

Beautiful people spend time discovering what their idea of beauty on this earth is. They know themselves well enough to know what they love.
Glennon Doyle, Love Warrior: A Memoir

Quote for the Day: January 19th, 2022

*The Perks of Being a Wallflower (20th Anniversary Edition with a New Letter from Charlie)* by Stephen Chbosky

We accept the love we think we deserve.
Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower (20th Anniversary Edition with a New Letter from Charlie)

Poem for the Day: January 14th, 2022

i found a lover and we left the city by Patrycja Humienik

temporarily. crackle of the fire said as much.

temple into the sprawl of limbs, which came later. first

 

the alchemists: oysters we ate quietly as we could,

laughing, not saying a word, eyes full of language.

 

and it wasn’t that no one had ever touched me before,

but it had never been like this. tunnel-less. not a search

 

for a prize, zippered pearl to coax out of grieving. 

not the scarcity of hardship or the dismissal of it, but we did look

 

up: airglow: sky a cicatrix: purpling, paler. damage,

and the need to undo it—not to fix, but to unribbon

 

the past. my mama grew up in a rural place, rolling jade

hills, my name betrayed her wish to leave that lack.

 

szlachetnie urodzona: desire for wealth and its associated ease.

i don’t blame her for using a name like a tool for weeding. 

 

i, too, prune and tug at my story, but she wanted me to live

up to my name, and for that i might blame her, i learn other names,

 

plants that please me: forsythia, hyacinth, pyracantha; my lover

gives me a dried bouquet. i prefer weeping

 

willow, even seaweed, something of water. i want

not to say this but to be understood with my eyes, the way

 

i was, for a moment, by the fire. but some lovers are not for

lasting, though that part comes later, if i, must i, tell the truth.

Quote for the Day: January 9th, 2022

*An American Marriage: A* *Novel* by Tayari Jones

Home isn’t where you land; home is where you launch. You can’t pick your home any more than you can choose your family.
Tayari Jones, An American Marriage: A Novel

Poem for the Day: January 6th, 2022

The Snow Is Deep on the Ground by Kenneth Patchen

The snow is deep on the ground.   
Always the light falls
Softly down on the hair of my belovèd.

This is a good world.
The war has failed.
God shall not forget us.
Who made the snow waits where love is.

Only a few go mad.
The sky moves in its whiteness
Like the withered hand of an old king.   
God shall not forget us.
Who made the sky knows of our love.

The snow is beautiful on the ground.   
And always the lights of heaven glow   
Softly down on the hair of my belovèd.

© 1943 Kenneth Patchen. Today’s poem is taken from Collected Poems by Kenneth Patchen, which was published by New Directions Publishing Corporation and is available to purchase wherever books are sold.

Quote for the Day: January 6th, 2022

Don’t ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it.
Toni Morrison, Jazz: A Novel

Quote for the Day: December 30th, 2021

Any time we’re growing, it literally hurts. There has to be a cutoff point where you’re like, stop driving yourself crazy.
Regina Slusher, a.k.a. my mom

My mom has talked me down off so many cliffs. In fact, I sort of picture her permanently in residence near the edge, sitting in a lawn chair, maybe reading one of the books she enjoys (aside from The Bible, she loves Amish romances and true-crime stories) and sipping from a bottle of Lipton Green Tea. She waits there patiently near the abyss while from time to time, sometimes more than once a day, I zoom through like the Roadrunner to eagerly embrace my doom.

She waits there patiently near the abyss while from time to time, sometimes more than once a day, I zoom through like the Roadrunner to eagerly embrace my doom.

Because of her, I’m more stable than I used to be. Let’s just admit it: Life leaves none of us unscarred. Having someone who can console you while also telling you to get your sh*t together (without actually saying that because my mother doesn’t swear *ever*) is one of life’s greatest gifts. It doesn’t escape me how incredibly blessed I am to have her in my life, even though she probably thinks she annoys me most of the time.

Life leaves none of us unscarred.

And I’m going to be honest, sometimes she does. But that’s only because I much prefer the uncharted path, the one that I choose for myself. And I discover every time that she was right, that I should have taken her advice, listened to her counsel, learned from her mistakes. But, my dear reader-friends, I’ve learned one time-tested and incontrovertible truth: There’s nothing quite like a scar to keep you from running barefoot through the brambles again.

Thanks for everything, mom. I promise I do try to listen to you.