Poignant memories Bitter like forgotten dreams I’m always awake
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 and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
They kept showing up, for days, dead on the windowsill, and for days I did nothing about the ladybugs except to ask if their entering the house unnoticed and dying before I saw them was symbolic. Thinking was so easy. They symbolized birth and death, change and rebirth. It was also possible the tiny beetles embodies an inborn need to show themselves, to turn up in every and any place, even as the dried out remains of the once-lively. Or they stood for the burden of being one thing relieved by becoming another, which all the world’s children suffer.
This went on and on, and could’ve gone on forever, so I finally opened the window and blew them into the wide open because everything and everyone should get a chance to be mourned, and they got theirs, but first they had to die, which is life, not symbolism.
Today’s quote by Margaret Atwood has been stuck in my brain ever since I first came across it. If memory serves me correctly, I believe it was in a new introduction by Atwood to her novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which if you haven’t already read, there’s no better time than the present.
The written word is our receptacle for memory. Without documentation, we have no history, no blueprint for the future, and no constancy to purpose in terms of our collective attempt at living what many philosophers have called the good life. Every time we write, we are holding in our psyches the implied future reader Atwood references. Even if we never write with the intention of publishing our work in mind, there is still a knowing behind committing your thoughts to paper, a compact between yourself and those who may stumble across your words in the future.
Without documentation, we have no history, no blueprint for the future, and no constancy to purpose in terms of our collective attempt at living what many philosophers have called the good life.
When I was a library worker, we got book donations all the time, oftentimes daily. Most of the books were, forgive me, ready for the rubbish bin, but every now and again a folded scrap of paper would fall out with someone’s gnarled script on it and I’d have a new treasure. Most of them I didn’t keep because they were things like checklists or grocery lists or other ephemeral scraps, but there’s one I still have in my possession: a decades-old scrap of notebook paper with a poem on it. It is one of my most treasured possessions.
I was the implied future reader. And this is how we are connected, invisibly and irrevocably.
Perhaps one day I’ll share it on here. The point is I have carried that poem in my heart for years and I don’t even know the author. Only a first name and a date are listed but I think about the writer often. In the poem, they are beseeching God for answers because they’ve lost something (or someone, more likely) dear to them. This person may be long gone by now, passed into eternity, but I still pray for them. I wonder how their life turned out. I was the implied future reader. And this is how we are connected, invisibly and irrevocably.
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 and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart: Poems by Alice Walker
——
Nothing will penetrate your sorrow. Or your loneliness. This I know. And yet here I am singing a song about doors at the bottom of dark wells stuffed already with rats and corpses.
Here I am telling you that in reality and as improbable as it may seem: There is no (doorless) bottom to this life.
So many want to be blessed. I only want to kneel in a quiet room. To love what we have or not exist at all. Nothing to help me sleep. Only a scrap of paper slipped into my hand: Your body an ocean, a song without end. Votive candles flickering in the dark that made us larger than life: hip-thrust, back-arch, mouth-grip, you on top till we collapsed in the coiled springs that came to rest. A chair where you once sat. A bowl of fruit neither one of us would touch.
Bonus Graphic
The most resonant part of Vespers for me is the line, “Only a scrap of paper slipped / into my hand: Your body an ocean, a song without end.” So enthralled was I by that particular imagery that I made this little ditty, which I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy (Note: The image is a royalty-free stock image—I have simply added the words to the note in the center):
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 and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***
Is there anything that burns as bright in embryo or scars as deep in the aftermath as first love?
Is there anything that burns as bright in embryo or scars as deep in the aftermath as first love? I think Bella Mayo, the author of My Greenhouse, would be inclined to answer no. And I would be inclined to agree with her.
As we grow up we become jaded, conveniently forgetting the potency and primacy of the feelings we had when we were young and in love. I don’t believe there’s ever a time a person is more alive than when everything is blossoming for the first time—the first time you feel someone else’s lips on yours as well as the first time someone takes your heart and shreds it like so much dirty confetti.
My Greenhouse leaves no stone unturned and no leaf unfurled, showing that healing after heartbreak is indeed possible—even if you have to dig everything up and plant it somewhere else.
Mayo catalogs all of these feelings and presents them as a blueprint for moving on when the one you thought would never leave decides they can’t stay. My Greenhouse leaves no stone unturned and no leaf unfurled, showing that healing after heartbreak is indeed possible—even if you have to dig everything up and plant it somewhere else.
My Greenhouse: Poetry is due to be released on September 21st by Andrews McMeel Publishing and is now available to preorder wherever books are sold.
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 and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
Flower Crowns and Fearsome Things by Amanda Lovelace
Review
***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***
In her newest standalone collection of poetry, Amanda Lovelace makes Persephone of Greek mythology her muse, exploring through her the dualities inherent in femininity as well as the fragmented self that we must all contend with—the self we are with others and the self we are when we’re alone, and the result is nothing short of brilliant.
…Lovelace makes Persephone of Greek mythology her muse, exploring through her the dualities inherent in femininity as well as the fragmented self that we must all contend with—the self we are with others and the self we are when we’re alone, and the result is nothing short of brilliant.
Also tackled herein is the COVID-19 pandemic and the ways it has changed and remade us, from the reasons why wearing a mask is an act of love and respect but also an act of defiance to telling her beloved how close she’ll be able to come to them when the world stops ending. God, that phrase is one I can’t stop turning over and over in my mind. When the world stops ending, when the world stops ending, when the world stops ending….Because isn’t that how it feels right now? As if every day is being lived in survival mode with no end in sight? Thank God we still have poetry to get us through.
Because isn’t that how it feels right now? As if every day is being lived in survival mode with no end in sight? Thank God we still have poetry to get us through.
All in all, Flower Crowns and Fearsome Things is a stellar collection sure to please new readers of Lovelace’s work as well as her longtime fans. The gorgeous illustrations by Janaina Medeiros complement Lovelace’s words perfectly, giving them more depth and clarity. I feel safe in saying this is a title I’ll be hand-selling to my customers who enjoy poetry.
Flower Crowns and Fearsome Things is due to be released on October 5th, 2021 by Andrews McMeel Publishing and is now available to preorder wherever books are sold.
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 and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
***Note: I received a free digital review copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.***
Katie Yamasaki has gifted us with a heartwarming story about a devoted father, his beloved daughter, and the delightful activities they enjoy doing together. It’s evident that Yamasaki’s work as a muralist informs and influences her work as a picture book author and illustrator. Her uncluttered, dynamic, and vibrant images leap off the page and drive the narrative forward from the father’s early morning shift at the bakery before the sun rises to the time in late evening when he finally gets to rest.
Dad Bakes is due to be released on September 28th, 2021 by Norton Young Readers and is now available to preorder wherever books are sold.
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 and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
How to Be You: Stop Trying to Be Someone Else and Start Living Your Life by Jeffrey Marsh
I have followed Jeffrey Marsh on Twitter for years. Before I found a therapist, before I got on medication for my anxiety and depression, their videos helped me to be able to take a breath and center myself so I could get through the day. I’m sure I’m not the only person whose life has been impacted by them in this way, but I will forever be grateful for their calm voice affirming my place in the world over and over again until I started to believe it for myself.
How to Be You is the self-love manifesto that everyone in the world needs to read, but it is especially essential for those of us in the LGBTQ+ community. We live in a world that is often hostile to us, a world that bullies, beats, threatens, harasses, disenfranchises, and belittles us to the point of fracture, to the point where our very existence is seen as a threat to the standing order. Jeffrey’s assertion throughout their book is that it is our choice whether or not we are going to capitulate to the people who would make us smaller. We can be expansive or we can shrink. We can grow and learn and change and accept ourselves in all of our glorious complexity or we can draw lines of demarcation around ourselves and always exist as less than our true selves.
We can be expansive or we can shrink. We can grow and learn and change and accept ourselves in all of our glorious complexity or we can draw lines of demarcation around ourselves and always exist as less than our true selves.
I’m not going to lie, a lot of the self-help material circulating in the world today is worthless pablum at best and an avaricious money-grabbing scheme at worst, but Jeffrey Marsh is the real deal. Their work comes from a deep place of understanding what it feels like to be marginalized and maligned for being queer, and I am so grateful for their existence. I am grateful for this book’s existence. Thank you, Jeffrey. A thousand times, thank you.
Favorite Quotes from How to Be You
Confidence comes naturally if trust is present.
Aren’t you lucky that you get this life, this chance, to learn to set aside the yuck and muck of other people’s sometimes nasty words and do your best to live your life as fully as you know how?
Even if it seems like the whole world is against you, you’ve got to trust yourself. Even if no one else will honor you, you must honor what your truth is in any given moment.
Beginning to see yourself as worthy and trustworthy is the start of something beautiful. Why? Because you can finally let go. You don’t need to spend all your time trying not to be too much. You can relax. You can feel safe. You deserve that. Everyone deserves that.
Trusting yourself is the way to claim the life you’ve always been waiting for.
Trust your own self-examination more than you automatically believe someone else’s pronouncement.
Worry and hate are habits, and so are love and forgiveness.
Whatever your imagined crimes were in the past, they are not worth ruining your today for. You deserve to feel free. You deserve to be let off the hook.
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 and Instagram @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.
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