media diary: november '23

 

Media Diary:

 

November 2023

This month was emotionally unsettling. Lots of weird things happened, and lots of cool things happened. I submitted 4 (5?) applications to MFAs, visited a few workshops/seminars, and wrote a mere three poems. I teetered on the edge of complete and utter burnout. I am exhausted. I want so much. I feel so much. 

Didn't listen to any albums on my to-listen list, but I did read a bunch. I returned to bell hooks and I returned to manifestation frequencies and I returned to cold, leather-jacket walks to the library. I made a big pile of books on my desk, so it looks like a fortress. By the end of November, I was crying less (a miracle). My students made me laugh more often, and I let myself lean on mantras that I bashed for years ("Whatever's meant to be will be"; "Everything is temporary"). 

Books:

• Paula by Isabel Allende
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• Prime of Life by Simone de Beauvoir*
• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
• Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut*
• A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez
• Recitatif by Toni Morrison
• Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne Felix
• The Speculations of Country People by Majella Kelly
• Down the Drain by Julia Fox (audiobook)

Poems: 

• "Recommendation" by Keith Leonard
• "My Feelings" by Nick Flynn
• "Elegy for Two" by Mary Jo Bang
• "Sonnet" by Robert Hass
• "The Last Time" by Marie Howe
• "In the Grove: The Poet at Ten" by Jane Kenyon
• "The Porch" by Ruth Stone
• "The Only Musem" by Ben Purkert
• "Wild Asters" by Ruth Stone
• "Love Poem for What Is" by Rebecca Hazelton
• "Elise Enters the House of Triumph" by Rebecca Hazelton
• "the great escape" by Charles Bukowski
• "Mouth of the Exterior" by Nathan Hoks
• "Grief" by Jennifer Grotz
• "The Note" by Mary Ruefle
• "one step removed" by Charles Bukowski
• "Goodtime Jesus" by James Tate
• "The Cowboy" by James Tate
• "This Is What There Is" by Dara Barrios
• "Before the Storm" by Franz Wright
• "Wounded Adjudication" by Jackie Wang
• "There Are No Gods" by DH Lawrence
• "Epilogue" from Ovid, trans. by Stephanie McCarter
• "Stray Animals" by James Tate
• "Ave Maria" by Frank O'Hara

Albums/Playlists/Artists/Music Things:

I haven't been super good about listening to albums this month, but I have been relying heavily on tried-and-true playlists. 

Here is December.

A super-fun playlist for a super-fun literary arts project I'm working on with a cool friend.

Shoegaze Classics.

the strokes, the smiths, the cure, etc. ALWAYSS

This depressing playlist.

Turnstile's COUNTER//CULTURE playlist

ALLURE playlist

manifestation frequencies

I throw this on in the background while I'm grading, reading submissions, etc.

Essays, Art, Obsessions and Other Digital Things:

• This YouTube deep dive into the "Sister Squad" lore. My best friend S and I have started watching YouTube video essays as part of our basement hangouts, and this one was really funny. 
• This bell hooks @ the New School talk with Beverly Guy-Sheftall. Took me a couple of days to watch this one. I found bell hooks' work during the early years of undergrad, when I was starting to piece together ideologies and frameworks for living. She is SO seminal to my feminist awakening and her teachings are foundational to my philosophy as an educator. I applied to The New School's MFA in Creative Writing in part because she fellowshipped there, as did many of my other heroes. hooks passed recently, but fortunately, her library of TNS talks is posted to YouTube. I'm savoring them. 
• This David Dobrik deepdive. S and I watched this one recently, too. I wish we could've gotten more on Dobrik's problematic nature, and less on cult history (I know too much about Jonestown, the Moonies, and Waco). 
• Femcel Pinterest culture. 

• Collecting Simone de Beauvoir's complete works. I went back to NYC for Thanksgiving and felt so at home browsing the basement of the Strand for grubby little editions of The Prime of Life and A Very Easy Death. I have a kinship with Beauvoir that began when I was a freshman in undergrad, new to literary theory and hungry for feminism. I have a stack of Beauvoir's books on my desk, their spines facing my bed. I love rummaging and collecting and scouring: very hunter-gatherer of me, I think. 
• New York City. Please god please oh please let me end up in the city next year.
• Cutting my own hair/bangs. I'm not very good at it, but there's something religious about kneeling in front of my floor-length gold mirror and watching strands of hair fall to the carpet. I use my Swiss Army Knife and eyeball it. It gives me a sense of control. Nobody's commented on my hair, so it must not be bad (?).
• Instagram users @poetrywillchangeyou, @bribeatris, @ismatu.gwendolyn, @starparkdesigns, @brutalrecovery, @ihatekatebush.
• "Being Brave Abroad" by Edward Gorey:

• This Sufjan Stevens quote:

• Gender in the classroom. I'm done with practicum (!!) and am entering the final semester of my M.Ed. Apparently, I have to do a thesis (but no one in the department has given us any information about this process, so I'm miffed). I'd really like to explore students' perception of female teachers vs. male teachers, and the roles gender plays in relation to learning (i.e., my male students tackle linguistic learning differently than my female students). It's definitely more of an EdD project, but I'd like to take this opportunity to do some research on this matter now. 
• Citrus. The darker months of the year are a time of deep, inward reflection. I often become even more of a hermit (if u can even believe this is possible) and my moods become even MORE pensive/melancholic (if u can even believe THAT is possible). There are few things I love more on this planet than eating oranges while reading books in bed. 
• Weird little music and literary memes.

 

 

 

 

• Mac's "Film Noir" lipstick.

k, byeeee 

xoxo, 

meg