media diary: winter/spring recap
Media Diary:
Winter/Spring Recap
Hiiii....Long time, no blog. I've missed you.
Books:
- frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss*
- The Turning Wheel by Robert Pinsky*
- Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn
- Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
- The Sorrow Apartments by Andrea Cohen
- The Lyrics by Fanny Howe
- ShallCross by C.D. Wright
- Waiting by Ha Jin
- A Woman Without a Country by Eavan Boland
- All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
- Young Mungo by Douglas Stewart
- Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- A Frozen Woman by Annie Ernaux
- A Woman's Story by Annie Ernaux
- She Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir
- A Feather on the Breath of God by Sigrid Nunez
- Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
- Either/Or by Elif Batuman
- Glitter Road by January O'Neil
- Olympus Heights by Kevin Carey and Colleen Michaels
- Woman Without Shame by Sandra Cisneros
- The Autobiography of My Mother by Jamaica Kincaid
- Your Kingdom by Eleni Sikelianos
- A Good Fall by Ha Jin
- Ruin by Cynthia Cruz
- Filterworld by Kyle Chayka
- The Happiness of This World by Karl Kirchwey
- The Writer as Migrant by Ha Jin
- The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
- Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman (DNF. I hate genre fiction romance)
- Build Yourself a Boat by Camonghne Felix
Recent Acquisitions:
- Red Rising by Pierce Brown
- The Four-Chambered Heart by Anais Nin
- If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin
- Fierce Attachments by Vivian Gornick
- frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss
- The Kingdom of Surfaces by Sally Wen Mao
- Committed: on Meaning and Madwomen by Suzanne Scanlon
- The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso
- Tropicalia by Harold Rogers
- Red Comet by Heather Clark
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
- Queen of Dirt Island by Donal Ryan
- Goldsmith Market by Liliana Ursu (trans. from the Romanian by Sean Cotter)
- Salt Monody by Marzanna Kielar (trans. from the Polish by Elzbieta Wojcik-Leese)
- Good Monster by Diannely Antigua
- The Queen of Queens by Jennifer Martelli
- The Exhibitionist by Shari Caplan
- The Witch Tells the Story and Makes It True by Liz Kay
- Louder Birds by Angela Voras-Hills
- Auguries & Divinations by Heather Treseler
- The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
Playlists/Songs/Artists:
I'll be honest...Teaching makes it difficult to be a music snob. By the end of the day, my auditory processing is shot, and all I want is silence. Sometimes, I drive to/from school without any music. It's killing me. As the weather turns, I'm going back to curating playlists, finding new artists, and keeping up with my favorite reviewers. Here's what I've been able to stomach the past few weeks...
- Oncle Jazz by Men I Trust
- Stronger Than Pride by Sade (I found this CD in a Little Free Library!)
- Chemtrails Over the Country Club by Lana Del Rey
- Blondshell (BOSTON CALLINGGGGGGG)
Essays, Art, Obsessions and Other Digital Things:
My mentor has been asking where "the collection" is, and I think I have an answer now! It's here (kinda, sorta)! I'm looking over everything I've written since January, and I've definitely noticed some patterns. I'm hoping to assemble something over the summer, identify the gaps, and write into those spaces.
I started the Stafford Challenge on January 17th, which entails writing a poem a day for a year. I'm on day 90-something, and it's been both rewarding and frustrating. I've been printing out all the poems and putting them into a binder, editing by hand. My writing has become stripped back --- minimalistic, pure. Lots of couplets, short lines, and tanka-inspired form. Palooka accepted five of my poems, including my famous "Self-Portrait with Sylvia Plath's Diaries". I'm not sure if other artists can relate, but I can feel when my voice/style is evolving. When that risk-taking is rewarded (publications, comments from fellow artists, etc.), it feels good.
I've been thinking a lot about addiction and alcoholism...Like, I've been thinking a lot about addiction and alcoholism. My poetry is always questioning and incorporating "histories": medical records, archives, personal/familial documents, photographs, and formal language (i.e., tobacco warnings). For the past few months, I've been processing the way that my maternal past and recent romantic past have converged. I've been writing very deeply into that pain, with a narrative/confessional slant. I've been experimenting with visual poetry, overlaying poems onto labels, photos, letters, and other ephemera.
Along a similar vein, my writing is also growing increasingly interested with themes of art, observing vs. watching, consumption, and "gazes" under which bodies become objects. For instance, I've been assembling a small folio of poems that interrogate Nefertiti's bust, museums, the self watching the self, etc. I've been obsessed with the MoMA digital archive as a source of inspiration.
I have several ideas for new essays, so keep an eye out for those. Also obsessed w/green chemistry lab notebooks from Bob Slate in Cambridge, the act of revision, laughing deeply and often, severed lime Liquid Death sparkling waters, chestnut paste (it's a French thing! Mix it into plain yogurt. Trust me.), sleep, the bread and roses poem/concept (planning the next tattoo), men's dress shirts, black Adidas sambas, aesthetics.
I picked up Stardew Valley, and I have been watching Ugly Betty (2006). I miss my black-and-white/New Wave films. I often look at my life and wonder where it has all gone -- my movies, my books, my television shows, my playlists, my snobbery. I am excited to build it back up again, and I am excited to see the ways in which my obsessions will change in these coming months. I think I'll pick up running soon. I am looking ahead to Boston Calling, to my California summer, to my Charles River year.
That old era of my life feels intangible. Just a few months ago, I was crying every day...No, literally. I kept count. I think I cried every day for about six or seven months and one day...I just stopped. I feel content. I feel at peace. I've had some difficult conversations, I've put grievances to bed, I've closed books & left bookmarks (I'll come back to it later).
Did I mention how much I've missed you?
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