I'm mostly posting right now just to check in with you dear reader, and wanting to let you know that despite my spotty posting on this blog for the last 3 months I am still very much so here and writing up so many storms: some poetic, some nonsensical, some for the rigorous documentation that goes along with being in school again, and some stuff about books too.
I have a few blogposts in the works right now but they need refining, and hopefully I'll find the time between school work in the next two weeks to polish them up for publication. But for now I'll give you some morsel of what I've been working of for grad school.
I've selected a section of or my first book annotation. I read Jericho Brown's Please and I was so impressed I needed to share my thoughts/love for it. I would highly recommend to anyone who likes to read words:
You'd think that the jagged subject matter of Please would relegate it to the “tragic black story” trope* but no, Brown keeps it from being that simple. This book is triumphant, ecstatic, and also heavy with grief. It doesn't pull any of its loving lyrically-saturated punches. The poems in Please don't aim to be universal, they aim to be honest. And in striking those achingly honest melodic cords, the universality of intimacy, othering, violence, and suffering rumble out in slow, synchronous harmony.
Here's a photo of my favorite poem from this book:
PS: I somehow absolutely feel that I should be getting out one post each month at the very least. See you all in July.
(good lord summer's flying fast ain't it!?)
*Many groups are only allowed to be represented as solely tragic figures in mainstream culture. This simplifies their stories and oppressions. I'm referring to this oversimplification when I say "tragic black story" trope. I don't think this limiting approach to telling stories that involve tragedy is specific to black folks, but I do recognize it as a way that they've had their narratives (over)written.
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