october 1: round-up
Hi, all, and happy Friday! Did this week last forever for anyone else? I’m ready to sleep for one-thousand years. I’m also ready for a raise. How does one ask for a raise & when? Adulthood is still new to me.
Anyway, here’s what I have for you today:
Quotations I read this week & liked
A few metaphors
A few similes
Some titles
What I read this week
And, in case you’re new, I’m including this stuff because I really like archiving literary devices, and I’m working on becoming better at titling my poems.
Here are my previous posts that address these three things:
And: I have a reading tonight with a bunch of really talented writers—5PST/8EST. Over Zoom and free. Come say hi.
QUOTATIONS I READ THIS WEEK & LIKED
…as if emulation could engender / equality.
-Monica Youn, “Marsyas, After”
I made a killing / in language & was surrounded / by ghosts.
-Ocean Vuong, “Almost Human”
I leave the bread crumbs of my name.
-Bruce Bond, “Will”
And what a joy / to still believe in anything.
-Safiya Sinclair, “Home”
A needy thing, / I want you in every language.
-Carrie Jerrell, “Love Poem Made in a Dry Riverbed”
How is it that I have come this far / with nothing, that I am empty- / handed in this country of blessings?
-Jacob Shores-Arguello, “Pilgrims”
AND HERE ARE SOME METAPHORS & SIMILES I READ THIS WEEK AND LIKED ENOUGH TO WRITE DOWN
METAPHORS:
Hope, perhaps, is a horse / bareback and aimless in a field of hay— / it twitches its ears toward promises / gone gossamer.
-JP Dancing Bear, “Prodigal”
Your voice a broken shell I cut my ear / against.
-Lisa Fay Coutley, “Dear Mom—”
Joy / streaks across the sky, a star / burning out.
-Ellen Bass, “Evolution”
Silence, // our shroud, no longer softens hunger.
-Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, “Facts on the Ground”
I lose faith / that each season will arrive at this address, / a rustic trust we clutched like loose / change in our pockets, a vine on a cliff.
-Joannie Stangeland, “When the Sky Does Not River”
A single white bird // cuts a silver scar across the sun.
-Carlos Andres Gomez, “Inertia”
And I knew when I entered her I was / high wind in her forests hollow.
-Audre Lorde, “Love Poem”
“April’s an umbrella of want.”
-Susanna Childress, “Rooted, They Grip Down and Begin to Awaken”
The tongue is a cadence, after all, is thick / in the mouth. // I used to sit with my brother as he drank, // as his words became antlers / or dark blood or unwilling gardens.
-Doug Ramspeck, “Winter Auguries”
SIMILES:
I hold this winter in my mouth like a pearl.
-Safiya Sinclair, “America the Beautiful”
We think as human / beings we deserve every last thing. Say / the element copper. Incandescence / glowing bright and soft like Venus.
-Natasha Saje, “Alive”
What any body wants: / another to cling to it / like bracken.
-Erin Adair-Hodges, “The Cartographer Gets Lost”
AND HERE ARE SOME TITLES THAT ARE VERY GOOD:
AUBADE TO A COLLAPSED STAR
MARGINALIA
APRICOT LAMENT
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY HUNGERS
THE CITY HAS SEX WITH EVERYTHING
HILLBILLY LEVIATHAN
[POEM IN WHICH EVEN YOUR ABSENCE IS MISSING]
DEAR MOM—
WEST VIRGINIA NOCTURNE
RIVER BAPTISM
TEXARKANA APOCHRYPHA
BOOKS I READ THIS WEEK:
Say It Hurts by Lisa Summe
Inheritance by Taylor Johnson
Mother Tongue by Chaelee Dalton
Return Flight by Jennifer Huang
Mistress by Chet’la Sebree
That’s all for today! Hope you have a good weekend. And, if you live in the US, buy some books.
-DB
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