Hi everyone,
I was going to take this week off because I haven’t skipped a newsletter since starting it and because this has been one of the most intense weeks I’ve had in that whole year (which is, you know, saying something).
Instead, here’s a dump of information in no particular order:
I live in Boston now. There was a dead mouse and a bunch of bugs in my apartment on the first day of my lease. Dunno if that’s normal or what normal might mean in a place like this, where I am paying out the ass for the privilege of just not having a roommate.
Remember how Flying Lotus made bumper music for Adult Swim?
And then that became the basis for his stunning output?
On August 19 I wrote my first poem and while I don’t think it’s great it did precipitate or uncap some kind of dam on the potential for future poems, including the one I’m pasting below on a relevant topic.
I’ve decided that instead of giving any credence to the complicated feelings that writers (including me) often have about writing their first poems and not liking them very much (or actually I do like them? I just feel like I don’t know what I’m doing when I write a poem and so feel somewhat unjustified in my liking) I’m going to share some without thinking too much about it because I think that if I’ve learned anything about writing anything at all I’ve learned that it’s got to be about enjoyment—that and perhaps a refusal of the embarrassment that will come regardless.
Along with Hannah’s whole family and damn near the entirety of their hometown in upstate New York, I am grieving the loss of a giant, Baby D, my mother in law, a force that I see living in Hannah in contradictory but obvious ways. If my tone continues to feel rather unfocused in the coming months, I trust you’ll help me go with the flow.
Can I recommend not doubling up on two of the life events that therapists point out are maximally traumatic and destabilizing, you know the ones
Here are two gorgeous and sad and repetitive songs to sink into:
Moving Poem 4
I am moved by/small things/in part because they are humble/and I am from Ohio/and so learned very early to be suspicious of people/who go around talking of greatness/I am moved by what requires proximity to appreciate/what shows itself only to those/who get close/and listen/cannot be grasped from a distance/I am moved by the way that small and gentle so often go together/because I am always on a warpath/for tenderness/and so if it takes quite a lot of time to collect these objects/and to protect them/in transit/that’s just as well for the work/they do/to get me there
(cry hard)
The poem writes you. It's good. Hope the semester starts smoothly. Bugs are probably normal. Might have to use something awful to keep them away. Could be the prompt for another poem.