Hello Readers,
Life is full of dust and delights, and small things often make a mark.
Here are Five Finds I’ve savored lately. Maybe you will, too:
1.
Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier by Kevin Kelly
A small book packed with short, simple, good advice. Stuff you know but forget to live. Makes an excellent gift for grads, and a gentle reminder for, well, everyone.
2.
The Ground I Stand On by Alejandro Jimenez
Got 12 minutes to be moved?
Watch this short documentary from PBS’s American Masters: In the Making, showing the creative process of Alejandro Jimenez, a performance poet from Colima, Mexico who grew up in Hood River, Oregon as an immigrant farm worker, moved to Colorado and worked with young writers and incarcerated adults, and now lives in New Mexico.
3.
Love grows by what it remembers of love.
This is the last line from a 1959 poem, In the Thriving Season, by Lisel Mueller. Mueller is among my favorite poets (because of When I Am Asked) but I often forget my love. The other day I remembered again the beautiful way in which she gathers solitude and loneliness together.
4.
Margins by Tamara Grosso
This palm-sized book is an innovative delight. Small and smart, it’s a book of poems written in the margins of other works. Each poem is less than 12 lines, and includes the title and author of the original work that inspired the margin poem. And it’s in Spanish and English! And it’s only $5 to $10 on a sliding scale, or you can print your own copy.
The publisher is No Good Home, and this collective is making creative works in fresh & inventive ways.
5.
They’re Going to Love You, a novel by Meg Howrey
Here’s my measure of a good book:
• I can’t stop reading.
• I don’t want it to end, but also want to read as fast as I can.
• I copy especially good lines and then realize I’ve transcribed nearly every page.
• It’s a book I wish I could write.
I filled my journal with passages. Here’s one:
Having to struggle doesn’t necessarily make you interesting, it might just make you tired.
* * *
If you like this blog, please subscribe here to get it delivered to your email.
The world turns on words, please read & write.