The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“The chicken truck passes with its load of small-brained misery.”

— Kim Addonizio / “Kansas, 4 a.m.”

“I am vulture-heavy.  
My stories are caskets filled with black feathers…”

— Diane Seuss / “Folk Song”

“Whenever I come across, say, a rat or a fox, and I meet its eyes, I can sense a whole cosmos behind them,”

— Olga Tokarczuk / “The Art of Fiction” / Paris Review

“april is the cruelest month etc. what remains?
brian jones bones. jim morrison’s friend.
jimi hendrix bandana. sweatband angel.
the starched collar of baudelaire.
the sculptured cap of voltaire.”

— Patti Smith / “picasso laughing”

“Now it is back, it is back much worse – this is in America. It is back so much worse than it was in the 80s. Because it’s become political.”

— Judy Blume / “Judy Blume: book banning now much worse in US than in 1980s” / The Guardian

“How did you go wrong? With only blind faith
& a dead star left in your eyes, where’s North
America?”

— Yusef Komunyakaa / “Night of the Armadillo”

“Why does this trembling

pull us?

A: Beneath the surface we are one.”

— Toi Derricotte / “Black Boys Play the Classics”

What I’m Listening To:

“But they say, ‘Write what you know’
Don’t know much at all”

— Urika Spacek / “Accidental Momentary Blur”