The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“To be an oppressor is dehumanizing and anti-human in nature, as it is to be a victim.”

— bell hooks / Ain’t I a Woman?

“Some humans say trees are not sentient beings,
But they do not understand poetry—“

— Joy Harjo / “Speaking Tree”

“To me feminism is not simply a struggle to end male chauvinism or a movement to ensure that women will have equal rights with men; it is a commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels—sex, race, and class, to name a few—and a commitment to reorganizing U.S. society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires.”

— bell hooks / Ain’t I a Woman?

“In Japan, there is a white phone
Booth overlooking the sea &
Inside is an old black rotary phone
Not hooked up to anything.
People go there & call their dead.
There is always a line to get in.”

— Sylvie Baumgartel / “Saving”

“No matter how much I write, though, I never reach a conclusion. And no matter how much I rewrite, I never reach the destination.”

— Haruki Murakami / What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

“But what I am left with is the wish
that inside is a piece of the creator
who will weave me a great dream catcher
to snare the nightmares this world is braiding.”

— Julene Waffle / “Without Consent”

“For how does one overthrow, change or even challenge a system that you have been taught to admire, to love, to believe in?”

— bell hooks / Ain’t I a Woman?

What I’m Listening To:

“I fray like worn-out threads
The more I fret, the less I mend
I’ve lost faith in everything
Everything, everything”

— Bob Mould / “Lost Faith”