The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“Alas, very soon everything will disappear:
the birdcalls, the delicate blossoms. In the end,
even the earth itself will follow the artist’s name into oblivion.”

— Louise Glück / “Primavera”

“The problem is that global decarbonization is effectively irreconcilable with global capitalism. Capitalism needs to produce profit in order to spur investment. Profit requires growth. Global economic growth, even basic economic stability, depends on cheap, efficient energy.”

— Roy Scranton / Learning to Die in the Anthropocene

“The quicksand pits they built were good.
Our amputation teams were better.
We trained some birds to steal their wheat.
They sent to us exploding ambassadors of peace.
They do this, we do that…
Ten thousand (10,000) years, ten thousand
(10,000) brutal, beautiful years.”

— Thomas Lux / “The People of the Other Village”

“Accelerated ice melt in west Antarctica is inevitable for the rest of the century no matter how much carbon emissions are cut, research indicates. The implications for sea level rise are ‘dire’, scientists say, and mean some coastal cities may have to be abandoned … Previous studies have suggested it is doomed to collapse over the course of centuries, but the new study shows that even drastic emissions cuts in the coming decades will not slow the melting.”

— Damian Carrington / “Rapid ice melt in west Antarctica now inevitable, research shows” / The Guardian

“I write as though you could understand
And I could say it
One must always pretend something
Among the dying”

— WS Merwin / “For A Coming Extinction”

“In my life I see no difference between making pots, cooking, and growing vegetables. They are all related. However, there is a need for me to work in clay. It is so gratifying, and I get so much joy from it, and it gives me many answers for my life.”

— Toshiko Takaezu / “Shaping Abstraction” / MFA Boston

“… I am a theft waiting to happen, a rotten spell visioning …”

— Ruth Ellen Kocher / “Grow”

What I’m Listening To:

“I’m so glad I met you
You helped me see
Just how very much I hate me”

— Joanna Sternberg / “People Are Toys to You”