The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“What you make doesn’t have to be witnessed, recorded, sold, or encased in glass for it to be a work of art.”

— Rick Rubin / The Creative Act: A Way of Being

“… many nights of death from the clouds, mornings surprised
to be waking from the sleep of death, still unburied and alive
but with no safe place. Leave, yes, we obey the leaflets, but go where?
To the sea to be eaten, to the shores of Europe to be caged?
To camp misery and camp remain here. I ask you then, where?”

— Carolyn Forché / “The Boatman”

“Without actions that address the root problem of humanity taking more from Earth than it can safely give, we’re on our way to the potential collapse of natural and socioeconomic systems and a world with unbearable heat and shortages of food and freshwater … “By 2100, as many as 3 billion to 6 billion people may find themselves outside Earth’s livable regions, meaning they will be encountering severe heat, limited food availability and elevated mortality rates.”

— Dr Christopher Wolf / “The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory” / BioScience

“In some languages the word for dream
is the same as for music

is the kind of thing poets like to say
to prove they’re on your side

but no one is always on your side
not even a poet”

— Dobby Gibson / “Small Craft Talk”

“And that actually would be my advice: don’t be too neat about finishing something before starting something new. Keep many pieces going at once and you’ll never face a blank page (or screen).”

— Lydia Davis / “If Lydia Davis Wasn’t a Writer, She’d Devote Herself to Climate Activism” / Lithub

“You can’t begin just anywhere. It’s a wreck.”

— Joy Harjo / “How to Write a Poem in a Time of War”

“To live as an artist is a way of being in the world. A way of perceiving. A practice of paying attention.”

— Rick Rubin / The Creative Act: A Way of Being

What I’m Listening To:

“Stop conversation
And experience joy
And walk outside…
…Out here the air is new”

— Ty Segall / “Void”