Memorable Stuff I Read This Week

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

— Sylvia Plath / “Morning Song”

I think women run things better. Women are much more sensible and collaborative—they are life-givers. Even in modern times, when you look at governments—there’s Angela Merkel, Sanna Marin, Jacinda Ardern. That’s why I want a woman President.

— Francis Ford Coppola / “Francis Ford Coppola on Books That Influenced ‘Megalopolis’” / Empire

But for your dollar, your dirty dollar, 
    Your greenish leprosy, 
It’s only hatred you shall get
    From all my folks and me;
So keep your dollar where it belongs 
    And let us be!

— Salomón de la Selva / “A Song for Wall Street”

Upwards of one million Cubans have left the island since 2020, roughly a tenth of the population, in an exodus demographers say has few parallels outside of war . . . “It’s going to kick off again at any moment.”

— Dave Sherwood / “In a migrant exodus to the US, many Cubans are disappearing at sea. They leave a painful void” / Reuters

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner

— Elizabeth Alexander / “Ars Poetica #100: I Believe”

A key region of Antarctica is getting greener with alarming speed — a trend that will spur rapid change of Antarctic ecosystems. Researchers looked at satellite imagery of one of the continent’s fastest-warming regions: the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts north towards the tip of South America. They found that the area covered by plants increased by almost 14 times between 1986 and 2021. “It’s the beginning of dramatic transformation,” says remote-sensing specialist and study co-author Olly Bartlett.

— Alix Soliman / “Believe it or not, this lush landscape is Antarctica” / Nature

Are we here to prepare
for our death, to begin to make our farewells as we
arrive—do we exist to mourn the earth?  

— Sharon Olds / “Blossom Trees”

What I’m Listening To:

I’ve had a hard, hard landing
I really should duck and roll out
Out of my life

— Kim Deal / “Coast”