‘Can I Get Over My Debilitating Social Anxiety?’ by J.P. Brammer

Richard Hugo, Essay on Poetic Theory: The Triggering Town

Chen Chen

I remember once sort of sitting down and thinking, ‘I am terribly depressed and this can not go on…’ and then I thought, ‘Well, you can do two things. You can kill yourself or you can get interested in absolutely everything.’ I read the newspaper every day; I read scientific books and geographical books and historical books and books in other languages, as well as the books that professionally I had to read, and suddenly the world became wonderful. 

AS Byatt, 1936-2023 (x)

“I stopped going to therapy because I knew my therapist was right and I wanted to keep being wrong. I wanted to keep my bad habits like charms on a bracelet. I did not want to be brave. I think I like my brain best in a bar fight with my heart. I think I like myself a little broken. I’m ok if that makes me less loved. I like poetry better than therapy anyway. The poems never judge me for healing wrong.”

— Clementine von Radics, Mouthful of Forevers

The More Modest the Definition of Heaven, the Oftener We’re There by Albert Goldbarth

Introduction to The Iliad, Emily Wilson

John Williams in John McGahern’s introduction to Stoner

kafka was so right i literally could have built the pyramids with the effort it has taken me to cling onto life and reason

i spend my days waiting. waiting for the water to boil and my tea to be ready. for spring to come back. for more daylight. the oil in the pan to heat up. a “hey i miss you” or “can you help me out for a second?” or “you want to hang out?” text. for my phone to finish charging. for good news. flowers on the table. the next hug. “hey, you got the job!”. waiting for the sun. to set. to rise. to see both. for summer to be around the corner. a good song. a falling star. a text back. i spend my time waiting to be remembered. i spend my time repeating that tomorrow will be better. tomorrow will be better. i spend my days waiting and waiting and waiting. i spend my days waiting unbearably.

the audre lorde questionnaire to oneself, intended as a creative writing exercise by Divya Victor, who asks to be credited

when sylvia plath said “being born a woman is my awful tragedy. from the moment i was conceived i was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity. yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars - to be a part of scene, anonomous, listening, recording - all is spoiled by the fact that i am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. my consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. yet, god, i want to talk to everybody i can as deeply as i can. i want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night“

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, "The Woman Who Turned Down a Date with a Cherry Farmer

“Your Grandmother’s prayers are still protecting you.”

— Lalah Delia (via vibratehigherdaily)

Mahmoud Darwish (trans. Mohammad Shaheen), Like a Hand Tattoo in an Ode by an Ancient Arab Poet

hi my reader friends lithub has a new syllabi section that has some great (u guessed it!) syllabi from much beloved writers like ocean vuong and ross gay here's the full list that i have already added half of to my tbr:

ekphrastic poetry with victoria chang (featuring works of john ashbery, joy harjo, paul tran)

the literature of obsession with julia may jonas (obsession as transformation, destruction, catharsis and form)

place, space and landscape with alexandra kleeman (featuring didion, okorafor and hernan diaz)

lyric research with ross gay (books that combine research with an "I" like nelson's bluets or christle's the crying book)

hybrid poetry with ocean vuong (traditions, innovations and possibilities featuring bhanu kapil, rimbaud, clifton)

multigenre experiments in form with paul lisicky (for writing that explores connections between genres)

reading about writers with peter ho davies (books that teach the craft and give writing advice, think 'the outline' trilogy)

speculative women with lina maria ferreira cabeza-vanegas (a look at speculative works by women writers like jemisin, butler, k le guin)

writers and the world with viet thanh nguyen (rankine, baldwin, and coates)

sports and contemporary writing with sam lipsyte (exactly what it says on the tin)

jason molina’s writing advice to matthew j barnhart via his blackberry in 2008