I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.
I’ve dreamed of a writing retreat, but a DIY reading retreat sounds lovely to tackle that perpetual, too-long, near-mythical to-read list. Perhaps when the pandemic is ever really over, or if I make it a reading retreat as a staycation…
Check the link to the Brooklyn Bookstore Crawl, April 23 to April 30, 2022, as the lead up to Independent Bookstore Day 2022, which is on April 30, 2022. It looks like almost all the indy bookstores in Brooklyn are participating? At any rate, it does look like fun! You can also click on the tags for past posts on my tumblr for Independent Bookstore Day.
And, a reminder that, even if it feels like we’re no longer in a pandemic in the USA, please go safely; we actually are still in a pandemic…
– ssw15
laughing that so many people’s (correct) response was ‘well now i just cannot show my face ever at the library again’
I’ve been meaning to share the link to this NY Times piece, “The Library Ends Late Fees, and the Treasures Roll In,” by Gina Cherelus, NY Times, date line March 31, 2022, updated April 1, 2022. I’ll re-blog this accordingly. I can only imagine how much has been returned to NYPL since the ending of fines. It’s quite amazing to realize how much fines have held back people. – ssw15
“Time Is a Mother” is Ocean Vuong’s second collection of poems being
released this week. A winner of major literary prizes and a MacArthur
Fellowship, Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his
mother’s death. He shares his Brief But Spectacular Take on “reclaiming
language for joy” as part of our arts and culture series, “CANVAS.”
I probably have Ocean Vuong’s work in my near-mythical, too-long to-read list. But, this piece from PBS NewsHour, where Vuong presents his Brief But Spectacular Take for PBS NewsHour’s arts and culture “CANVAS,” date line April 5, 2022 - this was lovely for what we can draw on the meaning and power of art. The video is the post is worth a watch. – ssw15
My mother taught me that you can look at something and people and
scenarios endlessly and still find something new. Just because you have
seen it does not mean you have known it.
And so the vocation of
the artist is to look at something with the faith that whatever you are
seeing will keep giving meaning to you. And I think that patient looking
was what she really gifted me, and it has to do with her sense of
wonder.
We think of terms like refugee, immigrant, but more
survivor. And we rarely think of wonder and awe. But I think, when it
comes to families and being raised by folks who are survivors, they keep
wonder and awe closest to their chests.
And I learned so much
from my mother’s joy in response to the world and the life she lived.
And I think that informs my artistic practice.
My name is Ocean Vuong, and this is my Brief But Spectacular take on reclaiming language to center wonder and joy. – Ocean Vuong.
“How Barnes & Noble Went From Villain to Hero” by Elizabeth A. Harris, NY Times, April 15, 2022. I think that Barnes & Noble made the book industry complicated, but I don’t want it to die because I still want something to oppose Amazon and I miss Borders and as much as I’ve gone to the route of independent bookstores, I still have an odd affection for Barnes & Noble (even though I apparently went with their e-reader and chose wrongly). Strangely, this article gave me hope. Worth a read, anyway. – ssw15
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams Bianco is turning 100 years old. NPR has an interesting piece by Elizabeth Blair, date line of April 12, 2022, about the book, its author, and what the book has meant to readers. I haven’t read the book in years, but it’s definitely one that felt strange to me for asking about what it is real and what is the power of love, and how easily it was to give away the Veleveteen Rabbit, who… found an afterlife as a real rabbit, somehow… Worth checking out the piece, anyway. – ssw15
Since I’m not violating copyright law (Dickinson now in public
domain), this has to be one of my favorite poems, simply for being
morbid and full of imagery:
BECAUSE I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ’t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity. — Emily Dickinson.
Re-blogging for National Poetry Month, the 2021 edition. I imagine that Emily Dickinson would be okay with lockdowns and being meditative during difficult times, such as the pandemic has been since last year. – ssw15
Re-blogging for National Poetry Month 2022. – ssw15
I posted this item on April 29, 2020, shared originally by RaeLyn Grogan, back when we were in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic. The post still seems nice to try out, in case one wants a coloring page for art therapy? Anyway, reblogging for the middle of National Poetry Month 2022. – ssw15
