February 2012
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Self-Help for Fellow Refugees
structureandstyle:
If your name suggests a country where bells might have been used for entertainment
or to announce the entrances and exits of the seasons or the birthdays of gods and demons,
it’s probably best to dress in plain clothes when you arrive in the United States, and try not to talk too loud.
If you happen to have watched armed men beat and drag your father out the front...
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“After sex, you curl up like a shrimp, something deep inside you ruined, slammed...”
– Susan Minot, “Lust”
This part gets me: “You haven’t been able to—to what? To open your heart. You open your legs but can’t, or don’t dare anymore, to open your heart.” Sometimes, yes. Sometimes.
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“I could do some things well. Some things I was good at, like math or painting or...”
– Susan Minot, “Lust”
Oh god. This story. This story has broken my heart. If you read any short story this year, read Susan Minot’s “Lust” (from Lust and Other Stories).
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“…for he must confess to two of the oddest infirmities in the world: one...”
– Charles Dickens, Bleak House
Otherwise known as: my favorite passage from my favorite Charles Dickens novel. I swear that though I may be an adult, sometimes I still feel like Harold Skimpole: “Go your several ways in peace!…only—let [me] live!” Let me do what I want in...
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“A couple of times a year I make myself a tape to play in the car, a tape full of...”
– Nick Hornby, Songbook
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“I, I, I, isn’t it the sweetest/sound, the beautiful, arrogant ego refusing...”
– Kim Addonizio, “The Singing” (from Tell Me)
If you like this, check out some of her other poems on Structure and Style.
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“Let me break it down for you: she’s writing herself into existence. She’s giving...”
– Liz Phair on Why Lana Del Rey Scares Rock’s Boy Club aka Liz Phair will always be one of my favorite women in existence. (h/t berezina)
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“This is actually a really old discourse. From Plato’s banishment of poets...”
– Ben Lerner, “on why people hate poetry” (Minnesota Public Radio)
A friend posted this on facebook, and I think it rings true. How many people do you know who hate poetry? I know quite a few. I try to love poetry just a little more, in order to make up for them.
-R
(via structureandstyle)
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Desert Places
structureandstyle:
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast, In a field I looked into going past, And the ground almost covered smooth in snow, But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it—it is theirs. All animals are smothered in their lairs. I am too absent-minded to count; The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness Will be...
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Phenomenal Woman
structureandstyle:
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size. But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me.
I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And...
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“Yes, writing is scary. Good grief, sometimes it is like turning yourself inside...”
– Email from my dearest MEM
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“Many people with psychiatric and brain conditions also report gastrointestinal...”
– A Gut Check for Many Ailments (via blxnblcks)
This explains a lot.
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January 2012
99 posts
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Bark: Ten Reasons Not to Sleep with an Essayist →
My favorite is this one, but I am writing about my father. I am working through both trauma and a book.
6. She will continually write about her mother or her days as an addict or some ethereal night in a place you do not know. You will think that she’s working through a trauma; she will say, no, she’s working on a book.
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“Doesn’t it strike any of you all as odd that people will foam at the mouth...”
– Julia Sugarbaker on the lottery, Designing Women season five, episode 10 (“Keep the Homefires Burning”)
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“At night I eat my metaphors
and wipe my mouth with similes.
My naughty parts...”
– Mary Ellen Miller, “Red” from The Poet’s Wife Speaks
Reminds you of Mark Strand’s “Eating Poetry,” no? If you like this, go check out MEM’s poem “Desire” on Structure and Style.
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“Why is pop music the only art form that still inspires such arrantly stupid...”
– (The always interesting) Sasha Frere-Jones, “Screen Shot” (on Lana Del Ray)