In the last couple weeks I have found myself pinned between the return to work and busyness after the relative quiet of the holiday season and a national crisis. I hit a point last week staring at a stack of partially-read books feeling the existential anxiety of not having enough time to read all the … Continue reading Reading During Difficult Times
art
Totems
Emerald green leaves with darker stripes like paint splotches, called calithea lancifolia, in a specked, sky-blue pot; a rippled peperomia, the other houseplant I've managed not to kill, purpley green leaves and magenta stems; a beeswax candle that smells of pine; a framed thistle I carried home with me, pressed into a book, from Scotland. … Continue reading Totems
Poetry Makes Nothing Happen
I have mused before on whether or not literature "matters" in the sense of having force in the world, let alone the universe. In a recent essay, Michael Chabon contemplates giving up entirely in the face of the uselessness of art. In the piece Chabon tenders his resignation, ostensibly as the Chairman of the MacDowell … Continue reading Poetry Makes Nothing Happen
Dogs, Coffee, & Books 