June Reading

June was a good month for reading, possibly due to time on airplanes.  I read seven books.

 

For the first time in a long time, I read a graphic novel, Kiki de Montparnasse by Catel and Bocquet.  It traces the life of a famous artist’s model in Paris in the time of the surrealists.  Know that Man Ray photo of a naked woman with cello curls on her back?  The woman is Kiki.  She lived hard and had plenty of adventures and the graphic novel is not shy about any of it (may not be kid-appropriate, depending on your kid and your parenting style, despite being a comic book).  It was an interesting way to learn.

 

Again, for the first time in a long time, I spent some time reading poetry.  The Rattle Bag is an anthology edited by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes.  It includes poems they selected because they just liked them.  I liked an awful lot of them, too.  There were some familiar names and some favorite poems in there, but also a lot I had never encountered before.  They decided to arrange the poems alphabetically by title rather than by time period or theme, which makes the whole an exercise in serendipity in a delightful way.  I also learned that I really really like Gerard Manley Hopkins, which is not a surprise.  I would recommend this book.

 

The only nonfiction book I read this month (assuming that a biographical graphic novel doesn’t count) was Francine Prose’s The Lives of the Muses.  It’s a compelling book that follows the lives of nine women who inspired various famous artists in their fields.  It talks about what it means to be a muse, the limitations of the role, how it plays with being a human being, and more.  I learned a lot, but I also felt suspicious after I read the chapter about Alice.  I’ve read a lot about Alice Liddell and Charles Dodgson and I have Opinions.  What Prose has to say about them and their relationship doesn’t sync well with my sense of things, which calls the rest of the book’s perspectives into doubt, no matter how beautifully expressed those perspectives are.  That’s my two cents and your mileage may vary.

 

I enjoyed Naomi Novik’s Temeraire books and am really loving her shift toward exploring fairy tales.  Spinning Silver is a page-turner that starts from Rumplestiltskin and goes to dark, fascinating, and amazing places.  Her characters are always relatable if not always likeable and the weaving of the plot is deft and compelling.  Read it.

 

Tana French’s The Searcher is one of her strongest books to date.  I love her finely drawn characters and her dialogue is funny and true.  The plot was mostly beside the point for me.  I figured out the twist before she revealed it, but I was happy to have her take me for the ride because her telling is wonderful.

 

I love Ann Cleves and Silent Voices gave me no reason to stop.  Vera is a unique character and I love hanging out with her.  I like mysteries that are novels first that happen to have a mystery in them and this one definitely fits that description.  The interplay of people and events is done wonderfully well.

 

Finally, I continue my leisurely reading of all of Ursula Le Guin with Tehanu.  This book was written well after The Farthest Shore although the events follow upon it directly.  What Le Guin brings to her return to Earthsea is all the life she lived between the writing of those two books, and it’s a lot.  She does not flinch when it is time to write about atrocity, gender relations, power, and the struggle to be who we are when that seems to be changing.  She is always worth reading.

 

Monthly total:  7

Summer total to date:  7

Year to date total:  38

June 2021 Flash Lit 10 - On the Limits of Language and Conception

On the Limits of Language and Conception

 

The world is like—

like—

like—

 

like a tree,

spreading infinite branches

with leaves in all the colors

and fruits that

may be luscious little universes

themselves

 

like an eye,

nerve connected to

consciousness, lens

shifting perspective,

pupil dilating against the dark

 

like a creature

sleeping in a den

roused by tearing hands

into hurricane rage

 

or not.

 

The world just is,

spinning without hands,

dancing without feet,

itself.

June 2021 Flash Lit 9 - Pose

Pose

 

Like this?

If I grow my hair out?

If I shift my

hips forward, tuck

the prickly opinion

behind the cage of bones?

If I raise my arms,

my voice, my consciousness?

How about if I bleach

out the color, turn it

all down, turn up

the excitement?

Is that what you want to see?

 

Inside:  vibrant fleshy cartwheels

hooting with laughter.

June 2021 Flash Lit 8 - After Paul and Blake

After Paul and Blake

 

If the whole body

were an eye,

the shimmer of the red

desert would warm it

and the luscious fuzz

of the peach would feed it.

All the music would be

coloratura.

The scent of the beloved

would be light

in a dark place.

Perception has many doors,

all of them infinite

and shining clean.

June 2021 Flash Lit 7 - How to Make a Home

How to Make a Home

 

Shingles, studs, spigots,

timber, plaster, tile, grout,

molding—so much molding!—

doors, jambs, handles,

pink cotton candy insulation,

tubes and wires, switches,

sinks, toilets, tubs,

but all that is just

the body

held together with nails.

Soul moves in with

the books, the geraniums,

the swirls of paint, the red

kettle on the stove,

the laughter of children.

June 2021 Flash Lit 6 - For Christina Rossetti

For Christina Rossetti

 

To eff the ineffable:

see the wind

            hear the silence

                        taste the emptiness and smell it

                                    touch the nothing

 

or

just let the silken scarf billow

            flap bellow snap

and say enough. 

June 2021 Flash Lit 5 - For the Alchemists

For the Alchemists

 

This or that.

Mine or yours.

Water or rock or air.

We sort, categorize, label,

because otherwise

we have to bow

our heads, overwhelmed

by our fusion, the only

way we touch at all.

 

Waves break on rocks,

break rocks, the sand

swirling through and through,

droplets leaping up and up and

spattering back down.

 

Not many things:

Just one reality.

June 2021 Flash Lit 4 - The Wreck

The Wreck

 

Afterwards,

when the light returns

and the water smooths,

when the shouting stops,

we see

 

the rocks were always there.

Some inevitability, some

quantum magnet of chaos,

drew us to this sharp shock.

 

The tide may ebb and

waves recede, but

time will not flow back, back

to when we were whole.

June 2021 Flash Lit 3 - Tongues of Flame

Tongues of Flame

 

We build boxes—

golden arks, gothic chancels,

filigreed and silver-chased cages of words,

shrines of bony relics.

Inside, we hide, kneel, recite,

chant, incant, decant

the bloody wine.

 

We pretend

we understand.

 

Then the fiery feathers

rush upon us and

we burn,

our boxes so much kindling

for the bursting Spirit

so much bigger

than even the cathedral

dome of sky and its infinite

whirl of stars.

 

No wonder the angels start

with

Be not afraid.

June 2021 Flash Lit 2 - Meditation

Meditation

 

In.  Out.

Hiss like a tape, trapped

on CD—

ocean sounds

like breath.

 

Thoughts sink

into the waves,

nibbled by sea stars,

buried in sand—

 

those are pearls that were his eyes—

 

become something strange,

precious,

still.

 

Ocean flows backward,

meandering stream,

rocks, pool.

Golden koi

weave below the lotus.

June 2021 Flash Lit 1 - Model

Model

 

Feathery lashes, plus feathers.

Wings of hair flying back from her face.

Here, pinioned,

pinpointed,

a specimen for a gaze, caged

in ink or paint.

She objects—

subject not object, but

subjected to the process.

Her thoughts, invisible, glide

away on thermals and she vanishes

in clouds.

May Reading

At first glance, it looks like I didn’t read much this month, only four books (and one of those I’m not going to write about here, but on my other blog because it’s a fitness-related book).  The thing is, one of those books, the fitness one, took approximately forever to wade through, so it feels like a real accomplishment.

 

I read one other nonfiction book, Live Nude Girl, by Kathleen Rooney.  It’s a memoir about her experience as an artist model.  At first, I found the writing very self-conscious and possibly overly literary, but the later parts of the book grew on me.  The process of modeling makes the model both subject and object at the same time, which is a rich place to explore lots of topics in art, feminism, cognition, etc.  I read it as research (no, I’m not becoming an art model; just writing about one), but it was generally interesting, too.

 

One of my kids gave me Jordan Ifueko’s book, Raybearer, for my birthday.  It is a tense and gripping YA novel set in a fantasy world based loosely in West African culture.  We need more books like this.  The characters are engaging, imperfect humans who have lots to overcome and it’s a great ride.  Two thumbs up.

 

My other kid gave me Kondo and Kezumi Visit Giant Island for Mother’s Day.  It is a book about exploration, friendship, and dealing with feelings, which could have been boring and preachy, but instead was fun and moving.  The illustrations are clever and funny, complementing the text.

 

Spring Total:  31 books

2021 Total to Date:  31 books

 

On to summer reading!