Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay. Perhaps I appreciate so much because we are from the same generation (ish, she is a tad younger); or because the writing is sharp and the sense of self-reflection is genuine and not arrogant or laced with self-righteousness; or because it just fucking rocks and was a lovely way to spend two days.
End of the sentimental journey by Sarah Vap. Transparency Note: I love Sarah. I know Sarah. Sarah is other-worldly. Everyone should read Sarah. Everyone should love Sarah. Flipping through the gorgeous End of the Sentimental Journey (Noemi Press, 2013), stop, page 23:
“NEGOTIATING INTIMACY IN POETRY: AN EXAMPLE
Ideally, then–using this third or fourth-wave full spectrum of human experience, and using an ultra-contemporary vocabulary of intimacy–a conversation about any given poem could go something like this:
Reader 1: That poem is like Tea-Bagging, and I actually prefer something a little more difficult, like a Cincinnati Bowtie.
Reader 2: I had a slightly different response. That poem, to me, is much too difficult and much too dirty. It’s like receiving a Pasadena Steamer or worse, an Angry Dragon.
Reader 3: Oh My God! My response was just the opposite! To me, this poem is like spooning and musk-scented candles and I have married it.”
Just a snippet of the joy and snark and super-awesomeness.
CITIZEN AN AMERICAN LYRIC by Claudia Rankine. If you don’t know it, go now…run to your local bookstore or type in http://www.powells.com
Drowning Tucson by Aaron Michael Morales (Coffee House Press, 2010). I have NO words to explain or describe or articulate the grip this novel (still) has on my connective tissues (which is one of the most disgusting and gnarly terms, thus I love to use it at any opportunity, appropriate or not). If you are an ostrich, don’t bother reading; if you are uncomfortable by race, poverty, violence, don’t bother reading; if you cringe when people cuss, don’t bother reading (and why the fuck are you reading this blog?)…onward!
Check these newish titles out:
King Me by Roger Reeves. Marvelous, melt-in-mouth, masterful: Like these lines from “Some Young Kings,”
“The Mike Tyson in my sings like a narwhal/minus the nasally twang of sleeping in a cold ocean,/the unsightly barnacles latched to the mattress” (1-3).
Bigfoot and the Baby by Ann Gelder. Rockin’ Ann that I met years ago at a Tin House Writing Conference. With that title, need I say more?
Willful Creatures by Aimee Bender. Short stories that cause pause, pause, pause…really? huh? really? This author doesn’t get enough credit, in my humble opinion.
When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz. I’m in love. ‘Nuff said.
The BULLSHIT
- that journals and reviews publish MOSTLY the same writers over and over = boring
- that writing about “real” shit like racism and classism isn’t more widely published
- that publishers are mostly white folk who have a limited view of the world (I may be making this up but from my perusing publishers and chatting with industry folks, I say it to be true!)
- that writers who “make it” become uninterested in mentoring (unless it’s that one brilliant Basquiat-don’t-miss-this student) AND insulate and exclude = bummer = the literary world are the peeps that read the literary world writers so common sense = support each other = don’t be a fucking asswipe = you are only as cool as you are generous and authentic and kind.
Books, Beauty & Bullshit 