PASS THE POETRY, PLEASE

"We would be together

and have our books and at night 

be warm in bed together with 

the windows open and the stars bright."

- Ernest Hemingway

I want us to go more the Hemingway (pun absolutely intended)

with our nights. Even if admittedly ours are very much together,

candlelight and even the open windows, there is a bit more cold light

from screens than starlight, and books between us in bed.

I wish us a more of that magic that lives between book pages.

I have always read a lot, come from a family of readers,

and want very much to pass the love of reading on to Cassius.

Probably needless to say the kid is not sitting reading on his own.

He is four years old and recognises his own name, mouths it from the letters

when he sees them. But he was, for some unreadable reason, 

deeply absorbed in Sierra DeMulder's We Slept Here that was laying

around on our bed. I wonder so what goes through his mind

when he departs like that. The details were in cahoots nonetheless,

an exemplary moment for a photograph.

How I read myself has changed lately.

I read more poetry than I used to. I also feverishly fold

more dogears than ever before and in almost everything I read,

and write down more sentences I want to remember in notes.

We are gratefully healthy, so the fever is over the words

and where they take me. Perhaps some of them

can inspire someone else other than me.

And so, this is my bedside table reading stack

at the moment, from top to bottom.

"Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority

tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy.

Got that, fellas? If you're unhappy at the amount of sexual opportunity

in your life, don't blame the women. Instead, make sure they have

equal access to power, wealth, and status. Then watch what happens."

- Cacilda Jethá (& Christopher Ryan),
Sex at Dawn

Jonathan Simons,

Songs of Waking (Poems)



"We would all like to believe we came from nowhere but ourselves,
every gesture is our own. But then we find we belong to the history and fate
of a long line of beings that also may have wished to be free."

- Patti Smith,
Devotion
(from the 'Why I Write' series)

I'm curious about author Simon Van Booy and started
with buying this one, that now already has quite a few dogears.


"I wonder if things can happen too early or too late or
if everything happens at exactly the right time.
If so, how sad and beautiful."


•


"I want to do things for people they will never forget.
Maybe that's the best thing I can do in life."


•


"It's true the people we meet shape us. But the people
we don't meet shape us also, often more because we have
imagined them so vividly.

There are people we yearn for but never seem to meet."




- Simon Van Booy,
The Secret Life of People in Love

'The Man who Planted Trees' is one of my favourite books

ever since my father gave me a copy many years ago.

I lost that one during one of my many moves,

and now felt I had to both own, and reread it.

"For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities,
one must have the good fortune to be able to observe
its performance over many years. If this performance is
devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity,
if it is absolutely certain that there is no thought of recompense and that,
in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth,
then there can be no mistake."

- Jean Giono,
The Man who Planted Trees

Several scattered sentences in my notes were by Ocean Vuong
I realised, so I wanted to try reading something of his.

"The most beautiful part of your body

is where it's headed.

& remember, / loneliness is still time spent /

with the world."

- Ocean Vuong,

'Night Sky With Exit Wounds'

I hope this finds you healthy and with more hope than despair.

And if you have a book or an author you want to suggest,

or anything that can inspire in these uncertain times for that matter,

- pass the poetry, please..!

hannah x