As much as I like reading poetry, the authors' essays on their creative processes still feel like a stab in the gut. Good to know some things don't change.

How awesome is José Saramago? Really awesome.

The first thing I learned about gender from my parents was that being a girl is the same as being an asshole. Granted, my dad only meant to be homophobic, not misogynistic, when he threatened to beat me if I "bring home a girlfriend or an asshole boyfriend", but...I was about six. I had no idea what queerness even was, let alone why anyone would ( Read more... )

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Next up in the library-borrowing queue: The Lusiads in English translation.

The lyrics to "Item - Sortilegium" appear to be cobbled from this. The Ladies' Second Song just gets more awesome the more I look into it.

"Women began to read the Bible then, as quick in their movements as bees around the last orange blossom. The hour of the destruction of the world was approaching, according to them, because the pale sweat of the Apocalypse was already flowing from their cold-colored hands. And someone observing their bellies trembling with affliction could not have ( Read more... )

Has anyone got my copy of My World is Not of This Kingdom? Only that I was wanting to quote it (for wall graffiti in Quarantine 2019, because it's got wonderfully zombie-apocalypse-appropriate bits about despair and widespread death and because I'm pathetic like that), and I can't find it anywhere.

Lark in the Morning is due back at the library on the 12th. This makes me sad with a great sadness. So in celebration of the fact that it's not the 12th yet, a poem from its pages:

( It pleases me to see old men bequeathing/Their houses and to watch the power passing... )

A study guide for Lem's Solaris.

ETA: An analysis of the novel and the Soderbergh film together.