Hey hey patrons,

This is the second edition of ish I read this week-ish–and it’s actually on time! I had my mea culpas all lined up thinking I’d have to do this tomorrow but here I sit. This will be a shorter edition for two reasons: 1) I’ve been pretty miserable this week because I’ve been in a fibro/IBS flare so I haven’t been able to read as much, and 2) I’m exhausted right now and this actually takes more spoons than I thought it would when I promised it.

For that reason (#2) I’m thinking about making this the LAST edition of ish I read this week-ish, at least the last scheduled edition. I might want to share stuff I read with y’all (or the public) spontaneously, but this being a regular thing I do feels too much like school and I hope y’all know how much I hate school. Because I really really do. So. Yeah. As I write this, I’m making my decision. Instead of doing this feature I’ll post 2 more of my poems every month. That way everything I do here is at least something I love.

Ok, now that that’s settled, I hope you’re all having a great weekend. Here’s some ish I read this week.

When the Chant Comes by Kay Ulanday Barrett (Topside Heliotrope, 2016).

This book was lent to me by a friend in exchange for Audre Lorde’s Collected Poems and I feel like it was a fair trade. I loved how disability and longing, pain and joy, death and transformation, queerness and brownness are all wrapped up in each other here as a gift, inseparable. If you are looking for beautiful cathartic writing I highly recommend Barrett’s work.

TweetCat: “Stray Cat Breaks Into Zoo, Becomes Best Friends With a Lynx.”

OK, I told you it was a light week.

Susan Luckman: “In Our Brutal Modern World, Science Shows Our Brains Need Craft More Than Ever.” The Conversation, 28 Jul 2018.

Since I couldn’t write and read so much this week I’ve been doing crafty-type ish and I happened across this article on FB that reinforces why I do it. I find making things with my hands (when my hands aren’t also hurting, lol) to be so relaxing and restorative, and finding new in the old is a kind of art. I love cutting up clothes I was about to give away and turning them into something I’ll wear for years and sewing fancy accessories that I can’t find in stores for cheaper than they’d sell them. And because I’m making things for myself and not selling them I don’t have to worry about perfection.

That’s all they wrote, folks! I’m almost down to knives, so I’m gonna go lay down.

I’ll put up a separate post another day reminding y’all about the shift to poems from reading roundups, just to make it canon.

Peace!! xo

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