A poem I can’t quite figure out how to write
I wish I was better at poetry.
I feel like right now all I have are fragments. Maybe the fragments could one day be essays, but it feels like they keep coming to me like a poem.
A poem I can’t quite figure out how to write.
I want to write about the smoke of the Fourth of July. The smoke from the grill produced by extra fatty sausage. The way it feels in my eyes. The way it smells both terrible and tantalizing at the same time.
The smoke of the illegal fireworks the neighbors won’t stop shooting off. The way it confuses the bats in the night, swooping too low. The smoke that still sits the morning after, a haze of rising sun and pollutants.
It feels like there is something urgent to say about smoke as a warning. Or maybe smoke in the wreckage, in the aftermath. Or maybe just about the burning.
But I don’t have the right words. Or I can’t find the right order.
It’s not a poem right now. It’s just an incomplete idea. Words that taunt me when I try to sleep.
In Emily Henry’s latest book, Great Big Beautiful Life, she has a passage on writing that I can’t stop thinking about:
“To supplement my visual log, I began to journal too. I stopped worrying so much, channeled all my frustration and helplessness into documenting. And whenever I was scared, I’d go back to my favorite entries and reread what I’d written, and I’d feel like I really was there.
All the emotions of the moment would rise, an echo, or a kind of time travel. With writing, you could always add more. More, more, more until you got to the heart of a thing, and after that, you could chip away the excess.
With photography, you had to get it right the first time. I didn’t have the patience for that. Or the faith in myself, if I’m being honest. I liked the security of revision.”
Although this newsletter is generally a place where I do very little editing (lie to me and say you can’t tell!), maybe I’ll keep revising these fragments, teasing them out into something more complete.
Or maybe it will just be another poem I never wrote.
I wish I was better at poetry.
This Week’s Recommendations
In My Oven
I have made two batches now of these Gluten Free Smores Bars and they are a hit! I’ve made other smores bars before, but I think it is the use of marshmallow fluff instead of marshmallows that makes this work better than others I’ve tried. I recommend setting them out (ideally outside!) for like 20-30 minutes before eating so they really recreate the gooey deliciousness of a smore!
On My Shelf
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry - If Emily Henry writes it, I’m reading it and probably loving it! This one is a story within a story and loved that it had some layers to the love story, as well as explored interesting family dynamics. It has some echoes of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, but really I would recommend this for anyone who loves a romance with good YEARNING.
Saltwater by Katy Hays - If you are a fan of White Lotus, you'll love this thriller! Super twisty with love-to-hate flawed characters, a stunning Capri setting, and the kind of wealth that is fun to root against. Even if you guess some of the twists, they are well-written enough to be enjoyable and you probably won't guess all of the details.
The Compound by Aisling Rawle - I have been seeing this one everywhere and I think it lives up to the hype! It puts you both in the mindset of a viewer of the “show” they have set up and in the mind of one of the “contestants.” As a huge fan of shows like Love Island, this book really adds to my constant argument that reality TV shows tell us as much about ourselves and society at large as they tell us about the people on them.
I Want to Burn This Place Down by Maris Kreizman - Maris Kreizman is one of my favorite writers (especially writing on books!) and this essay collection really shows off her strengths! So much of her story feels like my own - from the political shifts to chronic illness to being a recovering ambition monster - but she manages to not just convey those stories but also to catapult you to time and place with such specific details. I wish the collection was as angry as the title suggests and that there was maybe one final essay to tie it all together but overall a fantastic collection!
The Good Boy by Stella Hayward - The premise of this book is admittedly ridiculous, but the story itself is really so sweet, charming, and beautiful! It's funny and fantastical but also heartfelt. It is such a testament to Stella Hayward's writing that everything about this book shouldn't work and yet it absolutely does. I couldn't put it down! This comes out on Tuesday, so pre-order now! Thank you to Netgalley and Avon for the advance copy.
In My Tabs
Everything about “Alligator Alcatraz” makes me physically sick.
Don’t call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a concentration camp. - “The history of this kind of detention underlines that it would be a mistake to think the current cruelties are the endpoint. America is likely just getting started.”
“We are being hunted and killed for recruitment incentives and 70k a year, paid with our taxpayer dollars – my immigrant dollars. They will not pay for my medical care or my education, but they will pay for my disappearance and death.”
“An Absolute Moral Failure”: Disability Advocates React to GOP Medicaid Cuts
“Rather than simply robbing us of our time, eliminating third spaces, and turning us into competitors who fear each other more often than we relate to one another, Big Tech now seeks to root out even the aspiration for human connection, offering enshittified convenience food for the soul in its place.”
“I see a lot of emphasis in parenting discussions on raising boys to know that their big feelings are legitimate. But what if society at large already acknowledges this? What if the challenge to focus on as a parent is less on prevailing on a boy to express how he feels, and more on teaching him that he is not entitled to channel these big feelings into violent, aggressive, or antisocial behavior?”
Nobody Cares If Music Is Real Anymore - “Perhaps no human artist could tolerate producing such soulless lackluster, but an AI is unburdened by shame.”
I needed this laugh - it’s okay to notice when rich people look like garbage
“I often say that people are in motion everywhere to remind myself that while there is bad news, it’s definitely not the only news. Each person in motion is doing something that might contribute to a greater good. “