@AskTheDevil, I've been meaning to ask for a while--
Did you ever read Rabih Alameddine's The Angel of History? It's a book I keep coming back to in moments of despair. In it, a gay poet is haunted by global conflicts that speak to life's capacity for endless suffering (e.g., the US AIDS crisis, and migratory traumas in Lebanon and Egypt). However, he's not alone: Satan and Death are on hand, offering ways through the pain of it all.
Powerful meditation.
#CoSoBooks
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28818930-the-angel-of-history
This books sounds like something I'd enjoy. I'll have to pick it up soon.
But it especially caught my attention because it shares a title with one of my favorite collections of poetry, by Carolyn Forche. I first encountered her through an anthology she edited, Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness
Wrong End of the Telescope is literally on my list to read next month!
Will do!
I'm reading it as part of a "read around the world" project, which I'm tracking on storygraph. I expect it to take many years, but I've read from 24 countries this year so far. (Though several of those were easy to check off the list, like the US, UK, and Japan.)
https://app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/af1c0db9-a64b-4808-a1dc-18d8d23e485a
Also connected, this wonderful Laurie Anderson piece "And he said: History is an angel being blown backwards into the future"
Oh Tyghe. 💜 In another life, I'd've bought you a beer / strong tea by now, and we'd be talking books, poetry, and voices like Anderson's well into the night.
Thank you for bringing this light into my afternoon. May the rest of your day go oh so gently for you, too.
It's so lovely to share a dance through some ripples of synchronicity.
@MLClark Just finished it this morning!
@tyghebright @AskTheDevil
Two recs for a rec! Thank you. 🤗
Tyghe, I think you'd also very much enjoy Alameddine's latest, The Wrong End of the Telescope, as well. It explores the nuance and fluidity of who we are, and what about us *matters*, in very different subject positions. It's also a book that refuses some of the saintly language dumped on human beings in marginalized positions. People are still messy, whether in flight, or volunteering, or going through other changes.
Happy reading!