hi hiii i wanted to say that your account is so refreshing to see, esp with the passion you have for the arts. as someone who's been meaning to read (and write) more poetry, do you have any recommendations? some classics that everyone and their mothers know? perhaps some underrated pieces that changed you? or even just authors you like, I'm very open to suggestions :]]
Hi! Thank you so much for this kind ask :) So exciting that you’re looking to delve deeper into reading and writing! I had to take a little time to answer this because my thoughts were all over the place lol.
For a review of notable/classic poems/poets, I honestly just recommend looking at lists online or, hell, just binging Wikipedia pages for different countries’ poetry if that’s something you’re into, just to get a sense of the chronology. I read one of those little Oxford Very Short Introductions on American Poetry and thought it was pretty good, but online is quicker if you’re just searching for poets or movements to hone in on. Poetry Foundation also has lots of resources, in addition to all the poems in their database. I guess my one big classic recommendation would have to be Emily Dickinson (<3), but really the best move is just to find a poet you already enjoy and then look around to see who their peers were/are, who they were inspired by, who they’ve maybe translated here and there, etc. and follow it down the line as far as you can.
For some personal recs, here are some collections I’ve really enjoyed over the past two years or so. Bolded favorites, and linking where select poems from the book have been published online. But also, if you want a preview of a couple poems from another of the books to see if they interest you, DM me and I can send them over! You can also feel free to pilfer through my poetry tag for more stuff lol
Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon trans. Don Mee Choi
Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo
DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi
Hardly War by Don Mee Choi
Whereas by Layli Long Soldier
Geography III by Elizabeth Bishop
Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha
Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
Mouth: Eats Color—Sagawa Chika Translations, Anti-Translations, & Originals by Sawako Nakayasu
The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam trans. W.S. Merwin and Clarence Brown
The Branch Will Not Break by James Wright
This Journey by James Wright
God’s Silence by Franz Wright
Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke (the translation I read was by Alfred Corn—I thought it was great, but idk if there are better ones out there!)
DMZ Colony, Hardly War, Dictee, Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, and partially Whereas are all book-length poems with some prose poetry and varying levels of weirdness/denseness/multilingualism—if you were to pick one to start with, I’d say do Don’t Let Me Be Lonely or Whereas. Mouth: Eats Color is some experimental translations of Japanese modernist poet Chika Sagawa, with other translations and some of Nakayasu’s original stuff mixed in—it's definitely a bit disorienting but ultimately I remember having such fun with it, as much fun as Nakayasu probably had making it. It’s a book that emphasizes co-creation and a spirit of play, and completely changed my attitude towards translation.
If you’re less interested in that kind of formal fuckery stuff though (I get it), can’t go wrong with the other books! Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings is the one I read most recently, and it’s great—Harjo also featured in Round 1! Franz Wright also featured, and God's Silence is the collection which "Night Walk" comes from. James Wright (father of Franz) is one of my favorite poets of all time, though his poetry isn’t perfect. Even so, I’m honestly surprised he’s not doing numbers on Tumblr—Mary Oliver was a big fan of his, even wrote her "Three Poems for James Wright" after his death.
I mentioned in another post that one of my favorite poets is Paul Celan, so I’ll also recommend him here. I read Memory Rose into Threshold Speech which is a translated collection of his earlier poems, but it’s quite long if you’re just getting to know him as a poet—fortunately, both Poetry Foundation and Poets.org have a ton of his poems in their collections. There’s also an article by Ilya Kaminsky about him titled “Of Strangeness That Wakes Us” (!!!!!) that’s a great place to start, and is honestly kind of my whole mission statement when I’m reading and writing poetry. Looking at the books I’ve recommended above, a lot of them share feelings of separateness or alienation—from others, from oneself, from one’s country, from language—that breed strange, private modes of expression. That tends to be what I’m drawn to personally, and that’s some of what Kaminsky talks about.
Sorry of the length of this—I hope it's useful as a jumping-off point! And if you or anyone ends up exploring any of these poets, let me know what you think! If folks wanna reply with recommendations themselves too that'd be great :)
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TWST Ask Game!!
General
1. Who's hand did you first grab? Why? Would you choose someone else if you could do it over again?
2. Who is on your homescreen?
3. What does your guest room look like?
4. Who is on your main team?
5. If you could have any unique magic / signature spell in the game, which would you choose and why?
6. First SSR? Most recent SSR?
7. Is there an SSR you really wanted but never got?
8. Is there any character who seems to follow you (i.e. they always seem to pop up when you're trying to summon someone else)?
9. What changes would you like to see implemented in the game?
Favorites and Least Favorites
10. Top five favorite characters?
11. Favorite character from each dorm?
12. Least favorite character from each dorm?
13. Favorite NRC staff member?
14. Favorite non-NRC character?
15. Favorite dorm?
16. Favorite character design?
17. Favorite overblot design?
18. Favorite dorm uniform?
19. Favorite event?
20. Favorite book from the main story?
21. Favorite R card that you own? Favorite SR? Favorite SSR?
22. Favorite relationships? (Romantic or platonic!!)
Personal
23. Which dorm would you be sorted into?
24. Which character(s) would you get along with the most?
25. Which character(s) would you actively avoid?
26. When did you start playing TWST?
27. What drew you into TWST? What made you stay?
28. What is the TWST related content that you've produced that you are most proud of?
Wild Card
29. What is your opinion on [any character you like!]
30. Make up your own question!
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ヾ(•ω•`)o Hiiii!!!! Don't worry about it! Don't be afraid. It's not real.
Excerpt from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Phone
"In 1978, a local serial child abductor and murderer only known as "The Grabber" prowls the streets of a suburb in North Denver. Finney Blake and his younger sister Gwen live in the area with their abusive, alcoholic father Terrence, whose wife committed suicide after having a series of disturbing psychic dreams. Finney is frequently bullied and harassed at school, but his friend and classmate Robin fends off the bullies.
Having inherited her mother's ability, Gwen dreams about the Grabber's abduction of Bruce, a boy Finney knew from Little League. Two police detectives, Wright and Miller, interview Gwen at school, believing that she may have knowledge about the Grabber. When Terrence learns about the questioning, he beats her with a belt. Soon afterward, the Grabber abducts first Robin and then Finney.
Finney awakens in a soundproofed basement with a disconnected black rotary dial telephone on one wall. It begins to ring on its own at times; Finney hears only static when he first answers it, but then hears Bruce's voice telling him about a floor tile he can remove in order to dig an escape tunnel. Finney starts to dig, but the foundations of the house are sunk too deeply for him to go beneath them.
The Grabber brings Finney a meal and leaves the basement door unlocked. As Finney is about to sneak out, he gets a call from Billy, another past victim. Billy warns Finney that the Grabber is waiting at the top of the basement stairs to punish him if he tries to leave, as part of a cruel game. At Billy's suggestion, Finney uses a hidden length of cable to climb up to the basement window; however, his weight pulls out the grate covering the pane, leaving him with no way to reach it again.
As Gwen confides to Terrence about her dreams of Finney's abduction, Wright and Miller question an eccentric man named Max who is staying in the area with his brother and who has shown great interest in the Grabber's crimes. It is revealed that Finney is being held in Max's basement, and that the Grabber is his brother.
Finney receives a call from Griffin, a third victim, who gives him the combination to the lock securing the house's front door and tells him that the Grabber has fallen asleep. He sneaks out and unlocks the door, but the Grabber quickly recaptures Finney after his dog Samson barks to wake him. A fourth victim, a juvenile delinquent named Vance, calls to tell Finney that he can break through a wall and into a freezer in the adjacent room. Finney does so, but finds the freezer door locked. As Finney despairs over his fate, he receives one last call from Robin, who urges him to stand up for himself and fight back by packing the phone receiver with dirt to use as a bludgeon.
After seeing the Grabber's house in a vision, Gwen calls Wright and Miller to give them the address. The police rush to the house and find the bodies of the Grabber's victims buried in the basement. Meanwhile, Max realizes Finney is being held in the basement and rushes to free him, but the Grabber kills him with an axe and attacks Finney, having decided to end his game. Finney uses the byproducts from his previous escape attempts to trap the Grabber in a pit he has dug, beats him with the receiver, and breaks his neck with the phone cord as his past victims taunt him. "
fucked up thing to send him btw
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Hey y'all! It's weird question time again!
So that doctor I mentioned before that I wanted to make a dog plushie for because he has improved my quality of life so much* (and also inexplicably reminds me of like a greyhound or a borzoi) is my endocrinologist
And, as my endocrinologist, he recommended back in December that I go see a rheumatologist, because he thinks I might have rheumatoid arthritis**. The staff at his office have been trying to get a rheumatologist for four months now. I know that, because yesterday I got a call from the rheumatologist's office and the nurse I spoke to said "Your doctor's office has been very...persistent about getting you this appointment"
So now I kinda want to get something for the whole office? But idk what I could get them or make them. Like, in non-medical contexts I'd make cookies or brownies for a group, but I can't bring cookies to a doctor's office. I mean, I guess I could, but if I were them I would definitely not eat them, and I run the risk of allergy-ing a fellow patient. Is there like a gift basket or gift card or thank you card or something you can recommend?
*I mean he maybe should have found a diagnosis before offering me steroids about it but the low dose steroids have made such a HUGE difference in my quality of life I am thrilled with Tennessee's weird (to me, with my experience in California) medical practices
**I don't think I have enough joint pain for it to be rheumatoid arthritis, but he's like the fourth doctor to tell me it's weird that when I got hives they usually started on joints, so maybe I'm wrong? I have the weird version of enough medical things that at this point I would not be surprised if I had Weird Rheumatoid Arthritis.
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