Author: allison burris

TTT: 9 Books I Bought on Vacation

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

I’m the kind of person who always brings a book to the cabin and…never reads more than a few pages of it. I go on trips with several book and come back with most of them unread except for the audiobook on the plane. I’m often lucky if I get a single book read on a trip. There’s usually so many other things to experience and do and reading tends to be a pretty solitary, relaxing activity, which is not usually trip strategy. So with very few exceptions (like our trip to Taiwan years ago when I had long stretches of time to myself), I tend to buy more books on vacation than I read. And because these books become something like souvenirs, they’re often more memorable to me than the books that I read (or tried to read, and reread the same paragraph over and over again). So although the prompt for this week is books I read on vacation, I’m going to talk about books I purchased on vacation instead.

New York, New York at the Strand: Unnatural Creatures ed. by Neil Gaiman

I bought this book for the cover, the gorgeous typography and twisting branches. We were young college kids on this trip, and we didn’t have a lot to spend on souvenirs, but the book was out in paperback and on sale, and I bought it. This is a great collection of short stories by the way–a cool focus that allows the writers to be very creative. If you enjoy fantasy and dark fairy tales, you’ll definitely enjoy it.

Bend, Oregon: The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

I found this at a thrift store with my Mom and Nana–we always beeline for the books. I had read a couple other Atwood books by then so I was excited to see another one. Even now, I know I’ll get through all of her books eventually, but I tend to dole them out to myself so I don’t go through them all at once.

Paris, France: A French version of the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

I learned un petit peu of French for the trip to Paris my Nana and I took in 2018. I learned enough to get around as a tourist, but definitely not enough to struggle through Harry Potter, and given the choice I’ll probably go back to Spanish, but I couldn’t resist buying something in the wonderful little bookstore. Next time I’ll stick to notebooks. I still have the little embossed bookmark though, and I love it.

Maui, Hawaii: The Quest for King Arthur by David Day

I really enjoy shopping, but not the mass produced souvenir kind, so while my friend was off looking at things in Lahaina, I went and found this cute little used bookstore and an interesting coffee table book about King Arthur caught my eye.

Taichung, Taiwan: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

I went into a lot of bookstores and stationery stores in Taiwan and bought lots of washi tape and little cards and stickers and things, but I didn’t kid myself and think I was ever going to learn enough Mandarin even for a simple picture book. But there was a little used bookstore in Taichung that held a shelf of English books, and I was running low on reading material so…it came home with me.

Actually Taiwan was the rare trip that I read quite a bit since I was alone most of the day. I only took books I was willing to leave behind and I ended up leaving almost a drawerful and the hotel called. In retrospect, I should have just taken them down to the bookstore I’d found but I was worried I wouldn’t be able to communicate with the person at the counter even though the vast majority of people we met spoke at least some English (certainly much more than my 10 words of Mandarin)  i also could have looked it up on my phone… no excuse really. My bag was lighter without them and then I had room for all the washi tape.

Patrick Ness writes really well about the shock and horrors of childhood made manifest as a little boy grieves his mother in the only way he knows how. A beautiful middle grade book. And the movie was decent as well.

London, UK: The Muse by Jessie Burton, The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry, The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov

There was some sort of deal for 3 of certain paperbacks, so I found a few things. I don’t remember the name of this bookstore that we poked into…but I did notice that books are a bit less expensive in the UK and that they’re made a little differently– stiffer and lighter than the floppy US trade paperback. The covers were gorgeous too!

Mikhail Bulgakov wrote the Master and Margarita, which is one of my all time favorites, and this little novella was good, but not as good. It’s about a doctor who switches a human’s testicles with a dogs and they take on each other’s characteristics to amusing results. It’s a weird little book, but it gives you a good sense of the midcentury USSR, which Bulgakov was very much writing against in a fantastical way.

The Essex Serpent is a little dark and creepy and full of magical realism, like most of Sarah Perry’s work. Her writing can be a little dense, but it’s worth wading through (or listening to the audiobook) for the atmosphere she creates in her stories, which borders on the gothic. They made a miniseries of this for Apple TV+, which I haven’t seen yet.

Everyone talks about Jessie Burton’s more well known book The Miniaturist, but I couldn’t get into that setting nearly as quickly as I was swept into a fast paced midcentury London. I ended up reading this book waiting to be called for jury duty. We were there 6 hours or so before being dismissed. I finished both books I brought and went to the library on break. That’s where I picked up the more famous Jessie Burton book, but it was such a tone and pace shift I couldn’t get through the first chapters and into the richer parts. Also, those closeted Holland spaces always feel dark and claustrophobic to me. They’re not my favorite historical setting by a long shot.

Merida, Mexico:  Purchased: The Poems of Octavio Paz

Recently my friend and I went to Mexico, and while we were in this colorful city, I discovered that an expat was running an English language bookstore. I was looking for poetry by Mexican authors, and I was disappointed not to find much although I’m sure it doesn’t sell that well. But I did pick up a lovely bilingual edition of poems by Octavio Paz.

Do you ever buy books on vacation? Let me know in the comments!

Reading Through the Stacks: 10. A Sentient House

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Reading through the Oakland Public Library’s poetry collection.

Findings by Wendell Berry, published in 1969.

Wendell Berry (1934-) is a novelist, essayist, poet, environmental activist, and farmer. His work is grounded in place, and the landscape of Kentucky, where he was born and has spent a large portion of his life, is very important to his work. As such, in his poetry he’s known for writing pastoral and elegiac poems. He’s been publishing poetry consistently since the 1960s, but his essays are more widely read.

Findings is a short book divided into three sections. The first and largest section is “The House,” which is structured almost like a five act play, ending with an epilogue. Although the poem is not really menacing or sinister, the sentient nature of the house and its experience of so much family death through the generations definitely gave me haunted house vibes. It’s really only the first section, “The White and Waking of the House” that fits this perception so neatly, but it was hard for me to shake that first impression even though the rest of the long poem ties more neatly into cyclical ideas of life and death and the stability of place through change.

3.
From the ashes and lives
of the past house, this house
continues to a summiting
now-waking at hot noon
in the deadly sun’s emblazonment;

Wendell Berry, from section 3 in “The White and Waking of the House”

Even though day and night are juxtaposed here (and throughout the poem), I can’t help but feeling death and dark get more time on the page. Consider just the word “ashes” compared to lives–the “sh” of ashes lingers in the mouth, and the two syllable word takes longer to say than “lives.” Also the lives are of the past house, a past structure, a myriad of past lives–to me this reinforces a kind of haunted feeling. And then you can continue that through to the “deadly sun”–even daylight becomes menacing.

I’m not sure if other people would interpret this poem the same way, but I think it was absolutely the perfect poem to read in October–my favorite time of year to read spooky things.

But here’s a passage from the end of the first movement of the poem, which I think may be more in line with the themes on continuity through cycles elsewhere in the book:

the house
performs a substantial movement
of interiors–
each day a room,
lighted,
where waking is made whole
though day proceed to day
by accident,
and succumb by necessity
to night
when the stars
verify their continuance
only.

Wendell Berry, from section 14 in “The White and Waking of the House”

To me this passage speaks of how the places we live give meaning to life, although day to day proceeds without our say or guidance or control, the house makes life whole–purposeful. As if the purpose is the house, is the community therein. And this is just one part of this poem! Each section builds in really interesting ways, and then we move to “The Handing Down,” which is a meditation on aging, and then we end with three elegies at the end of the book. This collection gets top points for structure in my opinion.

No one needs me to say that Wendell Berry is a complex, interesting poet. I can definitely see myself spending a lot of time dissecting his work (and there’s a lot of it out there), so I can’t wait to start searching out Berry’s work and making lots of notes in the margins.

What do houses represent for you? I’d love to know what you think of this symbol in the comments!

Reading Through the Stacks: 9. A Biting Wit

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I love the insects on this cover.

Reading through the Oakland Public Library’s poetry collection.

Today we’re discussing a new book: These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit by Hayan Charara.

Hayan Charara (1972–) grew up in Detroit, and some of his poetry deals with the decay of this particular urban landscape, his Lebanese cultural roots come through mostly in meditations on Arab identity in the United States, and the associated erasure and racism Arab people experience. He’s a professor of creative writing, currently at the University of Houston.

What I admired most about this book of poetry was just how clever it was. There are several sections that showcase this really well, two of which are series of haiku. One, centered on a specific place (the porch) show the dramas of everyday, mostly through conversation. Although each haiku stands on its own, they link together in time to tell the story of an evening and a neighborhood.

On the porch–
we speak long distance, I think,
for the last time.

Hayan Charara from “Porch Haiku”

The poems are particularly well constructed throughout the book–there is a lot of attention to structure in the individual poems as well as in the collection as a whole. The language throughout is pretty clear, and the poet presents a personal politics that encompasses rather than being removed from poetry. For example, in “The Prize” he describes the poetry winners of the Pulitzer Prize in relation to World War II. The collection speaks through and across time in really interesting ways. And it has a really thoughtful use of profanity, although the use of this language in poetry is maybe a topic for another day.

But I have to admit, my favorite section of the book is a seven poem section titled “Mean,” which are, as you might guess, a little bit nasty. I think poetry can come across as a little elitist and holier-than-thou, held to these sacred or noble feelings, but in my opinion, poetry should be honest, vulnerable. Sandra Cisneros said in an interview:

“I discovered a poetic truth, that you have to write as if what you had to say is too dangerous to publish in your lifetime. Then your ego gets out of the way, and you allow the light to come through you, the blood jet that Sylvia Plath talked about. You write from a more honest place.”

And the truth is we’re human, and sometimes what we think and feel is mean, nasty, and bitter. We can’t deny that any more than the fear, embarrassment, doubt, or sadness we feel. I think these poems are courageous, and–I know I’m a horrible person for saying this and I think that’s exactly what I’m meant to feel–funny as well. They are witty and terrible and kind of–eek–delightful. I won’t quote them because for copyright reasons I really try and only use quotes from poems in this blog, and you really need the whole of the short poems to feel the sting. Let that be a reason to look up the book of poems at your library.

Instead, I’ll end my discussion of the book with an excerpt from what’s probably my favorite poem in the entire collection:

“The girl is older than the boy,
the boy older than the cat, and the cat
which cannot communicate
what it knows about age, hates
the cactuses on the windowsill–“

Hayan Charara from “Older”

The poem works through a series of comparisons about the age of things, and it ends on such a beautiful melancholy note.

TTT: My Top 10 Most Memorable Bookstores

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s topic is favorite bookstores or bookstores I’d most like to visit. I’m going to stick with places I’ve been to because I think that will make for a shorter, more reasonable list. I’m on a not-so-secret quest to discover every bookstore in Oakland, Berkeley, and San Francisco and pick favorites. So those posts will eventually be coming. I associate books and bookstores with different times in my life, so I thought it would be fun to look at bookstores that I have found meaningful in my life. Come on a journey through my reading past with me:

Childhood: Paperback Exchanges and Barnes and Noble

I remember as a kid a trip from our mountain cabin down to the local town with the cousins. I’m not sure if this was two trips or one, but they occurred in the same little shopping mall in Twain Harte. We stopped at Baskin Robbins, and I remember the way my cousin said “praline” like pray-lean and how beautiful it sounded. At the time she was active in local community theater and her diction was, and still is, gorgeous. And then with my aunt (so it may indeed have been two trips) we wandered to the local paperback exchange (sadly no longer there) and I chose a not-quite children’s book that was a (so-so) adaptation of Romeo & Juliet for teens. I remember what a privilege it felt like to get to choose a new book for myself that would be something my great aunt treated me to.

There was also a paperback exchange in Oregon City, where we moved when I was in 4th grade. My Nana and aunt liked going there (before e-readers and audiobooks were so ubiquitous) to pick up mystery sacks of $1.00 romance novels separated into subgenre. There was a decent children’s section (that’s gotten better over the years) and trade in program, but it always felt like…an older store. Not a lot of young clientele. And they specialized in genre fiction, which wasn’t my scene. But the last time I was there I scooped up some wonderful poetry books out of the small section, so I still think it’s worth a visit. Now they also sell new books and gifts.

Laurie’s Books: 358 Warner Milne Rd # G106, Oregon City, Oregon

When we weren’t buying used books (which was frequently–at garage sales and thrift stores), we bought a lot of books at Barnes & Noble. In the early 2000s, the independent bookstore was struggling. I remember a lot of books I loved were ones that I found on the curated tables between shelves. Stocks of an entire series, a huge children’s section, and places to sit and look at the treasures. The stores were calm and smelled like fresh paper. I still love them–I’d always rather buy from an independent but if I need something shipped to someone, I’ll have it sent from Barnes & Noble. Although the service isn’t as good since the rise of Amazon and the fall of Borders, it’s still my favorite place in any mall. It anchored my childhood that way and felt like a familiar place even when we were moving a lot. I attended midnight releases, readings, and found so, so many books I love.

Barnes & Noble (any store, of course)

Teenage Years

Besides the mall days at B&N (obviously) there was only one important bookstore in Portland during my youth. I don’t even think I have to say the name, but of course I will: Powell’s books. Powell’s (aka the world’s largest independent bookstore) is so fantastic. Every time I go up to visit I manufacture reasons for us to go. It’s usually not that hard to convince my mom. She’s always up for a bookish adventure–making a beeline for the picture books (since she’s a first grade teacher). Books for herself are usually an afterthought, often she listens to audiobooks from the library on her way to work.

If you have not been (or if you have) and you need to go into downtown Portland for any reason…you shouldn’t miss it. I can (and have) spent hours here. The rooms meander into each other. You know how a museum will send you through a maze of galleries? It’s kind of like that but with more signs. There are multiple floors of books, a mix of old and used, and so, so much to discover. The staff is super knowledgeable, with great staff pick selections. And there’s a café. So the question really is, why would you ever leave? It’s like a real world wonderland. A place where there’s magic in the form of stories on high wooden shelves.

Powell’s City of Books: 1005 W Burnside St, Portland, Oregon

College in Corvallis

I did my undergrad in English at Oregon State in Corvallis. Corvallis is a small town, but it still boasted a lovely public library, two used bookstores, and a great independent. There was also a bookstore on campus, but before we graduated, they ruined it. Although the old location was a little pokey and two floors, it featured actual books in addition to supplies and a selection of Beaver-themed gear. But before we left, they took the books that were not textbooks away (in theory because exclusively selling textbooks gave them a better deal?) and built a monstrous warehouse closer to the stadium (so you know, better for football fans, less convenient for everyone else) with terrible lighting, no atmosphere, and no inviting display of fiction and nonfiction from our professors. Oh well. At least they didn’t ruin the library while I was there.

Anyway, I did not frequent the independent bookstore very often because while delightful it was, in a word, more than my college budget could afford. There was another used bookstore that was darker, open fewer hours–the kind of place with books that overflowed. And while it had finds (like a first edition of Julia Child’s first cookbook), it was a bit dusty and always gave me an allergy attack.

So the bookstore I associate most with college is The Book Bin. Larger than its name suggests and with big windows, it was an ugly building with a so-so layout, but a great mix of new and used books and wonderful deals. I always found something wonderful there and it was a great place to wait out the rain or duck inside for a few minutes.

The Book Bin 215 SW 4th St Corvallis, Oregon

Idaho Years

After college, we moved to Idaho for Paul’s work. Honestly I was more interested in divesting myself of books than getting new ones, although I did scour every used bookstore and garage sale for books that we used as favors at our wedding (one chosen for each guest). I usually found more than enough to keep me occupied at the library, but I could not resist a library sale. These happened both with the Boise Friends of the Library warehouse sales and at the Garden City Public Library where I volunteered. They always had a wonderful selection of things and I often found treasures.

When we moved downtown, I was really close to a local independent called Rediscovered Books that I always enjoyed going into. In a very conservative area, I always felt at home with people who believed in intellectual freedom, worked against censorship, and supported people reading banned books.

Friends of the Library stores: Garden City Library has sales semi-annually as well as a little store within the library 6015 N Glenwood St, Garden City, Idaho; Tree City Books is the Boise Friends store in the main branch, they also hold larger sales periodically 715 S Capitol Blvd, Boise, Idaho

Rediscovered Books 180 N 8th St, Boise, Idaho

Moving to the Bay Area

When you live in or near a major city, you end up playing tour guide for people who come to visit you. Almost everyone who comes to visit me ends up in a bookstore at some point, and one of my favorite bookstores to take people is City Lights in San Francisco. Why is City Lights awesome? Three words: poetry room upstairs.

As publisher of some of the most famous poets like Frank O’Hara and Allen Ginsberg, City Lights has a deep association with the Beat movement. They still publish a lot of interesting things–the selection is great and there’s multiple levels to explore. Especially in nonfiction, there’s a big emphasis on resistance, and social movements. Lots of local authors are on the shelves, and plenty of indie titles. The featured books in fiction are particularly diverse. I love the feel of history in here, but I will say it’s not a very accessible store because of the layout and stairs. Also, it can be hard to move around in their sometimes because the shelves are tightly packed, but it’s a wonderful space and I love spending time in here with whomever I’ve tricked…ahem…guided here.

City Lights 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, California

Visiting Home

As I mentioned before, I always try to get a visit to Powell’s in when I go up to Oregon to visit family, but since I hate, loathe, and detest driving in large cities (even, or perhaps especially my own)–I have to con…I mean, bribe… I mean, put on my best Puss in Boots from Shrek—

Anyway, it’s usually easier to make it to the little Friends bookstore in downtown Oregon City, where I can tootle (did you know it wasn’t until writing this post that I realized this word was tootle and not toodle… huh I’ve been saying this incorrectly my whole life) by myself or reasonably ask someone to go with me. Books here are great because they’re cheap, they help the library, and one of our family friends is high up in the Friends org so it’s always wonderful to see her when she’s working. This is always where we bring our book donations. I usually completely decimate…er diminish their poetry section when I visit.

I also really like this new bookstore/coffee shop that opened up in the downtown near our old standby Chinese restaurant that we’ve been going to since I was 8. It’s also got a great selection of board games, giftable things, and the coffee is very good. It’s one of my favorite places to get a last minute gift when I’m in town, whether someone needs a pick me up or something fun for their birthday. Well worth a visit.

Friends of the Oregon City Public Library Bookstore 814 7th St Oregon City, Oregon

White Rabbit Books and Gifts 503 Main St Oregon City, Oregon

Oakland

Now that we’ve made the Town our new home, I believe it is my solemn duty to visit and delight in every bookstore and pick my favorites to go to all the time–or rather a reasonable amount of the time. I definitely started collecting books again now that I’m building a poetry library. Whoops. So far I’ve found some good ones but to narrow it down for this post, I’ll just talk about two that I have membership/frequent buyer cards for. One is Bookmark, which is, (surprise! Are you sensing a theme?) a Friends of the Library store. It is very conveniently located near my local Friday Farmer’s Market. And did I mention that I get a discount on books for being a member? It’s awesome. Plus there’s some great finds in that store. And a lot of classical music vinyl. If that’s your gig.

Then there’s Cape and Cowl, which while not technically the closest bookstore to me is certainly a new favorite. As you might guess from the name, they specialize in comics and graphic novels. And while I’m not a huge fan of comic books generally, I love graphic novels. So I definitely went in–thinking I’d buy nothing–and walked out with three things. This place is in dangerous proximity! And there’s a buy 9 get number 10 free deal, which is, again dangerous.

But more than just the excellent bookstores, having these cards and being on these mailing lists makes me feel more at home–like I’m starting to put down roots in this wonderful place.

Bookmark Bookstore 721 Washington St (Downtown) Oakland, California

Cape and Cowl Comics 1601 Clay St (Downtown/Uptown) Oakland, California

I’d love to hear about some of the bookstores that have been meaningful in your life!

Reading Through the Stacks: 8. War is a Terrible Thing

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I’m not going to lie–it took me a while to get through this collection: Selected Poems by Kenneth Patchen. And while the book wasn’t terrible, I’m really glad that it wasn’t the complete poems because I don’t know how much more of his work I really wanted to read.

Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) wrote over 40 books in his lifetime, including a number of volumes of poetry. He also wrote a radio play, and was interested in art. He painted quite a few poems, a couple of which I’ve included here. He considered himself not a painter, but a writer with paint as a medium. There are also a considerable number of his poems that he illustrated, but honestly these are some of my least favorites of his since they rely on very time-bound jokes that are just…not that funny. He had a debilitating spine problem that caused him a lot of pain, and for the latter part of his life he was essentially bound to the confines of his bed.

The book’s best poems are its darkest, which highlight the dark themes through the words themselves–either slipping and oozing or cracking over the tongue as you say them, sticking like sand or grit between your teeth. They echo the sentiments of the poem and make them harsh to read, which is very well done, but other poetic devices seem over used to me like the “O” invocation.

There is a lot of meditation on the nature of death and the violence and injustice of war. Nature and humanity’s actions are often juxtaposed throughout the poems to call attention to the peace, stability, and relative order of nature in contrast to the chaos of mass slaughter and war.

It’s kind of bleak, really. The hopeful lines in the poems seem way more forced. I think this stanza sums up a lot of this book for me:

“The columns of death glow faintly white
Within the forests of this destroying planet.
Here gleeful beasts track each other
Through lanes of winter and rotting heroes.”

Kenneth Patchen from “These Unreturning Destinies”

From the horror of war to women as whores–Patchen or Patchen’s speakers at least, don’t seem to have a very high regard for women, there is a lot of madonna/whore imagery throughout, where women are either carnal, dirty creatures or untouchable idols. Even when love/sex is portrayed positively, it’s with some version of Snow White, white skin, red lips, who is somewhat untouchable. Women are largely objects of desire and contempt, rather than fully realized people, and I have to admit any poet that writes that way is going to immediately limit my enjoyment of their work. I don’t like the dismissal apparent in the line:

“…I said no and she said some female stuff”

Kenneth Patchen from “He Was Alone (As In Reality)”

When Patchen strays into the abstract, he kind of loses me by saying a lot of nothing. But I do think his anti-war and killing poetry is quite moving. He even, which struck me as unusual for a white poet of his era, has nuanced (although not exceptional views–let’s not kid ourselves), about race. In fact, the very discussion of race at all in anything but a perpetuation of stereotypes seems pretty unusual to me for white poets in the late 1930s when some of these poems were written. I’m not trying to give Patchen more credit than he’s do, but it did strike me that he was discussing race in a way that saw the humanity in people both the good and the bad as well as in himself. Of course, the title of the poem, “Nice Day for a Lynching” feels grotesque, but when it was written, that’s probably a sentiment that would have been expressed by white people attending the murder while cheering and posing for photographs. Patchen writes:

“But I know that one of my hands
Is black, and one white. I know that
One part of me is strangled,
While another part horribly laughs.”

Patchen from “Nice Day for a Lynching”

Patchen in this poem attempts to grapple with his complicity, his empathy for suffering, and his whiteness. I haven’t seen this from a lot of white poets, but I don’t care for his conclusion, which focuses more on his own feelings and selfhood than the person who has just been brutally murdered for sport. The poet uses the senseless death as a reckoning with racism and the concept of race but ultimately, in the words of Bo Burnham “Insist[s] on seeing every socio-political conflict / Through the myopic lens of [his] own self-actualization?” However, the reckoning at all in the 1930s is something and reinforces his themes about violence and death in a more nuanced way, as you cannot get a complete look at violence in the United States by looking only at war, you have to look at violence through race and systemic racism.

So…. yeah. I have some complicated feelings about this book. I can’t say I loved it. I can’t say that I’ll ever read Patchen again, but I can’t say I hated the book either.

Reading Through the Stacks: 7. Religion and Rhythm

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Reading through the Oakland Public Library’s poetry collection.

Today we’re talking about James Weldon Johnson’s God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. James Weldon Johnson (June 17, 1871 – June 26, 1938) was a writer during the Harlem Renaissance period as well as a prominent member of the NAACP. He’s most famous for writing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” He also served in a diplomatic position under Theodore Roosevelt in Venezuela and Nicaragua, worked as a professor at NYU and Fisk University. He was also known for collecting Black oral histories and cultural records.

Which brings us to this particular book first published in 1927. In the preface for the book, Johnson discusses the sermons he remembers being delivered by African American preachers, the patterns they followed and the importance of these all Black spaces:

“The old-time preacher brought the establishment of these independent places of worship and thereby provided the first sphere in which race leadership might develop and function.”

James Weldon Johnson, preface p. 4

By giving people separate spaces for worship, preachers made it possible for people to gather and seek community, tell their stories, come together, and plan for a better future. Johnson emphasizes the intelligence of these preachers, who often memorized huge sections of the King James Bible, particularly the Old Testament but the text was a leaping off point–not the main substance of a sermon.

Johnson also emphasizes the rhythm and mastery of language that preachers called upon:

“He [the preacher] knew the secret of oratory, that at bottom it is a progression of rhythmic words more than it is anything else. Indeed, I have witnessed congregations moved to ecstasy by the rhythmic intoning of sheer incoherencies. He was a master of all the modes of eloquence. He often possessed a voice that was a marvelous instrument, a voice he could modulate from a sepulchral whisper to a crashing thunderclap.”

James Weldon Johnson, preface p. 5

Johnson discusses at length his reasons for not using dialect to try and capture African American speech patterns and emphasizes the way it has been used in American culture and literature to create pathos or humor. Neither is what the poet seeks to convey here. He is interested in capturing rhythms, ideas, and a time and place in American culture that he feels is disappearing.

Although I’m not normally a huge fan of religious poetry (as you’ll know if you read my last post), I feel differently about this work with its careful attention to rhythm, improvisational and captivating as jazz (which I’m a big fan of) and it’s detailed language–so rich and evocative. Also, although I don’t believe that Bible stories are true, there is no denying that when told well they are excellent stories. As a lover of fairy tales, folklore, and history, I was swept away by the language in this book. Here’s a sample from the section on creation, where a few lines in the Bible are expanded:

Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That’s good!

James Weldon Johnson, from “The Creation,” p. 17-18.

In Johnson’s hand religion becomes the stuff of wonder and poetry. I read through this book really quickly, spurred ahead by the language and intonation that Johnson mentions in the introduction. This is a really approachable book of religious poetry that breathes light into the stories. If your interested in works and commentary about Christianity, I would highly recommend this book.

TTT: An Ode to Jessica Hische’s Book Covers

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

The prompt for today was to talk about book covers that either were solely composed of type or used mainly typographic elements. I cannot think of many designers that design more beautiful covers than Jessica Hische.

Jessica Hische, Penguin Drop Cap Series

Hische is a letterer, author, and a Brooklyn transplant to the Bay area. I think I probably discovered her work in/around 2010 when she was working on her popular Daily Drop Cap series as a way to keep motivated and keep designing between freelance gigs. Everyday (or at least regularly), she’d publish a different letter in a different style. I think all told there were 12 complete alphabets between 2009-2011, as well as a guest illustrated series.

Buttermilk font: https://jessicahische.is/makingherfirstfont

Within months, it was being talked about all across the far reaches of the internet. I encountered her while I was just starting to dip my toe in the calligraphy waters and looking for alphabet inspiration. I found, and still find, her forms to be so beautiful. Somehow even the ones that are supposed to be kind of creepy and gothic are still approachable, full of gorgeous curves. The fonts on her site that you can buy have names like Buttermilk and Brioche, words calculated to show off her ascenders, show off the forms of the letters, but also words which covey mood and tone. Everything looked different, but still had undeniable style. And the fact that the style was fun, often bubbly, and vintage inspired makes everything she does feel like a glass of champagne–worth toasting.

“If you feel like you know Jessica Hische a bit from her output, you might not be all that off-base, and you certainly wouldn’t be alone. It’s been written that her work has “personality,” but it might be more accurate to say that her work has presence—her presence. In my experience, what you see is really what you get.”

Zachary Petit, Design Matters Media Editor-in-Chief
“After working with Dave Eggers on Hologram for the King I was pumped to be brought on board to design his new book, The Circle. It was especially fun to design this cover, as I’ve spent the last two years living in San Francisco surrounded by the tech industry (my husband works for Facebook) and the story is set in an influential social media company. I also had to design a logo for the fictitious company, The Circle, and was inspired by the interweaving connectivity of social media sites and also knots that once tight are difficult to untie.” – Hische, for Knopf https://jessicahische.is/joiningthecircle

Even though I was primarily doing calligraphy, I found a lot more of my inspiration looking to lettering artists than calligraphers in particular. Calligraphers often had absolutely spellbinding mastery of the technique and medium, but they were largely working in older, established styles, and I wanted to work in more of the tone and mood that other letterers use.

See more of her work here: https://jessicahische.is/working

Now she’s gotten much, much more recognition, such as being named in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in design, she’s become a children’s book author in her own right, and she’s worked with some of the biggest names you can work with across a huge spectrum of industries.

Hische for Barnes & Noble

Besides doing the design work for her own books, she’s also designed the drop cap series of Penguin classics, worked on the probably familiar range of classics for Barnes & Noble, and has designed work for numerous other books.

Book covers are somewhat unique in design industries, I think, because the artist’s name actually goes on the book. While most design products don’t give their designers credit, book covers do. I’m sure that must be an attractive aspect of doing lettering work–because if someone likes the cover of a book they know exactly who to commission. And it adds an element of pressure because if you don’t capture the book, well…. your name lives on it forever. But I don’t think Hische really needs to worry about that.

Hische designed the cover and did the original embroidery for this guidebook from The Little Bookroom. https://jessicahische.is/embroideringabookcover

“reading the book I’m doing the cover for gives me more conceptual and visual inspiration than spending a day in a rare books library”

Jessica Hische, in an interview with The Everygirl
Hische for Barnes & Noble, my photograph

Taking just her cover for Oscar Wilde into consideration, we can see some of the direct inspiration for the text. Everything is beautiful, but it still has hard, even sharp edges (the little triangles on the capitals as well the serifs) while still staying true to the Victorian aesthetic the book cultivates and critiques. The paisley flourishes call to mind peacock tails (and their associations with beauty and vanity). Also, while all the covers feature some kind of border, this cover is one of the only in the series that can be said to have a frame.

Even though I haven’t touched a calligraphy pen for a while now, I still find lettering and typography to be intensely interesting. It’s just another way to make you feel something when you look at a word or a phrase and I’m fascinated by how forms and art influence our perception of words and things more generally. And seeing how lettering can bring books to life is so inspiring to me. I encourage you to seek out Jessica Hische’s work–there’s so much more than I could possibly show here and I love how they all take direct inspiration from the books themselves.

Do you have a favorite typographic cover? Let me know in the comments.

Reading Through the Stacks: 6. Religious and Rhymey

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Reading through the Oakland Public Library’s poetry collection.

Let’s journey back to 1968 today with George Huitt Atwood’s Thunder in the Room.

Normally I start off these posts with a short introduction on the poet, but the only biographical information I could find on Atwood was on the inside jacket. He was born in 1919, served during WWII, and ended up living in San Francisco and working for the department of the interior. I’m pretty sure he’s the George Hewitt Atwood buried in Colma in 2010, since their birth dates/place are the same. But I could find no other information about the poet and no one really seems to have read this book as it has no Goodreads ratings and I couldn’t even import it on Story Graph.

That might seem strange except…. the book isn’t all that good.

Although the jacket flap makes great pains to link Atwood to Frost and Dickinson, I think those comparisons are largely…how do I say this nicely? Inflated. Although Atwood makes use of Dickinson’s short poem/line format, personification, and rhyme schemes he doesn’t have….any real spark or irony or insight. Dickinson’s gift lies in giving you something to chew on but not revealing the whole. These poems are obvious and quite pious. Not exactly my cup of tea.

I embarked with Doubt one day
Upon a troubled sea,
But that companion quickly proved
Unworthy company

Atwood, from “Life” section, No. 24

Atwood, to his credit, definitely can make a line scan but you’d hope by 1968 he’d be looking around at the more interesting things fellow poets were doing and maybe not scan quite so nicely. Dickinson certainly doesn’t, and that adds emphasis and brightness to her poems.

I just got tired very quickly of these odes to virtue, filled with platitudes, pithy endings and succinct morals.

Also, he uses the word “comprehendeth.” In 1968??! What is this book?

Someone in the Oakland Public Library obviously took a lot of care in choosing local authors to add to the collection, but I’m not really sure what this one is adding. The best thing about this book is undoubtedly the cover.

Reading Through the Stacks: 5. A Profound Mental Health Journey

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Reading through the Oakland Public Library’s poetry collection.

We’re talking about another new volume of poetry today, published in 2021: You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson..

Andrea Gibson (August 13, 1975-) is a queer poet, whose work focuses on LGBTQ+, health, and social justice themes. They are a well known spoken word performer as well. Luckily, if you enjoy this book as I did, there are many more to read.

There is joy and pain in this book. Gibson is so good at articulating how love and hurt feel and at reminding us that we are humans. As the title implies, there are sparks, jolts and fire in this collection. What I felt most reading this book was profound insight coming through twisting popular phrases or juxtaposing them. This is a really accessible collection–it’s easy to read. I ended up devouring it in a single sitting but thinking about it for days and weeks afterwards. The best kind of poetry.

Watch Gibson perform one of their poems (as a heads up, there is discussion of chronic illness, some profanity, and loving sexual content):

TTT: My Fall To Read List

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Anyone else absurdly motivated by arbitrary reading challenges other people have set?

I started subscribing to Book of the Month when I bought a 6 month subscription for my friend for Christmas. It’s now her annual gift. We don’t coordinate our choices–sometimes we choose the same book sometimes we choose different ones and share our thoughts. It’s a lot of fun, but I have to admit that this year I have fallen quite behind on my reading.

In order to finish this year’s badges (and unlock the super hidden secret one that I really, really want to unlock for reasons that remain mysterious), I need to finish 9 more books, but since there are 10 on my bookshelf (stashed around our new condo), I thought I could talk about them today and possibly conjecture as to why it’s taken me so long to read through them! Some of these I had to fish out of their boxes. Although we’re mostly unpacked, my new bookshelves won’t arrive for a while, so the book boxes are the last boxes.

I wish that Book of the Month chose poetry books too–that would make it way easier to read through my list.

Here they are, in order of how long I’ve had them:

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

I’m actually listening to this one as an audiobook, having given away my copy of the hardcover to another friend. I think she’ll really enjoy it. I’m about 1/3 of the way into the book so far and while I’m not a huge fan of books told in first person from multiple perspectives–it’s way easier to switch between perspectives while listening because the voice acting is well done. It bounces between an apothecary in the 1790s who helps women….dispense of the men in their lives and the woman in the modern era who is beginning to research the apothecary based on a bottle she found while mudlarking. The story is interesting enough for me to look past the sort of blah writing style.

Beautiful Country by Qian Julie Wang

I think this memoir is going to be one of those ones that takes your heart and rips it out. But whether it’ll be the kind that gives it back for you to hold onto or the kind that throws it to the ground is anyone’s guess. It seems sad so I’ve been avoiding it. I haven’t really been in the mood for a really emotional book for a while. But I’m sure the mood will strike at some point. Fall is kind of the season for that.

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

So I have a feeling this book is going to be good, but pretty dang dark. It’s a fairy tale type book, but the darker, twisted, creepier side of fairy tales (which I freely admit to loving). This is probably a book I’ll read while it’s light out. And probably it won’t be as creepy as I think. Hopefully.

Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

The only excuse I have for not reading this one is that it’s been buried in a box for months. My friend told me that it’s really interesting and that she really enjoyed it so I need to get cracking on it.

True Biz by Sara Novic

I think I talked a little about this book in a previous TTT post because of the hand on the cover (entirely appropriate to a book about sign language). One of the reasons I love reading is because it allows me a way of understanding and empathizing with someone else’s perspective and experience even, and perhaps especially, when it’s so far from my own.

Darling Girl by Liz Michalski

Retellings and adaptations of fairy tales are some of my favorite things, so I cannot wait to read this adaption of Peter Pan. Holly is Wendy’s granddaughter who has to save her daughter from Pan’s clutches.

The Stardust Thief by Chelsea Abdullah

I’m a sucker for a fantasy novel not set in western Europe, but I have to admit, I’m going to have to push myself a little to get through this book, despite the presence of jinn and ancient magics. I’ve only read a chapter or two, but the writing is a little disappointing.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

I loved Zevin’s The Storied Life of A.J. Fiskry so I was eagerly looking forward to her new book, and when it was one of the choices for Book of the Month, I chose it with no hesitation. It’s about video game designers and the story of two friends and the way their lives converge and diverge over time. I’m about 30 pages in and already it’s very good. Other books–namely poetry and library books–have just taken precedent.

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford

I’m very excited to read this book–a multi-generational family saga and the protagonist is a poet?! Sign me up!

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood

This one just arrived last week! So I don’t feel as bad for not getting to it yet, except for the fact that it’s just adding to this pile of books…. this is a romance of the enemies to lovers variety (one of my favorite tropes).

Have you read any of these books? Do any interest you? How do you feel about your reading challenges this year? Let me know in the comments.