December Poetry and Prose

Poetry for the end

1. Clouds by Rüştü Onur translated by Hüseyin Alhas & Ulaş Özgün
2. Dear Stutter [“Certain words are still warm with your touch”] by Adam Giannelli
3. Ars Poetica #100: I Believe by Elizabeth Alexander
4. Two Women on the Shore, 1898 by Sara Elkamel
5. White-Eyes by Mary Oliver
6. Back Soon; Driving— by Carl Phillips
7. Fragment Thirty-six by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)
8. On Exiting Universitätsspital Zürich, New Year’s Eve 2015 by Charif Shanahan

Books for the end

1. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
2. The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett

Hey there party people! Happy new year!

I almost read three books this month but my audiobook hours on spotify ran out before I could finish. No matter, the two books I did read were hits!

The first book was our previous book of the month for Service95 that I forgot about somehow. I surprised myself when I realized I had never read The Handmaids Tale. I have however seen the show…at least some of the show. They lost me after maybe season two, or three, when they just kept going back. Wasn’t for me. I finished this book and realized all those extra seasons were not based on the original story. Kind of gave me a chip on my shoulder for some reason. Silly indeed. Anywayyyy, lets move on. This book was great! I loved how it was told in such a unique way. Memories and stories and it really gets us in the same headspace as our narrator. I was never bored, even though I knew for the most part what was going to happen. I also loved the ending “Historical Notes” section. Really gave new meaning to this story. Atwood herself refers to this as not science fiction, but rather, speculative fiction. Like I felt in college watching this show unfold, how I felt icky seeing celebrities host parties dressed like the women in this story, and how I feel now reading this book – this is not out of the realm of the possible. This book is from 1985, and yet it feels like it could be something a woman wrote today. Dua said that Margaret likes to remind us, history doesn’t repeat itself…it rhymes. I needed those historical notes to pull me back from the ledge. Mental ledge *nervous laugh* !

My next book came from a storygraph stumble, where Maggie and I saw Carol give a book a five stars. After that, I immediately added it to my libby holds and a couple months later the book was finally on my shelf. This book is great. Lighthearted about some tragic situations, which was kind of perfect for me. A dysfunctional family roadtrip. A cat that can see very specific futures. A lottery winner on the brink. This book will lift your spirits in such an interesting way.

Book Goal Tracker: 37/30

Let’s see if I will be adding one or two books to this list before my birthday!