“A sparrow in a storm, fragile as the wealth that you hide in your heart” – Berlin, Brett

this & that May 25, 2016 Leave a comment

Recently stumbled across this gorgeous song by indie band Brett off their second album Mode. They’re on Spotify, but that wouldn’t embed, so here the song off their Soundcloud page.

Lyrics:

A sparrow in a storm, fragile as the wealth that you hide in your heart
just wait a little more, stay until you run and the words tumble out
save your ransom, leave your hand with the mother’s touch, take my chances
pay your sum  but it’s far too much
are you aware, well, someone should tell you, are you aware, well,
someone should tell you
who

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Poetry: “Here Will Burn for Us,” Alicia Hoffman

books poetry lit May 19, 2016 Leave a comment

Kites by Frostwindz
rt Frostwindz

Ashes in the tinder
of morning. Red breast
of robin on the lawn.

Sometimes, gravity
is the slow knock
of heavy bones

greeting another
sunrise. Sometimes,
heaviness is all we own.

read more

Alicia Hoffman, Rust + Moth

Poetry: Is It Better Where You Are? by Christopher Salerno

art & illustration, books poetry lit May 6, 2016 Leave a comment

 

Japanese illustration wistful rain

RT

The bakery’s graffiti either spells HOPE
or NOPE. But hope and results
are different, said Fanny Brawne to her Keats
voiding his unreasonable lung.
Getting off the medicine
completely means light again
blinking to light. Device returned
to its factory settings. The complete black
of before the meteor shower
above the bakery. If you lose the smell
of leather, lemon, or rose,
studies show you will fail at being

read more

Poets.org, Christopher Salerno

Coffee or Compliments?

art & illustration, coffee May 4, 2016 Leave a comment

Coffee photography iced coffee

rt Hyunjoo101

“I’d rather take coffee than compliments just now.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

art & illustration, quotidian April 29, 2016 Leave a comment

Before I Grow Up Illustration Art by Yumei
RT

“We are crayons and lunchboxes and swinging so high our sneakers punch holes in the clouds.”

― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

 

Poetry: “Personal” by Tony Hoagland

art & illustration, books poetry lit April 25, 2016 Leave a comment

image

rt Gemi on Pixiv

Don’t take it personal’, they said;
but I did, I took it all quite personal—

the breeze and the river and the color of the fields;
the price of grapefruit and stamps,

the wet hair of women in the rain—
And I cursed what hurt me

and I praised what gave me joy,
the most simple-minded of possible responses.

The government reminded me of my father,
with its deafness and its laws,

and the weather reminded me of my mom,
with her tropical squalls.

read more

Tony Hoagland, Poetry Magazine

 

Falling Lessons: Erasure One – Motionpoem

books poetry lit, creativity, this & that April 12, 2016 Leave a comment

“My father steps into a field of lost
sensation, sunflowers, a yellow star”

I had the pleasure of interviewing Beth Copeland about her gorgeous poem “Falling Lessons: Erasure One.” The poem is about the loss of her father to Alzheimer’s, and was transformed into the above video for Motionpoems by Ahn Vu (it was also featured on PBS Newshour!)

Read my interview here 

Poetry: “Such As” by Wo Chan

art & illustration, books poetry lit, this & that April 7, 2016 Leave a comment

Cornfields illustration
rt Pon-Marsh

My mother was a fever. My father was a restaurant.
Every noon he fed his lungs to an entire city.
Every night he held my belly searching for a suburb.
I was the firefly that flared only once in my father’s kingdom.

read more

-Asian American Writer’s Workshop, Wo Chan

‘The 4 O’Clock News @ House of Sky’ by Susan Rich

this & that March 20, 2016 Leave a comment

This poem by friend Susan Rich is stunning, even more so than the gorgeous reading by Nic Sebastian

Poetry: “Power Outage Elegy” by Nathan McClain

books poetry lit, this & that February 28, 2016 Leave a comment

My daughter can’t understand
why, when I press the button,
the parking garage door doesn’t budge.

The car stuck. The park too far
for her small legs to walk. These things
happen, I say. It’s no one’s fault.

In the apartment courtyard, the tenants are gathered —
one complains he’s missing the Laker game,
one can’t charge her cell phone,

another’s laptop is dead.

The power,
of course, isn’t the problem — we’re each unprepared

for such sudden loss,

read more at Waxwing Mag

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