Tapas for the brain?

A collection of random thoughts

I’m feeling too scatterbrained to come up with a newsletter with a point or even a theme. So today, I’m sharing a sampling of bite-sized thoughts.

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

-I started reading The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones. It’s written (so far, at least) in nested diary entries. I love epistolary novels, and I was looking forward to this because, although I rarely read horror, Stephen Graham Jones came highly recommended by author Christine Murphy. But I’m not immediately hooked.

-Speaking of failing to immediately hook your audience, I got feedback from an agent recently that the first chapter of my novel was “slow-paced.” That was pretty unfortunate, because I thought I’d dropped my main character right into an nerve-racking, emotional and awkward situation. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite parts. But I have to be willing to kill some darlings, so I’m re-writing the opening with completely different vibes. So different, in fact, that I’m not sure this version will ever “meet up” with the original. So, maybe I’m writing a new book. Who knows.

-Speaking of personal failures, I used to write poetry when I was a kid. It was really bad. One poem was an argument between a brain and a heart. I hope the notebook was recycled.

-In the spirit of using poetry and memorization as meditation, I (re)-learned the poem Ocelot by Mary Ann Hoberman. I’d only remembered the first three lines from when I was a kid, and couldn’t have told you who wrote it. It’s short and sweet, and a reminder that the written word can be playful and doesn’t always have to reach some deep emotional truth.

-I know nothing about spoken word poetry, but years (a decade?!) ago, I fell in love with the duo Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye. I highly recommend everyone watch the performance of their hilarious encounter, and the strange coincidences surrounding them.

-Last year, I read a collection of poems by Sarah Kay called No Matter the Wreckage. It was enjoyable, but it had nothing on her spoken word performances.