gardenhead
🌱 England 🌞 Millennial 🐛 Mother to a little bookworm 📚 Completely beholden to libraries 🕊️ Currently prioritising poetry, classics & anything with a good sense of humour
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6h
Auguries of a Minor God
Nidhi Zakaria Eipe
Nidhi ZakAria Eipe's spellbinding debut poetry collection explores love and the wounds it makes.
Its first half is composed of five sections, corresponding to the five arrows of Kama, the Hindu God of Love, Desire and Memory. Each arrow has its own effect on some body - a very real, contemporary body - and its particular journey of love.
The second is a long narrative poem, which follows a different kind of journey: a family of refugees who have fled to the West from conflict in an unspecified Middle Eastern country. With an extraordinary structure, yoking abecedarian and Fibonacci sequences, it is a skillful and intimate account of migration and exile, of home and belonging.
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gardenhead created a list
7h
Pre Information-Age Transgressive Literature
by gardenhead
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20 books
Transgressive, perverted, depraved, debased writings from before the Information Age ~1967.
At times disgusting, ecstatic, abhorrent, funny, erotic, evil. Occasionally, actually way less shocking than the reaction from the time of their initial publication suggested.
Seek content warnings. I haven’t read them all and many I regret having in my brain. But I think they’re all intriguing, maybe not all important but they offer us a different view of the past.
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10h
gardenhead finished a book
10h
Don't Call Us Dead
Danez Smith
Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don't Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood and a diagnosis of HIV positive. "Some of us are killed / in pieces," Smith writes, some of us all at once. Don't Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America--"Dear White America"--where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.
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1Reply
gardenhead commented on gardenhead's update
10h
gardenhead finished a book
10h
Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls
Kai Cheng Thom
What happens when we imagine loving the people--and the parts of ourselves--that we do not believe are worthy of love?
A transformative collection of intimate and lyrical love letters that offer a path toward compassion, forgiveness, and self-acceptance."Required reading."--Glennon Doyle
Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist, psychotherapist, conflict mediator, and spiritual healer, she's always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being, no matter how hateful or horrible, is intrinsically sacred.
But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith, overwhelmed by the viciousness with which people treated one another, and barely clinging to the values and ideals she'd built her life around: justice, hope, love, and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism, she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith: she wrote. Whether prayers or spells or poems--and whether there's a difference--she wrote to affirm the outcasts and runaways she calls her kin. She wrote to flawed but nonetheless lovable men, to people with good intentions who harm their own, to racists and transphobes seemingly beyond saving. What emerged was a blueprint for falling back in love with being human.
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1Reply
gardenhead finished a book
10h
Don't Call Us Dead
Danez Smith
Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don't Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood and a diagnosis of HIV positive. "Some of us are killed / in pieces," Smith writes, some of us all at once. Don't Call Us Dead is an astonishing and ambitious collection, one that confronts, praises, and rebukes America--"Dear White America"--where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle.
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1Reply
gardenhead finished a book
10h
Falling Back in Love with Being Human: Letters to Lost Souls
Kai Cheng Thom
What happens when we imagine loving the people--and the parts of ourselves--that we do not believe are worthy of love?
A transformative collection of intimate and lyrical love letters that offer a path toward compassion, forgiveness, and self-acceptance."Required reading."--Glennon Doyle
Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist, psychotherapist, conflict mediator, and spiritual healer, she's always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being, no matter how hateful or horrible, is intrinsically sacred.
But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith, overwhelmed by the viciousness with which people treated one another, and barely clinging to the values and ideals she'd built her life around: justice, hope, love, and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism, she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith: she wrote. Whether prayers or spells or poems--and whether there's a difference--she wrote to affirm the outcasts and runaways she calls her kin. She wrote to flawed but nonetheless lovable men, to people with good intentions who harm their own, to racists and transphobes seemingly beyond saving. What emerged was a blueprint for falling back in love with being human.
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1Reply
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1d
gardenhead commented on a post
1d
The Night Shift (46%)
This poem makes me feel queasy and uncomfortable. I'm not entirely sure if that was the intention. What do you think?
Discussion questions
- Was this poem hard for you to read? Why or why not?
- What do you interpret this poem to be about, beyond a description of the job?
- Do you prefer Gibson's more story-like poems (like this one) or the ones that have a more clear-cut, consistent stanza scheme?
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6Reply
gardenhead started reading...
1d
A Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe, #1)
P. Djèlí Clark
Nebula, Locus, and Alex Award-winner P. Djèlí Clark returns to his popular alternate Cairo universe for his fantasy novel debut, A Master of Djinn
Cairo, 1912: Though Fatma el-Sha’arawi is the youngest woman working for the Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities, she’s certainly not a rookie, especially after preventing the destruction of the universe last summer.
So when someone murders a secret brotherhood dedicated to one of the most famous men in history, al-Jahiz, Agent Fatma is called onto the case. Al-Jahiz transformed the world 50 years ago when he opened up the veil between the magical and mundane realms, before vanishing into the unknown. This murderer claims to be al-Jahiz, returned to condemn the modern age for its social oppressions. His dangerous magical abilities instigate unrest in the streets of Cairo that threaten to spill over onto the global stage.
Alongside her Ministry colleagues and her clever girlfriend Siti, Agent Fatma must unravel the mystery behind this imposter to restore peace to the city -or face the possibility he could be exactly who he seems…
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1d
gardenhead finished a book
1d
The Trial
Franz Kafka
Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.
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gardenhead finished a book
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The Trial
Franz Kafka
Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.
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gardenhead finished a book
2d
The Big Four (Hercule Poirot, #5)
Agatha Christie
Framed in the doorway of Poirot’s bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man’s gaunt face stared for a moment, then he swayed and fell. Who was he? Was he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what was the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? We follow Hercule Poirot as he finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life to uncover the truth about ‘Number Four’.
Librarian's note #1: the concept of The Big Four first appeared as weekly short stories very loosely connected in 'The Sketch' in 1924. The 12 original stories were: 1) The Unexpected Guest, 2) The Adventure of the Dartmoor Bungalow, 3) The Lady on the Stairs, 4) The Radium Thieves, 5) In the House of the Enemy, 6) The Yellow Jasmine Mystery, 7) The Chess Problem, 8) The Baited Trap, 9) The Adventure of the Peroxide Blond, 10) The Terrible Catastrophe, 11) The Dying Chinaman, and 12) The Crag in the Dolomites. For her 1927 novel, Christie enhanced the linkages between the stories and shuffled them somewhat.
Librarian's note: the first fifteen novels in the Hercule Poirot series are 1) The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920; 2) The Murder on the Links, 1923; 3) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, 1926; 4) The Big Four, 1927; 5) The Mystery of the Blue Train, 1928; 6) Peril at End House, 1932; 7) Lord Edgware Dies, 1933; 8) Murder on the Orient Express, 1934; 9) Three Act Tragedy, 1935; 10) Death in the Clouds, 1935; 11) The A.B.C. Murders, 1936; 12) Murder in Mesopotamia, 1936; 13) Cards on the Table, 1936; 14) Dumb Witness, 1937; and 15) Death on the Nile, 1937. These are just the novels; Poirot also appears in this period in a play, Black Coffee, 1930, and two collections of short stories, Poirot Investigates, 1924, and Murder in the Mews, 1937. Each novel, play and short story has its own entry on Goodreads.
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gardenhead TBR'd a book
2d
Silly Novels by Lady Novelists
George Eliot
Describing the silliness and feminine fatuity of many popular books by lady novelists, George Eliot perfectly skewers the formulaic yet bestselling works that dominated her time, with their loveably flawed heroines.
Essay first published for Westminster Review in 1856.
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gardenhead finished a book
2d
The Poetry of George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans was born in 1819. Her Father did not consider her a great beauty and thought her chances of marriage were slim. He therefore invested in her education. By 1850 she had moved to London to work at the Westminster Review where she published many articles and essays. Her view on literature had taken some time to coalescence but with the publication of parts of “Scenes From A Clerical Life” in 1858 she knew she wanted to be a novelist and as her 1856 titled essay “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists" stated not a ‘silly woman’s one at that. Success of course meant that her real name came out but it seemed not to affect how the public devoured her novels. Here, we look with a keen eye at her poetry. Although slim in number she is able to take a situation, scene or thought and bring us into its world with undeniable care. Many of these titles are on our audiobook version which can be purchased from iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores.
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gardenhead commented on a post
3d
Instead of Depression (35%)
Another shorty! Gibson is so thoughtful in the placement of their poems within this collection; I feel like this skill is fading with a lot of newer writers.
Potential discussion questions
- How does this poem connect to the one previous? Would the impact be different if it was placed further along in the collection?
- Why do you think Gibson wrote this as one long stanza instead of multiple short ones?
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5Reply
gardenhead commented on a post
3d
Loyaute
Edited
Every Time I Ever Said I Want to Die (32%)
This is the most meaningful poem in the collection, to me. I have some strong personal memories connected to it. I cannot type much without getting emotional about it, so straight into the discussion questions we go:
- Why are specific stanzas indented? What topics do they discuss that differ from the rest of the poem? What do you think of this structure?
- How does Gibson's framing of death as infinity, as opposed to death as the ultimate end, change the tone of this poem?
- What does it mean to be a "grief astronomer"?
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gardenhead commented on a post
3d
To Whom it Definitely Concerns, (31%)
The satire in this poem is off the charts---it's fantastic. I always enjoy reading this one after the heavier pieces that come before it. I think it's great how Gibson can write about a serious subject in such a fun and lighthearted way. I always love reading "I will [...] sit naked on the photocopy machine so there are one hundred copies of my ass to kiss when I'm gone."
Potential discussion questions:
- What do you think of the shift in tone with this poem? Do you appreciate it? Do you find it too different from the other poems read so far?
- How did you interpret, in stanza 2, the addition of other people beside the narrator ("the young people")? (This brought me back to the queer youth poem and made me think about the motivation to better yourself that comes with realizing younger people look up to you.)
- Why do you think the signature line is blank?
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gardenhead commented on a post
3d
No Such Thing as the Innocent Bystander (30%)
Well, in case you didn't notice, this piece is much shorter than the prior pieces!
I personally really like when poets break up their collections like this. I think it is a useful tool to drive points/themes home.
Potential discussion questions:
- Why do you think Gibson chose to keep this poem at 2 lines? What would be the advantages or disadvantages of making it a similar length to the beginning poems?
- How does the title influence your interpretation of the poem? Would you interpret it differently if there was no title?
- Gibson notoriously highlights resilience and survival in their poems; what purpose does this poem serve to those themes? (This ties in to question 1, I think.)
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gardenhead commented on gardenhead's update
3d
gardenhead finished a book
3d
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems
Warsan Shire
Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience from the celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé's Lemonade and Black Is King, award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire.
Mama, I made itout of your home, alive, raised by thevoices in my head.
With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women, and teenage girls. In Shire's hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life: full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life: full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life: full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl.
The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets, this book is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of resilience and survival. Each reader will come away changed.
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gardenhead finished a book
3d
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems
Warsan Shire
Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience from the celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé's Lemonade and Black Is King, award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire.
Mama, I made itout of your home, alive, raised by thevoices in my head.
With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women, and teenage girls. In Shire's hands, lives spring into fullness. This is noisy life: full of music and weeping and surahs and sirens and birds. This is fragrant life: full of blood and perfume and shisha smoke and jasmine and incense. This is polychrome life: full of henna and moonlight and lipstick and turmeric and kohl.
The long-awaited collection from one of our most exciting contemporary poets, this book is a blessing, an incantatory celebration of resilience and survival. Each reader will come away changed.
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