kismet-at-the-library - Tumblr blog

[kismet-at-the-library]

Read women authors. Donna Tartt, Margaret Atwood, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy

[kismet-at-the-library]

Recordé la tarde lejana cuando nos conocimos, dos niños perdidos en una plaza. Ya entonces él se consideraba un macho bien plantado, capaz de dirigir su destino, en cambio sostenía que yo estaba en desventaja por haber nacido mujer y debía aceptar diversas tutelas y limitaciones. A sus ojos yo siempre sería una criatura dependiente. Huberto pensaba así desde que tuvo uso de razón, era improbable que la revolución cambiara esos sentimientos. Comprendí que nuestros problemas no tenían relación con las vicisitudes de la guerrilla; aunque él lograra sacar adelante su sueño, la igualdad no alcanzaría para mí. Para Naranjo y otros como él, el pueblo parecía compuesto sólo de hombres; nosotras debíamos contribuir a la lucha, pero estábamos excluidas de las decisiones y del poder. Su revolución no cambiaría en esencia mi suerte, en cualquier circunstancia yo tendría que seguir abriéndome paso por mí misma hasta el último de mis días. Tal vez en ese momento me di cuenta de que la mía es una guerra cuyo final no se vislumbra, así es que más vale darla con alegría, para que no se me vaya la vida esperando una posible victoria para empezar a sentirme bien. Concluí que Elvira tenía razón, hay que ser bien brava, hay que pelear siempre.

Isabel Allende, Eva Luna

[kismet-at-the-library]

Long walks, warm bookshops

[kismet-at-the-library]

Literature is one of the cultural languages through which we make sense of the world; it helps to create our sense of reality rather than simply reflecting it. At the same time, it also draws on, echoes, modifies and bounces off out other frameworks of sense-making. No text is an island.

Rita Felski, Literature after Feminism

[kismet-at-the-library]

In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others. There is a greater fullness of life about his own existence, and when there is more life in the units there is more in the mass which is composed of them.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (via philosophybits)

[kismet-at-the-library]

I’ve been working my way through everything Ali Smith has published. This is a small selection – I’ve also read Hotel World, Like, Free Love, Autumn. Some I read years ago, some I’m just discovering. I’m about to read Winter. I think this might be the first step towards writing a PhD proposal : - )

[kismet-at-the-library]

Saying that a poem always remains a question means that there will always be an infinite number of answers. Once there is an answer, the value of the question is a bit exhausted. But if a poem is constantly asking and constantly garnering different answers, different solutions, it remains something very fruitful. I think there can be many different answers to one poem, one question. That is what I aim for.

Emily Jungmin Yoon, in an interview with The Paris Review (via tristealven)

[kismet-at-the-library]

I have often marvelled at how everyone loves himself above all others, yet places less value on his own opinion of himself than that of everyone else.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.4 (via oupacademic)

[kismet-at-the-library]

The most amazing book can sit on the shelf for years before you’re ready to read it. Sometimes, you have to be in the right place.

[kismet-at-the-library]

“We know what we are, that we walk like we are not long for this world, that this world has never longed for us.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Beautiful Struggle”

[kismet-at-the-library]

Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from the land, but instill in them even more respect for it, because educated people are in a position to understand what is being lost. The future of the planet concerns all of us, and all of us should do what we can to protect it. As I told the foresters, and the women, you don’t need a diploma to plant a tree.”

Wangari Maathai (via clash-official)

[kismet-at-the-library]

I was pulled this way and that for longer than I can remember. And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone’s way but my own. I have also been called one thing and then another while no one really wished to hear what I called myself.

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (via theclassicsreader)

[kismet-at-the-library]

‘Where did you go to, if I may ask?’ said Thorin to Gandalf as they rode along.

‘To look ahead,’ said he.

‘And what brought you back in the nick of time?’

‘Looking behind,’ said he.

-J. R. R. Tolkien

If you could only read one book for the rest of your life, which book would you choose? Currently mine would be The Hobbit. 💕

[kismet-at-the-library]

She worked for her living; then, still for the sake of her living,—for the heart, also, has its hunger,—she loved.

Victor Hugo, from “Les Misérables,” originally published c. January 1862 (via violentwavesofemotion)

[kismet-at-the-library]

I’ve learned that doubt is a source of energy. You don’t have to be always certain. We live in a culture that fetishizes certainty. ‘What’s your stance? What’s your position?’ As a writer, luckily, I don’t have to have a stance. I just have to have questions, and I get to build a landscape where I get to explore them.

Ocean Vuong, interviewed by Amy Rose Spiegel for The Creative Independent (via bostonpoetryslam)

[kismet-at-the-library]

Annie Finch, from “The Body of Poetry: Essays on Women, Form and the Poetic Self,” (x)

[kismet-at-the-library]

List of Books to Read Before You Die

1. Any book you want

2. Don’t read books you don’t want to read

3. That’s it

4. Congratulations you did it