#title is from. guess. ocean vuong

[daisychainsandbowties]

Chapters: 1/? Rating: Mature Words: 7.5K

prequel to my percy jackson au

///

“How did you find me?” she calls, her voice wispy – thinned out from crying and from the fact that she doesn’t want to be using it at all. But her hands are otherwise occupied.

You can tell anyway that if not for you she would be silent. She has a way to talk without her mouth – with her hands and their motions. Of all the languages you know it is the one you feel most fluent standing inside.

But she speaks, and that is brave of her. You hate that she does it for you, to ask something as simple as a questions she already knows the answer to.

(how did I find you? of course I found you.)

[3terna15unshin3]

Then Because She Goes

★ Matty Healy x Original Female Character

★ slow burn, friends to lovers, mutual pining, eventual romance, eventual smut, fluff, time skips, angst

★ 15 Chapters, 74243 words

“Well, she says beauty brings copies of itself into being. That it makes us draw it, take photographs of it, describe it to other people—it has a forward momentum. And I always thought that that was a sort of—superficial, I guess—way of putting it. But I feel that when I’m with you. Almost like I want to savour you up so that the minute you’re gone there’s still some of you left.”

From meeting in a second-hand bookshop in central Manchester, Este and Matty begin exchanging questionable (and pretentious) book recommendations and flourish an alluring interest in one another.

1: You are mine, I’ve been drowning in you

2: You fracture light again

3: Beautiful, please don’t cry, I love you

4: When you leave, I cry on the inside

5: I wake up, love you, so love you, love you

6: Cry, I wake up, love you, love you

7: We’re supposed to leave by half-past eight*

8: You wait for a bit

9: Pissed again, I’ve been dying to meet you

10: You fracture light again (Ooh), I love you, oh, love you*

11: When you leave, I cry on the inside*

12: Oh, so I love this, I love you, so love you

13: Cry, I will love you, love you, love you

14: We’re supposed to leave by half-past eight

15: Will you stay or wait?*

*mature content

Soundtrack

All Titles Mentioned (in order of appearance)

— Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

— Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

— To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

— Lord of the Flies by William Golding

— Emma by Jane Austen

— Persuasion by Jane Austen

— You Are Here: Art After the Internet by Omar Kholeif

— Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

— On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

— Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

— On Beauty and Being Just by Elaine Scarry

— Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

— If Cats Disappeared From The World by Genki Kawamura

— The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

— Coraline by Neil Gaiman

— Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

— Piranesi by Suzanna Clarke

— “The Orange” by Wendy Cope

— Pure Colour by Sheila Heti

— Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

— Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan

[tweetsongs]

2, 6, and 15 for the book asks please!!

<33333

2. top 5 books of all time?

in no particular order:

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (the first four books of which i just read this month but I LOVE MY SECUNIT CHILD...)

6. what books have you read in the last month?

HMMMM i've been trying to go to the library regularly so i have a ton of unread books on my desk rn but the ones i've finished are:

Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places by Colin Dickey

Mort by Terry Pratchett

The City & The City by China Miéville

The Lavender Scare: the Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government by David K Johnson

Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy from The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells

Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Worker's Rights by Molly Smith and Juno Mac

Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

15. recommend and review a book.

THIS IS HARD i've mostly been reading nonfiction lately! i thinkkkkk we've been pretty aligned on the webnovels we've been reading (I STARTED GLOBAL UNIVERSITY ENTRANCE EXAMINATION I SWEAR) and we're both raising our glasses to each other from across the dining hall re: orv (*points gun at rest of my followers* read orv) but i'll rec a webnovel i've been rereading and getting blotchy eyes about!

it's sss-class suicide hunter/sss-class revival hunter (it got revised to the latter which i prefer as a title, but a lot of stuff's under the old translation OTL) by shin noah. it's another dungeon-crawl isekai-y setting where people have been transported to a 'tower' of varying levels and have to fight through them with different abilities and stuff. the mc is a guy who can rewind time by 24 hours every time he dies, which he finds out when his idol murders him in cold blood. in addition to the time reversal (which can be stacked so he can go as far back as he wants by dying multiple times), he can also gain an ability of the person who killed him, though he can't see which ability he's choosing and has to guess. the caveat to this insane op power is that he has to live through the darkest moments in the life of the person who killed him, which gets more vivid as the powers he gains grows more powerful. this premise really leads to a story that's very much focused on empathy and perspective, and is a handy excuse for you to get attached to basically everyone!

the first twoish arcs are pretty standard but it gets INTENSE pretty early on. the mc is just, so refreshingly open and trusting (though he's also incredibly unhinged!) and the worldbuilding is SO interesting and layered, and each setting the world brings is fascinating in its own way, and serves to enrich its characters! also there's so much time travel shennanigans which is fun. the romance in this book made me go feral, and it just...makes me break down in tears every single time. and i simply think everyone deserves to feel that agony!

book asks!

[insomniac-arrest]

Hi there! I'm doing sort of what you did last year with the "here's all the books i read in 2020" post, as part of a resolution to myself to get myself back into reading. I wanted to see if you had a final list - I can't seem to find that post but I remember seeing a couple titles I wanted to read when I made the time :/ And have you read anything in the new year yet? I've read 2 books so far - Beyond the Ruby Veil and Serpent & Dove! The first is about a girl who gets whatever she wants and murders the person who makes water in her city out of people's blood, and subsequently finding out a LOT about the reality of her world. She is hella gay and her best friend is ALSO Hella Gay but it 2 different ways. I kind of hate her but also her story and her emotions are very compelling still???? The second is a typical opposite sides fake!married story with witches and witchhunters set in quasi-Medieval "France." Its very cute and Ansel is now my child. Plus the "twist" writing isn't for shock value like GoT was, the foreshadowing and payoffs actually make sense BUT the payoffs still blow you away!

Hello! Yes, here is my post with most of the books I read in 2020. You can also check out my Goodreads which has even more!

Here were my all-time favorites from 2020 by genre:

Fantasy: Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, a money-lender gets in trouble after bragging she can turn silver into gold and is kidnapped and ordered to do so by a fey creature. It has a truly compelling main character and some awesome female friendships. I loved this book!

Literary Fiction: On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, a son writes a letter about his life to his illiterate mother. The language in this is truly dazzling and the prose absolutely stunned me to the point of tearing up. 

Romance: Get a Life Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert, Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life.” I just thought this was a really funny and sweet romance novel! 

I also read “Red, White, and Royal Blue” this year which was pretty good and gets an honorable mention. However, despite the later being gay, I enjoyed Chloe more as a character so that’s why it ended up being my favorite.

Science Fiction: Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel, a post-apocalyptical story about a group of traveling Shakespeare actors and a symphony. Soft! Apocalypse! A fascinating look at a world ravaged by a terrible disease (ahem) and the society that comes after it. There is something quiet and compelling about this book that I can’t explain.

Gideon the Ninth: I’m not putting this in any category because I honestly had no ideal what was going on in this book most of the time. BUT I HAD SO MUCH GODDAMN FUN IT’S UNBELIEVABLE. I laughed, I cried, I screamed out loud at the ending. This book reminded me how much I love reading.

I have finished one book in the new year! It was “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn and I hated it so much that I thought to myself “huh, I guess I don’t like the entire thriller genre” and then the next day, still filled with rage, I was like “maybe I just don’t like books anymore, I’m going to become illiterate.”

Anyway, I am back to reading now and I’m doing “One to Watch” by Kate Stayman-London which is a romance novel about a plus-sized fashion blogging becoming the star of a reality dating show! I’m enjoying it well-enough so far, it is a bit heavy for me, but I hear it gets really juicy later on so I’m excited for that. 

[maybuds]

hi u are one of my favorite blogs!! u are always posting wonderful excerpts n stuff so i was wondering what your fave books are/any book recs (anything but esp novels)! <3

omg hi !! u caught me at just the right time, i was going to log out hahah.

that’s a loaded question, because i don’t really have “favorites” anymore when it comes to books, i guess? when a book is good, i just absorb it. i don’t even remember titles that much anymore, it’s just... either i read and it changes me, or not, or i remember a passage but i have to rummage in my head where i read it lol :3 and it’s not even just books, too! sometimes u just discover a really good read from an online article, or from a post on a random blog. it also really depends on what the person is looking for, for me to recommend any works to them. BUT, off the very top of my head, here are my favorites so far (in no particular order). They’re mostly non-fiction because that’s what i’ve been reading a lot lately:

- upstream by mary oliver (honestly anything by mary oliver !) - braiding sweetgrass: indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants by robin wall kimmerer (!!!) - how to do nothing: resisting the attention economy by jenny odell (highly, highly recommended! i read it first as some kind of introduction through this essay, and then when i found the pdf and read it, it changed the way i looked at doing ordinary things, like walking down a street, honestly, like when you watch a ghibli movie and then u just... start to pay attention more) - white teeth by zadie smith (i keep remembering that first few passages from the chapter Mutiny!, the one where she talks about the real difference between people... i remember it maybe twice a week, or every time i read the news / watch American media, even) - on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong - night sky with exit wounds by ocean vuong - dark hours by conchitina cruz - in praise of shadows by jun'ichirō tanizaki - the god of small things by arundhati roy - plainwater: essays and poetry by anne carson - one hundred years of solitude by gabriel garcia-marquez (i was a huge fan of garcia-marquez in college, i keep saying he changed the way i read and write) - ikigai: the japanese secret to a long and happy life by hector garcia & albert liebermann (light read, but very motivating!) - a field guide to getting lost by rebecca solnit - bright dead things by ada limón - sapiens: a brief history of humankind and homo deus: a brief history of tomorrow by yuval noah harari (i would say these books added 10+ braincells to my poor brain)

i’ll try to add to this if i remember any other titles that i forgot hahah. but i hope this has u covered for now. i’m glad u like the excerpts !! i mostly found them around tumblr, too, to be completely honest, because a lot of other people here are way more well-read than i am

this was a long reply ahaha. take care always, friend, and i hope u like this list :-)

[sleeeeepytea]

I need some romantic poetry... Got any recommendations?

omg yes!!! romantic poetry is the best :'0

E. E. Cummings' poetry is honestly the best place to go for romantic poetry as a whole, I think I can scrounge up a pdf of his complete works if you'd like?

Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong tackles both familial and romantic love, which is super sweet to read. Plus the poetry is almost song-like and soothing to read ♡ Crush by Richard Siken is great for romantic love as well, as you probably guessed from the title!

And of course, any of Mary Oliver's works delves into the love for nature and her religion. It reads as romantic as well, which is so nice ;;

I hope at least one of these recommendations tickle your fancy!! If I find any others, I'll be sure to let you know :>

[genderpunktheo]

hey do you know any queer poets of colour and/or where i could find some for myself? i've tried googling but it doesn't come up w much for the intersection. i'm fairly new to poetry and most of the stuff i know is emily dickinson, christina rossetti, etc. also if you know of any historic poets of colour or how i could find some that would be useful too. i'm not expecting you to be an arbiter of any of this so if you're not sure dw aha

I’m guessing that when you Googled it every single search result was for the Nepantla anthology? That’s what I ended up with when I tried it a while back (don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the anthology exists but I wish it was easier to find more!).

There must be a tonne out there that I haven’t come across yet so hopefully, somebody will add some more for us but here are a few! 

Modern poets: 

Danez Smith - their Twitter bio sums them up pretty well so to quote, they “talk poems, gay sex and black people.” They have a poetry collection called Homie (well, actually that’s not the real title but it’s the title for non-black people) coming out in January, and a couple of earlier collections called Don’t Call Us Dead and Black Movie.

Hieu Minh Nguyen - he wrote Not Here which is a collection of poems blurbed as “a map for navigating a queer Vietnamese-American body in confrontation with whiteness.” He’s also the author of This Way To Sugar and a few others.

Ocean Vuong - an openly gay novelist and poet born in Vietnam and raised in the US. His first full-length poetry collection was Night Sky with Exit Wounds which won a number of poetry awards. 

Jericho Brown - among other things he’s written PLEASE which is a poetry collection exploring the history and culture of African Americans, along with male identity and sexuality. 

Ryka Aoki - a queer Asian trans woman who wrote the poetry collection Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul. It explores themes of identity and queerness among other things.

Historical poets:

Langston Hughes - a black man, scholar, activist and poet (not to mention one of the driving forces of the Harlem Renaissance). He was also published as both a novelist and a playwright.

Audre Lorde - a black, lesbian feminist. I’ve been reading her essays and haven’t got around to her poetry yet but she published nine volumes and was an incredibly outspoken and prolific writer. 

I’m not too sure about where to find more, unfortunately. I do have this reading list of queer black poets since the Harlem Renaissance from my bookmarks if that’s of any interest.

Someone might have put together a list or database but I haven’t found anything yet. I hope this gives you a few poets who might interest you though ❤︎

[the-prophet-lemonade]

21, 44, 26 ❤️

21. What was the first fanfic you ever wrote?

it was very much an oc-insert fullmetal alchemist fanfiction that i wrote circa 2007 ... it was so full of ocs that it was barely recognizable as fma derivative ... literally the canon characters only had passing cameos and the rest was just my own characters in an alchemy-based universe lmfao

i can’t remember the plot ... the main character was an alchemist like edward who doesn’t need circles as they’ve seen the gate of truth, and the story started with her looking for her parents’ murderers, and along the way, collecting a rag tag bunch of misfits as her team ... very indulgent, but i was 12 years old and living my fantasy ya feel 

it was about 120 chapters long (but each chapter was maybe 300 words max lol) and i think i got halfway through a sequel? i can’t remember. it was posted in a very obscure portion of the internet ... 

26. How do you come up with your fanfic titles?

i mainly borrow ideas from poetry and music for my fic titles/chapter titles ... richard siken, ocean vuong, and traci brimhall are my biggest inspirations at the moment. i put a lot of work and thought into my fic titles these days as i like to play around with meaning and symbolism a whole lot (even if 99% of people won’t know or understand my references lmfao)

breaking down some of my fic titles:

a cold night for good deeds: this is derivative of “a cold night for alligators”, which has absolutely nothing to do with the fic but i really like the sound and the symmetry of the words. there are a lot of interesting vowel sounds in this title too, especially the clipped “o” sounds, which has a particular pathetic fallacy to me (a cold city, a harsh wind, a storm, the drumbeat of rain etc).

droplets: one word punchy title is easy to market and easy to remember, and seeing as water is an extended metaphor in this fic ... and given That Line in chapter 19 when jean tells marco he loves him ... it works pretty well

whosoever’s is the storm: derivative of a latin proverb (”Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos.”), appropriate for the source material and its canonical themes 

another lover hits the universe: derivative of an allen ginsberg quote (”Another lover hits the universe. The circle is broken. But with death comes rebirth. And like all lovers and sad people, I am a poet.”), especially appropriate given the themes of reincarnation in this fic

verdant night and unmet people: lifted from a phrase in an article i read about the folly of being 20-something, but also has a link to the green light at the end of gatsby’s pier, which is highly appropriate given the setting of this fic lol

as your sun sets (i know you in bleary-eyed 3am): two lines from a poem by naiche parker that i mashed together ... it presents the theme of the fic very succinctly, an intimacy stretched across two places at once, two different time zones.

after dark: named after my fave murakami novella which has very little to do with the themes of fic, but is written with the beautiful detached quality where individual moments that don’t always fit together seamlessly are stitched together into a story, which works nicely for a vignette-style piece

anaphora in the aftermath (of love and violence): i saw the word anaphora in a poem by ocean vuong and loved it, and the stylised the rest of the title a la richard siken. anaphora is repetition of a certain word/phrase at the beginning of successive clauses, and in this fic, the anaphora is alec’s “i love you” confession, and the central theme is how it ripples unspoken through the moments afterwords. 

ghosts that we knew: named after a mumford & sons song ... it’s a fic about ghosts ... go figure 

i like things that are aesthetically pleasing as well, so i am very particular with word choices, format, sound, and rhythm. for example, you will n e v e r see me titling a fic with an indefinite clause (e.g. “to [something]” or “of [something]”) as it makes me irrationally uncomfortable lmfao

i also always avoid vague nouns and pronoun-heavy titles, as i don’t think they make for eye-catching or memorable titles. you need something punchy or something beautiful and extravagant. i like to lead with a strong concept, particularly a visual/dynamic noun or verb (e.g. “as your sun sets (i know you in bleary-eyed 3am”, “droplets”, “whosoever’s is the storm”, “another lover hits the universe”, etc)

44. What ship do you feel needs more attention? 

seeing as i’m in the depths of a got hyperfixation, let’s go for podsa!!!!!! 

sansa has a plethora of ships (of varying quality lmfao) but one of my new faves is sansa and podrick! a lot of this emerged post-season 8 after pod became a knight and got me thinking about how sansa used to pray for the gods to send her a “noble and true knight to champion her” and like ... who is more noble ... than pod (well, besides ser brienne, but briensa is a god tier ship all of its own). anyway, sansa stark deserves a man who will love and respect her and defer to her at all costs, and pod would be good husband material. 

they also have shared history, with both of them living in KL in seasons 2 & 3 and i love the idea that pod had a crush on sansa then, but she was beautiful and sad and unattainable, and obvs she was married to tyrion, who pod was squiring for ... THE ANGST POSSIBILITIES. sansa probably rarely noticed him, but i like to imagine, later, when pod and brienne rescue sansa from the boltons, sansa starts noticing what a fine young man pod has become, and then when he is a knight and she is a queen, she’s like ... “damn son u fill out that gold armour real nice” and then she gets her much deserved happily ever after and ... i guess i’ve thought about this a lot

ask me fanfiction questions

[tazisreading]

May Wrap Up

Three Blind Mice by Agatha Christie ⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was a collection of short stories, including the title story which is a variant of the play The Mousetrap. I’ve been trying to find a way to read The Mousetrap for ages so I’m glad I finally did get that chance. Three Blind Mice managed to surprise me with the ending, so that’s a job well done. There were also Hercule Poirot short stories—always good—and Miss Marple too. I’ve been looking for an introduction to Miss Marple and I have to say I think this served that purpose. The result is that I don’t think I will read any more of that character but now I know so I still call that a success.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong ⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book has beautiful prose but the content is quite intense so please do look up trigger warnings before you pick it up. The poetic writing makes the descriptions really vivid, but that also makes it a bit harder to stomach at times. I listened to the audio book, which was narrated by the author, and I find his voice is kinda stuck in my head now, for better or worse. I think the audiobook was a good idea because I’m not sure I would have finished this book in its physical form.

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie ⭐️⭐️⭐️ This Hercule Poirot novel was an earlier work and shorter than later works but I found it enjoyable nonetheless. The twist at the end was very good and I thought it was very clever.

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I was surprised that I actually cared about how this story turned out. It was interesting, creative, and I can see why it’s considered a modern classic.

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald ⭐️⭐️ I read this in high school and hated it so I thought I’d give it a reread and see how my opinion has changed over time. I will say the ending was very different from my memory which changes some of how I feel about it. The book is purposely shallow and a bit pointless, as a reflection of the era and I think it does a good job of that. I think it gets a bit dull and redundant though. I no longer hate this book, but I still don’t really like it.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I tried to read this a few months ago and gave up cause I couldn’t understand what was happening. So I picked up the audiobook in a different translation and I have to say that I enjoyed this.

The Little Prince by Antione de Saint-Exupery ⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book was cute, and I’ll think of it the next time I look at the stars.

Mrs McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie ⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book kept going in circles and honestly I enjoyed the ride. It was faster than I expected and it kept me guessing the whole time.

[the-third-body]

ocean notes for ocean vuong

i title it ocean notes because i am thinking about the ocean and sitting by it and wondering a lot about vastness and beauty and the way the sea carries things away and how I wonder if waves in their lapses or rough foam have a sort of transfiguring power for all that lost debris. 

But there is a lot of shit and garbage and trash on that ocean floor and I struggle to forget and feel the beauty, sink into it or be made from it, from sea foam and joussaince and that particular feeling of wavy wind. Sometimes I do not want to transfigure. Sometimes I want to let shit be shit. I don’t want to work and work and work that transfiguring tool because sometimes it feels to easy sometimes it does not feel real. 

There is much literal shit in On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Shit I wanted to be named, the awkward shit of fucking in the ass, the gross shit of shitting yourself while getting fucked in the ass, the shit of an all american boy fucking you not quite in the ass to an american football game, the SHIT the shit the shit. The book felt to me like an assembled tool, putting shit in one side and working and working and working until beauty came out the other. It felt like it was working so hard but in a way the working was too easy and simple. It’s almost like I can’t trust sincerity anymore. I wanted some things to hang out, get more at the jugular, pressed right up against the surface, or right in to the shit covered ground. Not that I mean I want some reversal, some Bukowski-level brashness, perhaps I was just looking for something messier, a jam in the transfiguring tool, no need to blow it all up. It feels like there are gaps in the book, things Vuong is hiding behind. Like why did he decide to make it fiction and why did that bother me so much? Maybe the labor was just put into his specific goal, of writing specific bodies into a specific literary history that has discluded them, and maybe fiction was necessary for that end. But why does it feel like it is hiding behind beauty, behind a rhetoric of not saying something outright? The language comes from desire and I like that. But I wanted that desire exposed, how gross it can sometimes be. How utterly disgusting.

Of course, the more famous and acclaimed a book is, the easier it is to critique. And of course I feel some mixed feeling of awe and resentment for Ocean and how I want the way we talk about his work to be the way I want him to write his work too: messy. I like that he remains tender through everything. And maybe that astonishes me a little bit. And maybe that contradicts everything I just said, but I think that’s okay. I like his soft presence in the world and how he will not give that up and how I don’t really get it because the book is an act of self-possession in many ways, and act of assertion, and I thought that must always be aggressive and so maybe there is beauty that his will always be wrapped in tenderness. But that doesn’t stop me from forgetting the shit. the shit the shit the shit and how I want to name things not only as they should be but also as they are.

Later, I read Vuong’s new poem: Not Even This. I liked it the first time because it began with ‘hey.’ And talked about lil peep. I liked it in the way that I liked his acknowledgments for On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, how he thanked people like Gus Dapperton and Rex Orange County right next Baldwin and Carson. But it is a beautiful poem, one that deserved revisiting for more reasons than those. And so I guess I will leave these lines here because they are ruminating lines, cataclysmic lines, lines that have me thinking I was probably wrong the whole time. Lines for which I don’t take back my circumlocutions, but allow them to be muddled up. Allow them to be much, much messier:

“Because everyone knows yellow pain, pressed into American letters, turns to gold.

Our sorrow Midas-touched. Napalm with a rainbow afterglow. I’m trying to be real but it costs too much.

.....

I can say it was beautiful now, my harm, because it belonged to no one else.”

[villenatale]

a little late but tagged by @deifiliaa

last song. “Too Good” by Christian Kuria. look look look. this song is like my perfect summer song. it feels blurry? if that makes sense?? like a really really hot summer where everything feels slow, but in the best of ways, and it feels like i’m wading through water every time i move. please just trust me here: go outside on a day where the sun is blinding and it’s just on this side of too hot, and you have nothing to do but lounge around. ok now either get a beach towel or a long chair, lie down and put on this song. undescribable, amazing feeling

last film. Space Sweepers (2021). a fun time. criminal found family in SPACE. enough said.

currently reading. Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado. a collection of short stories and oh my. oh my. i cannot even begin to describe it. spooky? horror but healing? supernatural but mundane?? urban legends-ish. so so twisted and soo so good. Also On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. I mean the title alone could sell this. letters that may never be read, from a son to his mother. all i can say is that it feels like poking at a healing bruise. it will hurt but not for much longer. it’s gentle. bittersweet. inevitably and violently impactful.

currently watching. netflix limited series called “This Is a Robbery.” documentary about the isabella stewart garden museum robbery. suuuper interesting, would recommend. stanley cup playoffs. would not recommend, why on earth am i inflicting so much pain and stress onto myself. ah well, go habs. also summer class lectures :(((

currently craving.  TAKOYAKI. more specifically, takoyaki from Ichigo Ichie Izakaya. and ramen. also from Ichigo Ichie Izakaya.

tagging. let’s see, um... @beatle-capaldi, @farabees and anyone else who wants to do this i guess!

[daisychainsandbowties]

5, 7, 16, 17 please!

5. what work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

have to say luminous beings, my star wars au. there are other fics i’m more… fond of, in some ways, but i put so much of myself into star wars au, and parts of other people too. especially shannon, who was borrowed from someone else, & i remember which shanmary scenes i wrote to torment them specifically. shannon’s ship being called the wasabi was their idea too, based on a dumb dads hc. so yeah, i guess it feels like a time capsule to me, a little, and in that sense i’m proud of what it’ll always mean to me.

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

i use poems, actually, to name my fics most often. apart from LB which is just from the yoda quote “luminous beings are we, not this crude matter” and orbital mechanics which is the name of a wikipedia article. but based on that… maybe danez smith is the poet whose work i use most for titles? epigraphs are split evenly between ocean vuong and siken, but yeah the titles of wardmates and chess au are both from “don’t call us dead” (which is essential reading imo) i tend to get the… thematic kick that a lot of people get out of song lyrics from poems instead so yeah 🥰💖

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

i don’t tend to use any additional tag more than once, but my most common one probably should be “Dead Dove Do Not Eat” 🫠🫠 considering. but then i tend to post my most henious stuff direct to tumblr (or bebdbd ✝️ anonymously in other people’s inbox)

17. Your favourite character to write this year?

Ava!!!

it’s always my little respawning blood-drenched beach-loving bisexual jesus who brings me the most joy to write.

bea & lilith are like… driving while it’s raining blood, but ava POV tends to flow really easily. writing star wars au chapter 3 and chess au and her pjo au chapter and pokemon au was some of the most fun i had writing this year (with the exception of 🍆 saga)

and, like it or not, i have a very similar personality to ava, so her voice is like talking instead of thinking.

[limejuicer1862]

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers three options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger, or an interview about their latest book, or a combination of these.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

  Kay Bell

is the author of the poetry chapbook, Cry Sweat Bleed Write (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2020). She earned a BA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing at The City College of New York (CUNY) where she also served as a poetry mentor in the Poetry Outreach program. Kay’s work appears in the book, Brown Molasses Sunday: An Anthology of Black Women Writers, and online in Moko: Caribbean Arts and Letters, The Write Launch, Pithead Chapel and various other venues. Kay is passionate about bringing the arts back into public schools and issues that affect marginalized communities. She lives in the Bronx and considers herself a bibliophile. Visit her here: www.iamkaybell.com

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

I started writing poetry in the sixth grade when my teacher, Ms. Nolan, introduced my class to the Haiku. I learned very quickly that I was not only fascinated with writing but with words. I was even known to have been an avid dictionary reader. Soon after sixth grade I started keeping journals. Some pages were filled with venting about my rough childhood but many pages were poems.

1.1. What was it that fascinated you about words?

I believe it was the power of words that fascinated me. I remember reading words like “rhapsody” and “exalt” and feeling what they meant before truly understanding their definitions. Words have the power to make you feel and move you to create and reimagine things. When I found writers like Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Warshan Shire, Claudia Rankine and Amiri Baraka etc. I started to realize what you could do with words. They could be shaped into messages. Important messages. Writers such as these wrote such powerful messages in their poems and for me that was empowering and inspired me to do the same.

1.2. What was it that fascinated you about words?

I believe it was the power of words that fascinated me. I remember reading words like “rhapsody” and “exalt” and feeling what they meant before truly understanding their definitions. Words have the power to make you feel and move you to create and reimagine things. When I found writers like Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Warshan Shire, Claudia Rankine and Amiri Baraka etc. I started to realize what you could do with words. They could be shaped into messages. Important messages. Writers such as these wrote such powerful messages in their poems and for me that was empowering and inspired me to do the same.

2. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

When I first started writing it wasn’t bad obvious but looking back I definitely see that I wasn’t exposed to that many younger poets. It’s only within the last maybe 5-7 years I have tumbled upon younger poets. I believe writers such as Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Gwendolyn Brooks and Amiri Baraka definitely dominated the presence of Danez Smith, Evie Ewing, Claudia Rankine etc even a few years ago in my college courses.

2.2. How did they dominate?

I guess when I think of the question of domination I’m thinking about how they get more presence on the classrooms and they’re the writers most people are more familiar with because they get more exposure.

3. What made you tightly structure Cry Sweat Bleed Write round these words and their order?

People always ask me what do I write about. This title became the answer to that question. I think it was inspired by me hearing people say they accomplished victories by blood and tears. It made me think about what I choose to write about. I realized if it makes me cry sweat or bleed it’s worth writing about. That means nothing Is off limits. I write about all my experiences.

4. Seasons are an ongoing theme within the poetry., as in “smashes her face against the seasons”, “From the borders of winter”. Why are the seasons so important to you?

Seasons represent time and change but also they help you feel different emotions. Smashes her face against the seasons shows it happened all the time. As the seasons kept changing, this situation kept happening. Winter is symbolic of death or despair. When you emerge from winter you are emerging from dire circumstances.

So using these references to seasons helps me to convey a message about time and change that I hope will encourage the reader to understand something is changing and many times that includes a change in time, and a range of feelings.

I think mentioning the seasons also helps the reader reflect. This is important because for me, poetry should make you reflect. During reflection, that’s the moment you feel the time changing, and you feel the cold loneliness of winter, you smell the spring flowers, you jump in autumn leaves and you sweat in the heat of summer. You get immersed in the poem using this type of language.

5. What is your daily writing routine?

I do not write everyday. I think about things to write everyday but unless I feel an uncontrollable urge, I usually don’t stop to write. That urge guides me as to what should be on the page. Everyday I play with words, sentences, images, ideas in my mind. When I get a good combination of those things, that is when I feel the urge and start writing. For me this process is organic. I do not like to force myself to write unless I have a deadline. I think writing is like cooking. It takes time. Food has to simmer and absorb in it’s juices. I feel as though I must simmer and absorb the ideas, words etc. I need to let the poetry marinate within me and not rush the process or the result may not be as good.

6. What is the significance of the quotes at the beginning of each section of your book?

Each quote serves as a prologue for its chapter. I wanted to show the range of emotion and the connection to the title. The quotes work to do just this. I might add for each section except ”cry” I already knew from the beginning of creating the book, what quote I would use for that section because when I saw that word that quote popped in my head. For instance, sweat. Reading Hurston’s essay Sweat early on in college stuck with me and whenever I hear that word I think of the essay.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence your work today?

Nikki giovanni was one of the first poets that influenced me. Her writing is practical, bold, confident and revolutionary. Her work influenced me to write in a way that was accessible to non- poets/writers and she also taught me to write with confidence and courage by boldly speaking in ways and on subjects not always well received. I also think Ntozake Shange and Sonia Sanchez played a major role in shaping the structure of my poems. They were doing things with language and structure that I had not previously seen before reading their work. I am still working to incorporate more of that in my work but I definitely incorporate it. For instance the poems Untitled 6; Magic; and Liberation all play with the structure. These ideas would have not have not materialized in my work, had it not been for writers like Sanchez and Shange.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Today I’m really engrossed in Ocean Yvoung, Danez Smith, Warshan Shire, Camile Rankine, and Terrance Haynes. I mean there are others but these authors work lie next to me on my nightstand and I go back to them when I need inspiration. I love what they do with language, form, structure and imagery. They help me to envision what I’m going to write about and then my imagination and creativity finishes it off. I also love what they are writing about: Blackness, sexuality, religion, gender, family dysfunction etc. So many raw intense often taboo subjects. I have to say that even some traditional poets are on my nightstand for easy retrieval as well: Charles Simic, W.S.Merwin, Adrienne Rich and Amiri Baraka are names among those poets. These writers keep inspiring me.

8.1. What do Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Warshan Shire, Camile Rankine, and Terrance Haynes do with language, form, structure and imagery that really inspires you?

They create their own rules. For instance, Ocean Vuong’s poem Aubade with Burning City, he weaves lyrics to a song throughout the poem. The lyrics gives the poem movement. I can hear the song throughout the poem and each line becomes intensified. The poem becomes the song and the song becomes the poem. There is no beginning or end to this. The song also work to help facilitate this image of a perfect world where the images of the soldiers and war carry so many ugly secrets. Terrance Haynes reimagines the sonnet. He gives it life in his book, American Sonnet for my past and future assassin. This book actually inspired my poem: Work Sonnet. It gave me the permission to reimagine the sonnet and make it my own. Camille Rankine is thought provoking, as with all these poets, but there is something about her language and imagery that makes me stop and read her poems over and over again in one sitting. I’m constantly reflecting on her ideas and language choices. One poem that stands out to me is Vespertine. She says:

I’m an acre of empty desert, anyway. A spent white flower. A pale honey scent wilted away.

I have to take it all in. I have to digest it. I ask myself what is an acre? A spent white flower? A honey scent wilted? She is sparse but always fulfilling. She sends me searching for answers. Danez Smith and Warshan do some of these same things. Provoke me with language that forces me to reflect, search for answers, and lastly inspires me to write my own stories that bare some of the same pain, courage, love and resilience.

9. There is a loneliness in these poems, the sense of being abandoned, of being misplaced, distanced from everything, and an aching.

Absolutely. I was a foster child and not having my parents around always fostered a sense of loneliness and abandonment within me. I met my dad last year for the first time and my mom when I was 11 and never had a good relationship with her. The absence of a real patent child bond has always made me feel alienated. It has also affected all of my relationships, whether with my husband or my own children. I have always felt like people don’t understand me or I’m alone and I know now that the void I felt came from not having a healthy relationship with my mom and not knowing my dad. It has cause some to ache profoundly.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?

There is no magical way to become a writer. Becoming a writer is easy. I think the mere desire to be one places you in position to become one. But becoming a good writer develops over time. Good writers learn how to be creative, they imagine, edit/revise their work and take criticism. Both good and bad criticism is good in my eyes. Even the bad criticism you can take the meat and leave the bones: there is always something to learn. Good Writers are not magicians. They’re critical thinkers, they read ALOT and they have opened themselves to a variety of writing styles and techniques.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

Right now I am working on a novel loosely based on my experience in foster care and how that shaped my life and relationships. I have another poetry book set to be published next year, Diary of an Intercessor.  It was actually my thesis in grad school and is based on my relationship with God and shares some of my struggles and victories with religion and church. I also just finished a book of poems I started writing around the time I met my dad, called Pilgrimage.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Kay Bell Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.