#American Sentence Poem

[matildazq]

Write the Year 2024—Week 46: Eurydice Reconsiders

Um. What can I say. I had kind of a dark idea for a short story and I turned it into an American Sentence Poem, which is what I do whenever I am especially lazy and behind. Title: Eurydice ReconsidersWC: 176 I have notonceassumed thatyouwould missme,even a little bit. I am no childhiding in the closetwaiting forMother’s regret. I have letthe scarf slip,the sleeve fall back,and the bruiseshave…

[env0writes]

Cicada Sentences Vol. 2, 7.13.24 “Precedent Et Al, Elect"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists!   Photo by @env0

Ringing Ear Stinging fear Tinnitus might escape Like the sweat drop from my nape

Flint water doesn’t stoke Sparks a bit, and man is woke Beneath a blood streaked night sky Drowns the populaces’ sigh

What rat will with this garbage race A leaders newly minted face Are these the shackles of our own making? Nations bred for someone’s taking?

Disappointment into denouement The Cold War beings to thaw Friends, countrymen, lend me your ears I lack mine to listen for four more long years

The tree that bears fruit shall be hacked to base Reminded more of its home and its place Soon the leaves will lie Like sleeping bodies, tumble, and die

[t1ck-tick-b0om]

my favorite aspects of poetry/writing pt.1:

The American Sentence

Definition: Created by Allen Ginsberg, the American Sentence is essentially a haiku put together. An American Sentence consists of 17 syllables, and is often (but not always) ordered subject, verb, object.

"Put on my tie in a taxi, short of breath, rushing to meditate." - Allen Ginsberg

"Four skin heads stand in the streetlight rain chatting under an umbrella." - Allen Ginsberg

"This world and all the creatures in it are on fire and some of you know it." - Nion McEvoy (taken from "Ordinary Genius" by Kim Addonizio)

Importance: The American Sentence is a unique writing exercise that is often used as a starting point/base for a poem (however, it is also beautiful by itself). Because the American Sentence does not necessarily have to make sense, the writing built upon it can be messed around with.

More Info: https://paulenelson.com/american-sentences-2/

[authormarialberg]

The Ninth Day of Appraising Neglect

Appraisal in Neglect and Neglect in Appraisal by Maria L. Berg 2023 For this morning’s photographic adventure, I set out to capture appraisal in neglect and neglect in appraisal. With neglects first meaning being to pay little or no attention to, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to try to pay attention to something other than what I was taking a picture of while I took the…

[hedgehog-moss]

About translation. I remember reading a translated version of the Illiad and the pre-note praised the translator because he had managed to balance making the translation work in Swedish while also keeping the original greek feel. It's often regarded as one of the best translations there is (in Sweden) and it makes me feel as if translating a book/poem/text is an art in itself.

Oh I love when translators do this, when it works—writing with an accent, by echoing the voice of a historical period. Marguerite Yourcenar did something similar with Memoirs of Hadrian—it's not a translation of a classic text but she wrote it in French as if it were, so it would feel authentic as the autobiography of a Roman emperor. Translation was an integral part of it: she would translate her first drafts from French to Latin or Ancient Greek (as Hadrian spoke both), which allowed her to notice phrasings that sounded wrong, too modern, and then she'd edit the French sentences accordingly.

It was translated in English by Marguerite Yourcenar's gal pal life companion Grace Frick, but I've not read the English version. It would be interesting to see how she made the archaisms work, considering English and French haven't preserved the same words from Latin and Greek. (To say nothing of Swedish or other translations!) For example the word "janiteur" appears in the French text to refer to a servant or guard; it comes from Latin ianitor and is meant to sound archaic or odd in French as we don't have this word; but American English does have janitor from Latin so the "classic" feel is lost and you'll have to use a different word and compensate for it elsewhere...

(Yourcenar couldn't predict this but since French has a lot more English loanwords nowadays than when she started writing her book in the 1920s, janiteur now sounds like an anglicism rather than a latinism. I wonder if she'd feel upset or intrigued if she knew that a modern-sounding word has sneaked into her carefully-chiselled text simply because another modern language we often borrow from has kept it alive)

Literary translation is definitely an art and I love that it can be used as a tool to cultivate a unique writing style too :) In her postface describing her writing process, Yourcenar said that translating her French sentences into Latin or Greek made the modern vocabulary, phrasings or even ways of thinking, as visible as plaster on a marble statue. She also compared the process to archaeological excavation, letting the voice of a Roman emperor emerge from under the layers of time and new words and syntax that were keeping it buried.

[hard--headed--woman]

For this 2nd day of Pride Month I decided to talk about a woman I mentionned yesterday in the post about Renée Vivien (that you should absolutely read by the way, Renée Vivien is amazing) :

Natalie Clifford Barney !

I talked about her to say that she's had a love story with Renée Vivien, but that's not the only thing she's done.

Natalie was born in 1876 in the United States and died in 1972 in Paris, at the age of 95. Writer and poet, she was the first woman to use the word "lesbian" in her writings (in this case a collection of poems, published in 1899), instead of the word "tribade" (it's another word for lesbian in french) or simply "homosexual". The word lesbian back then was even more taboo than it is today, so you can imagine how important this fact was (and still is).

She was also famous for the parties she organised: she held a literary salon which she wanted to turn into the "new Mytilene". She invited the female artists, writers and intellectuals of her time, in response to the all-male Académie Française, and they all spent whole afternoons and evenings in the flat of the wealthy American.

Natalie never tried to hide her homosexuality. As she said in a sentence that quickly became her most famous one,

"Why would anyone blame me for being a lesbian ?"

(Yes, that's her with Renée Vivien)

Natalie's mother (a renowned artist) and her tutor awakened her interest in the French language at an early age, and when she was a little older, she was sent to a school in France; thanks to this, she spoke French fluently and without an accent, and developed a soft spot for this country.

Natalie was 12 when she realized she was a lesbian, and decided right away to "live in the open, without hiding from anyone".

Hee first known relationship was with Liane de Pougy, a famous dancer of the time (whom she cheated on with many women). Natalie wrote about this love story in her collection Quelques portraits, sonnets de femmes. ("Some portraits, sonnets of women"). Liane wrote about it in her novel "Idylle sapphique", which so fascinated the French public that it had to be reprinted sixty times in the same year, with people torn between admiration and scandal. The two women eventually parted ways, however, due to Natalie's infidelities and Liane's "debauched lifestyle" (in Natalie's words).

As I said, this book caused a huge scandal. Natalie was forced to return to the United States, where her father burned all her writings he could find, and tried to marry her off. However, she categorically refused to obey him, and faced with her stubbornness, her father gave up, and Natalie returned to Paris, where she had a lot of lovers. Among these lovers, there's Renée Vivien (probably the most important, since Natalie never accepted their breakup and tried to get Renée back until Renée died at 32) Lucie Delarue-Mardrus, Colette, Emma Calvé, Olive Custance, Henriette Roggers and many others.

In 1902, on the death of her father, Natalie Clifford Barney inherited a large fortune and was able to rent a house in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where she gave parties that became the talk of the town.

In 1910, she moved into a house at 20 rue Jacob ; for nearly sixty years, this house was the setting for her famous "Fridays", one of the last influential literary salons. A LOT of famous people went there. Like really. The complete list is on Wikipedia if you're curious, and here's a screenshot with some examples :

Marie Skłodowska-Curie went there. Albert Einstein went there. Apollinaire and Proust went there. Oscar Wilde went there. That's cazy to me!

She's had other lovers, like Elisabeth de Clermont-Tonnerre, but her greatest love story was with the painter Romaine Brooks, with whom she had a relationship similar to that of a married couple from 1914 to the end of her life. Of course, this didn't stop her from cheating on Romaine with other women: Natalie was known for her infidelities, believing that polygamy was necessary for a couple's survival, although she claimed that this didn't stop her from being deeply in love with Romaine. She cheated on her for example with Oscar Wilde's niece Dolly, and Nadine Huong, whose story I'll tell one day because it's so interesting!

She spent the years of the Second World War in Italy, and later returned to France to find her second home, which she shared with Romaine Brooks, destroyed. In 1949, she reopened her salon (which started to welcome more and more famous actors and actresses on top on everyone else).

Nothing much happened for the rest of his life. She never left Romaine Brooks (despite continuing to have affairs with a host of other women) and died in Paris in 1972, aged 95.

Natalie Clifford Barney's work and life were very important not only for culture itself, but also for the lesbian community. She made a major contribution to lesbian visibility, opened many minds, helped normalize (even if we still have a long way to go) homosexuality and, above all, helped many lesbian women accept themselves, understand that they were not alone and live the life they deserved.

The influence of her works and her salon on culture, literature, cinema, theater and even science is immense and deserves to be recognized. We should be talking about her much more than we are!

Here's some of her poems with an english translation :

And she's written loads of other stuff that I really recommend you read! She was an interesting woman who wrote interesting things. Look her up on Google and read her writings and her life!

Anyway, that's it! Sorry for posting so late, and see you tomorrow for the 3rd lesbian pride post 🏳️‍🌈

[ruanbaijie]

During the Republican Era, Shen Zhiheng, a member of the Tianjin gentry who happened to be a vampire, offended the Japanese and became the target of an assassination attempt. He was saved by a blind young lady, Mi Lan, and his best friend Situ Weilian. When he went to repay Mi Lan for saving him, he discovered the terrible family situation that Mi Lan was in, and so began to pay more attention to her. Meanwhile, Shen Zhiheng’s plan to take revenge on Li Yingliang, the mastermind behind his assassination, fell short of success thanks to Li Yingliang’s Japanese superior, raising suspicions about his identity. Since then, Li Yingliang and the Japanese were in hot pursuit of Shen Zhiheng, determined to dig out the truth about his secret.

Binged Snowfall, fell absolutely in love with it, finished the novel, and decided to try my hand at my very first proper translation project 🥹

Please do not repost this anywhere else or retranslate it! For different sentences/ phrases, I’ve chosen to either translate close to the original Chinese phrase or to replace it with something that is more commonly understood in English, depending on the context. Retranslating this English translation to another language may further dilute the original Chinese meaning.

Translation footnotes will be available at the end of each chapter for any words/ phrases I feel need a more detailed explanation of nuances.

MAIN DIRECTORY ☾ READ ON AO3

Shen Zhiheng [1] could be considered a good person, in fact, a relatively decent one at that.

He was in his late twenties at least, or his early thirties at most, in any case, he was in the prime of his life. His looks were also of a decent calibre: he was tall, like a clothes rack, and was even more sophisticated in his dressing, always in a proper suit, as if he could stand behind a glass window at any time and pretend to be a mannequin.

Not only was his personal appearance already of such a level of perfection, his assets and wealth were also abundant. Although his origins were a bit of a mystery, within the Beiping [2] and Tianjin region, he had started by investing in newspaper companies to make a fortune. After that, with his shrewd acumen for finance, he had spread his investments everywhere, using money to make more money, and had rapidly become famous in Tianjin. Beyond his wealth, he also published poems and essays frequently in the newspapers. Although some said that those poems and essays were ghostwritten, but there was really no need to nitpick over such an issue. As long as everyone knew that he was both talented and rich, both handsome and wealthy, that was enough.

Now that he had both money and time, and that he was a major investor of several large newspapers, two of which were in the concession zones, he could rely on the support of his English, French, and American friends, and even on the gangs to have his back. The newspapers he supported had nothing to fear, daring to publish any piece of news, to scold any person, and had even offended the Japanese this year.

The Japanese themselves did not understand how far his resources reached, that he could actually dig up their political secrets, and after that, publish those secrets directly in the newspapers instead of making use of them to enter negotiations with the Japanese. This caused a societal uproar, and even a few student protests. And because they could not get a grasp on his social connections, the Japanese did not dare to fall out with him. Instead, they first tried to dangle carrots in front of him, trying to use benefits and sentiments to move him. Little did they know that Shen Zhiheng was a cold-hearted young gentleman with no lack of money, and who entirely could not be moved. This caused a certain Commissioner Yokoyama Akira [3] to be very annoyed, as if he were playing a game of unrequited love and had been met with complete ignorance, to his complete humiliation.

Annoyed, the commissioner wanted to have Shen Zhiheng killed. Actually, Shen Zhiheng also knew that there was a possibility that the commissioner wanted to have him killed. However, in recent years, his life had been smooth sailing, too smooth, that it caused him to be blindly positive, and not take this possibility seriously. It was to the extent that when the commissioner decided to make his move, Shen Zhiheng was still absentmindedly making public appearances. As he had in previous years, he organised a charity event, where he gave the local beggars a cotton-padded jacket and five cents each.

Everyone thought that Shen Zhiheng was a good person, and on this point, Shen Zhiheng agreed with them. He also thought that he was not bad, at least he could live up to the word “good”. The only unresolved question: he didn’t know if he could be considered a person [4] or not.

Fortunately, this was not too urgent a question. After all, compared to everyone else, he looked even more like a human, and at least for the time being, he wouldn’t go so far as to say that he would be treated as a demon and burned to death. Besides, this question was not necessarily unsolvable. For close to ten years, Shen Zhiheng had been pretending to be human and flourishing, and he believed that he could find the answer for himself.

Unfortunately, this night, while he was on his way home, the self-confident Shen Zhiheng accidentally had his head blasted, and then even ground to pulp by a car.

Mr. Shen wanted to cry yet simply had no tears left, and very nearly died from agony.

------------------------------------------------------------

In the original novel, the characters for Shen Zhiheng’s name are 沈之恒, which differs from the 沈之衡 used in the drama. Both 恒 and 衡 are pronounced as “héng”. However, while the former means “lasting” or “constant”, the latter means “to judge” or “to measure”, or to refer to something that is balanced. However, in certain scenes of the drama, Shen Zhiheng’s name is still written as 沈之恒, although the subtitles and drama marketing materials use 沈之衡.

What Beijing was called from 1928.

The Kanji characters of Yokoyama Akira are 横山 瑛, which in Mandarin Chinese pronunciation, is “héng shān yīng”, with “Hengshan” being his surname and “Ying” being his given name. In the show, as the Japanese people have been replaced with Chinese people instead, Yokoyama Akira is now Chi Shanying 池山英 “chí shān yīng”, with “Chi” being his surname and “Shanying” being his given name.

As in “human”. The Chinese character 人 (rén) can refer to both a person as an individual, or a human as in a human being.

[camisoledadparis]

THIS DAY IN GAY HISTORY

based on: The White Crane Institute's 'Gay Wisdom', Gay Birthdays, Gay For Today, Famous GLBT, glbt-Gay Encylopedia, Today in Gay History, Wikipedia, and more … October 29

Iolaus and Heracles mosaic

1000+ BC – Iolaus was a Theban divine hero, son of Iphicles and Automedusa. He was famed for being Heracles's nephew and for helping with some of his Labors, and also for being one of the Argonauts. Through his daughter Leipephilene he was considered to have fathered the mythic and historic line of the kings of Corinth.

As a son of Iphicles, Iolaus was a nephew of Heracles. He often acted as Heracles' charioteer and companion. He was popularly regarded as Heracles's lover, and the shrine to him in Thebes was a place where male couples worshiped and made vows.

Iolaus (L) and Heracles (R) united by Eros

The Theban gymnasium was also named after him, and the Iolaeia, an athletic festival consisting of gymnastic and equestrian events, was held yearly in Thebes in his honor. The victors at the Iolaea were crowned with garlands of myrtle.

Iolaus provided essential help to Heracles in his battle against the Hydra, his second labor. Seeing that Heracles was being overwhelmed by the multi-headed monster (the Lernaean Hydra), who grew two heads in place of each one cut off, Iolaus sprang to help, cauterizing each neck as Heracles beheaded it.

1618 – Sir Walter Raleigh was executed on this date (b.1552). The famed English writer, poet, courtier and explorer was responsible for establishing the second English colony in the New World (after Newfoundland was established by Sir Humphrey Gilbert nearly one year previously, August 5 1583), on June 4, 1584, at Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina.

The question for us here is this: Was Sir Walter Raleigh Christopher Marlowe's lover? Anything is possible, especially when so little is known about both. For many years, this provocative possibility has been suggested, even though it is based entirely on speculation. Marlowe wrote a poem titled, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," which begins with the charming invitation "Come live with me and be my love." A twin poem, "The Nymph's Reply to The Shepherd," appeared shortly thereafter, and there is little doubt that it was written by Raleigh out of love for Marlowe.

1931 – Clyde Hicks of North Carolina (official fucker!) was stationed in Hawaii, arrested on sodomy charges and sentenced to six years in prison. He was transferred to Alcatraz where he was put into solitary confinement for passing a note to another man. He was released in 1935.

Wayne Winterrowd (L) & Joe Eck

1941 – Wayne Winterrowd, American gardening expert and designer who wrote extensively on the subject, was born (d.2010). The garden Winterrowd and his partner built covered 7 acres at their Vermont home and became a tourist attraction to visitors from around the world.

Winterrowd, who was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, started gardening when he was three years old and read widely on the subject while he was growing up. Visits to an aunt who lived near Lake Pontchartrain helped him learn about gardening and he developed an interest in tropical plants on family trips to Florida and Cuba.

While teaching Jacobean literature at Tufts University in 1969, he first met Joe Eck, and they lived together in Denmark where Winterrowd had earned a Fulbright scholarship.

Together with Eck, Winterrowd learned as much as they could about gardening and earned a living by teaching English, French and Latin at area elementary and high schools. They spent the 1960s and 1970s as part of the homegrown food movement.

Moving from a farmhouse in Pepperell, Massachusetts to Readsboro, Vermont, Winterrowd and Eck devoted themselves to creating the North Hill garden, in which they grew Himalayan blue poppies, Japanese dogwoods, locust trees, magnolia, and stewartias. They cleared the hilly wooded land they had acquired, planting a diverse variety of plants, including as many as 100,000 daffodil bulbs. The garden drew visitors from around the world to their home in Southern Vermont near the Massachusetts border.They also grew fresh vegetables and raised dairy cows, pigs and poultry. Roger Swain, host of the Public Broadcasting Service television series The Victory Garden said "Their garden is of such quality and diversity that it rivals any in Europe. But there is nothing derivative about North Hill; it is American gardening at its best", with Fergus Garrett crediting Winterrowd and Eck with being "one of the driving forces in North American horticulture."

Winterrowd and Eck traveled across the United States and Canada to design customized gardens for their customers.

Winterrowd and Eck were joined in a civil union in 2000 and were married in 2009 after Vermont legalized same-sex marriage. Winterrowd died at age 68 on September 17, 2010, at his home in Readsboro, Vermont due to heart failure. He was survived by Eck and by a son they adopted.

The Swiss Guards in traditional uniform.

1954 – Alois Estermann (d.1998) was a senior officer of the Swiss Guard who was murdered in his apartment in the Vatican City.

Estermann was born in Gunzwil, in the Canton of Lucerne. In 1998 he was appointed as Commander of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.

According to official Vatican statements, Estermann and his Venezuelan wife, Gladys Meza Romero, were killed in May 1998 by a young Swiss Guard Cédric Tornay, who later committed suicide. Estermann, formerly acting commander of the Swiss Guard, had been confirmed in his position the same day. Tornay had earlier been reprimanded for breaches of discipline and had been passed over for a medal routinely awarded to Guards after three years of service.

The British journalist, John Follain, undertook extensive interviews with key witnesses to the murders to inform his book, City of Secrets: The Truth behind the murders at the Vatican (2006). Follain dismisses speculation that Estermann, his wife, and Tornay were murdered by an external fourth party or that Estermann was a spy for the former East German government.

Follain's research indicated that Cédric Tornay did indeed kill his commander, and his commander's wife before turning the gun on himself. Tornay found the running of the Swiss Guard archaic, and resented the dominance of the Swiss German majority contingent. Tornay turned to Alois Estermann for affection, and enjoyed a short homosexual affair. Their relationship deteriorated into acrimony as Tornay realised that Estermann had betrayed him with another guard. Estermann's close links to the Opus Dei movement, and his final refusal to award the benemeriti medal for 3-years service led to further frustration and Tornay's ultimate decision to kill Estermann.

Pope John Paul II personally celebrated Estermann's Funeral Mass in the church of Saints Martin and Sebastian.

1985 – Gio Benitez is an American broadcast journalist and correspondent for ABC News, who appears on Good Morning America, World News Tonight, 20/20, and Nightline. He also hosts the Fusion version of Nightline. He has won two television news Emmy awards.

Benitez was born in Miami, Florida to Cuban parents. He is a 2004 graduate of Miami Coral Park High School. In 2008, Benitez graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and Sociology from Florida International University. He is fluent in both English and Spanish.

Benitez joined ABC News in 2013. He has covered a wide range of stories for the network, including the Boston Marathon bombing; The Alabama child held hostage underground in an eight-day standoff; the American mother stuck in a Mexican jail and nearly every major snow storm that swept the nation during the winter of 2013.

Before joining ABC News in 2013, he was a reporter for WFOR, the CBS owned-and-operated TV station in Miami, where he covered the 2012 Presidential election and reported extensively on the Trayvon Martin case.

Benitez married longtime partner Tommy DiDario in front of family, friends, and ABC News colleagues inside the historic Walton House in Miami, Florida in April 2016.

Gio Benitez with husband Tommy DiDario

1989 – Under the headline "Peek-a-Boo," New York's Outweek magazine publishes a list of 66 celebrities and public figures who are allegedly gay but closeted. The article marks the beginning of controversial "outing" by some gay activists.

1995 – On this date in Iran, a 31 year old man was convicted of "ugly and improper conduct" and sentenced to twenty lashes for cross-dressing.

1997 – U.S. Congressman Barney Frank introduced a bill calling for the extension of health insurance coverage to the domestic partners of US federal employees through the federal employee health program.

2011 – Died: Axel Axgil (b.1915), Danish gay activist. Axel and Eigil Axgil (b.1922 - d.1995) were a longtime couple. They were the first gay couple to enter into a registered partnership anywhere in the world following Denmark's legalisation of same-sex partnership registration in 1989, a landmark legislation which they were instrumental in bringing about. They adopted the shared surname, Axgil, a combination of their given names, as an expression of their commitment.

Axel, born Axel Lundahl-Madsen, and Eigil, born Eigil Eskildsen, inspired by the 1948 UN Declaration of Human Rights, together with several friends, founded F-48 or Forbundet af 1948 (The Association of 1948), Denmark's first gay rights organization. By 1951, F-48's membership had grown to 1,339 and there were branches in Sweden and Norway. In 1985, F-48 became the Danish National Association of Gays and Lesbians (Landsforeningen for Bøsser og Lesbiske, Forbundet af 1948 or LBL). The couple launched a magazine, Vennen (The Friend).

In 1989, Denmark became the first nation in the world to recognize domestic partnerships for same-sex couples. On October 1, 1989, the Axgils and 10 other Danish couples were married by Tom Ahlberg, the deputy mayor of Copenhagen, in the city hall, accompanied by worldwide media attention. The Axgils had been a couple for 40 years.

Eigil Axgil died on September 22, 1995 at the age of 73. Axel Axgil died on October 29, 2011 at the age of 96.

[contemplatingoutlander]

Our true feelings about race and identity are revealed in six words

This is a poignant article about a project that Michele Norris started that tapped into people's thoughts about race in a profound way--using only six words. This is a gift🎁link, so anyone can read the full interactive article, even if they don't subscribe to The Washington Post. Below are some excerpts from the article:

I have always cringed when the accusations fly about someone allegedly “playing the race card.” It’s usually a proxy for “You’re making me uncomfortable, so please stop talking.” Or a diversionary tactic used to avoid having to speak about race with any kind of precision or specificity. A shorthand for “Just shut up.” And so, in 2010, I flipped the script, turning that accusatory phrase into a prompt to spark conversation. I printed 200 black postcards at my local FedEx Kinko’s on upper Wisconsin Avenue asking people to condense their thoughts on race or cultural identity into one sentence of six words. The front of the cards simply read:

Race. Your thoughts. 6 words. Please send.

I left the cards everywhere I traveled: in bookstores, in restaurants, at the information kiosks in airports, on the writing desks at all my hotels. Sometimes I snuck them inside airline in-flight magazines or left them at the sugar station at Starbucks. I hoped a few of those postcards would come back, thinking it would be worth the trouble if even a dozen people responded. Much to my surprise, strangers who stumbled on the cards would follow the instructions and use postage stamps to mail their six-word stories back to me in D.C. Since my parents were both postal workers, this gave me an extra thrill. Here I was, doing my part to support the Postal Service. Who says snail mail is dead? Half a dozen cards arrived within a week, then 12, then 20. Over time, that trickle became a tide. I have received more than 500,000 of these stories — and more arrive every day, though the vast majority of submissions now arrive through a website portal online. They have come from all 50 states and more than 100 countries. Though limited to six words, the stories are often shocking in their candor and intimacy. They reveal fear, disappointment, regret and resentment. Some are kissed by grace or triumph. A surprising number arrive in the form of a question, which suggests that many people hunger not just for answers but for permission to speak their truths. It was amazing what people could pack into such a small package:

Reason I ended a sweet relationship

Too Black for Black men’s love

Urban living has made me racist

Took 21 years to be Latina

Was considered White until after 9/11

Gay, but at least I’m White

I’m only Asian when it’s convenient

To keep the conversation going, I created a complementary website for the Race Card Project, where people could submit their six-word stories online. Over time we added two words to the submission form: “Anything else?” That changed everything. People sent in poems, essays, memos and historical documents to explain why they chose their six words. The archive came alive. It became an international forum where people could share their own stories but also learn much about life, as if it were lived by someone else.

I highly recommend reading the entire article, using the above gift link. As an olive-skinned Italian American, with curly hair, I have often felt like I am a walking Rorschach test for race. Even though I'm classified as "white" in the U.S., I've had people ask me if I'm a Latina, a Native American, Black, Egyptian, Jewish, and even a South Pacific Islander. Given my history, here are my six words on race.

A book is not it's cover.

I welcome people adding to this post their own 6 words on race.

[omgkalyppso]

writing patterns tag game

Rules: list the first line(s) of your last 10 posted fics and see if there's a pattern!

Tagged by @dustdeepsea . Thank you for thinking of me! How did you format your list so well? ghfdfghdfg Mine looks all squished

Upon The Hill (Wyll & Gale, Wyll & OC, bg3, one-shot, fluff, rated T) Wyll had spent the past week going through his father’s bookshelves.

A Hopeless Dove (Zevlor/Raphael, bg3, one-shot, adventure & romance, rated M) The cliffs in Rivington smelled of civilization.

Passion In A Glass House (Ferdinand/Sylvain/Lorenz, fe3h, one-shot, fluff, rated T) Aegir was beautiful in the summer.

Shared Ink And Interests (Ferdinand & Sylvain & Lorenz, fe3h, one-shot, modern au, fluff, rated T) Lorenz’s home was bright as it was full.

Hidden Talent Brawling (Constance & Hapi, Constance & Balthus, fe3h, one-shot, fluff, rated T) Constance saw magic in everything.

Bad At Biting (Astarion/Étoile (Tav), bg3, part 6 of series, vampire bites, rated M) Astarion sat up upon his bedroll, tracing bruises up and down his arms with fascinated fingers.

Stargazing (Astarion/Étoile (Tav), bg3, part 5 of series, fluff, rated M) Astarion had centuries of experience with well-meaning idiots and adventurers who believed they had done or could do some good in the world if only they were challenged, or recognized, or lucky.

Fragile As Stone (Rodrigue/Eugénie (rodwife oc), fe3h, part 2 of series, hurt/comfort, rated M) The glow of faith magic had long since faded from his hands, and yet still Rodrigue held Eugénie in the quiet of their bedroom.

The Blue Hour (Frederick/Stahl/Cordelia, fe:a, one-shot, fluff, rated T) Marriage had done little to keep Stahl from sleeping alone.

The Horror of Honor (Rodrigue & Glenn, fe3h, one-shot, poetry, grief/mourning, rated T) The honor of the north is blue as morning

I can never decide between American and British spelling. Oh well. Lots of little sentences as my openers...

I'll tag @the-eldritch-it-gay, @umbralstars, @sevarix-blogs, @recurringwriter, @lemonbronze, @razrogue, @lucius-the-sinful, @bladesandstars, @klkirbles, @ghostwise, @allycryz and YOU.

And while there's also some sentences of context in that last fic, The Horror of Honor, I'm going to post that whole poem again below the cut:

The honor of the north is blue as morning As fickle as the sea Spring comes, spring comes, spring comes And still the frozen earth won’t accept the seed

The horror of the north is blue as mourning As chilling as can be Harvest, harvest, harvest now And at the frozen hearth we’ll feed

[riverbird]

“I think I am probably in love with silence, that other world. And that I write, in some way, to negotiate seriously with it. If poems are records of true risks (attempts at change) taken by the soul of the speaker, then, as much as possible, my steps are towards silence. Silence which drowns us out, but also which ignores us, overrides us, silence, which is doubt, madness, fear, all that which makes the language bend and slip. I need to feel the places where the language fails, as much as one can. Silence which is awe or astonishment, the speech ripped out of you. All forms of death and mystery, therefore, working in each poem against the hurry of speech, the bravery of speech. And I think it is very important to feel the presence of that ocean in the poem, in the act of writing the poem. Its emissaries are the white space, of course, the full stops. But, also, all acts of grammar, which are its inroads. And the way the lines break, or slow. I’d like to think you can feel, by its accurate failures, the forces pressing against the sentence, the time order. And certain kinds of words, too, are messengers of silence. Not just vagueness and inaccuracy, but prepositions and conjunctions, for instance; and diction deliberately flattened to deaden pain. And certain sounds that deepen and slow the poem into sounds you can’t hear–all the long vowels in the sharp teeth of consonants. And echoes, and what is said by implication, by default … Because there is, of course, always the desire, the hope, that they are not two separate worlds, sound and silence, but that they become each other, that only our hearing fails.”

Jorie Graham, “Some Notes on Silence” in 19 New American Poets of the Golden Gate

[matildazq]

Write the Year 2023—Week 31: Come On, Nature

This is an odd thing. I was sort of attracted to a Reedsy prompt this week: “Write about two strangers who are both heading to the same destination and agree to do a long distance drive together” (okay, I guess these two are not strangers), but I was just daunted by the idea of embarking on a story (as I have, as always, left this until the very last minute). But then I remembered that I really…

[env0writes]

Cicada Sentences Vol. 2, 7.10.24 “Friday Worksite"

@env0writes C.Buck   Ko-Fi & Venmo: @Zenv0 Support Your Local Artists!   Photo by @env0

The machine sun stings like lost love Pin Pricked across my smile-circled cheeks Bloodletting blush All while sweat flushes me swimming Standing, canopied, brimming with midday haze

I look to the distant asphalt mirage Wherein lie, deceitful futures Through fence lines, twines, twigs, and decadent figs Saywered cars surround it all Buzzing, just like cicada broods

Shade is sought like valuable water How much paler the sky now appears As though any greenery need gold its presence Eminent in the domain of life and light Sending a sunset reminder to my face

[authormarialberg]

The Eighth Day of Imagination in Reality

Imagination in Reality (neighbor’s security light in four directions) by Maria L. Berg 2023 For this morning’s photographic adventure, I set out to capture the reality in imagination and the imagination in reality. That reads like the definition of what I do every day, so it feels wide open in terms of shapes, line, color, and composition. I cut a filter using a combination of shapes and headed…

[kitchen-light]

I came to this subject because I am, myself, drawn to the unfinished, to sentences that falter. I dislike poems that feel too complete, that seal too tight; I dislike being herded into certainty. And I have sought and admired (and tried to write) poems in which questions outnumber answers.

Louise Glück, from her essay “Ersatz Thought”, published in “American Originality | Essays on Poetry”, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017

[bookie-the-reading-junkie]

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods review

1.5 stars

Oh boy. This book is a mess. I feel that it’s important to preface this by saying that I am a white American and my knowledge of Asian and Chinese culture/history is very limited (I’m a little more familiar with Japanese culture/history because of my love of anime). It is not my intent to criticize this book in ways that I shouldn’t and I don’t know enough about certain things to say if my assessment is correct or not. 

I had heard of this book a while ago when the author of Iron Widow (I love both the author and the book) promoted it, then when the whole thing with the white author review bombing POC debut authors, and then again when it was being called a colonizer romance. I did get spoiled with several things, but I feel like that didn’t matter too much. A lot of people said this book was a slog to get through, but I had just read “Daughter of the Moon Goddess” and this felt almost like a breeze in comparison because that one is 500 pages long and the prose is very similar; incredibly flowery and kind of repetitive. I finished this book in four days a few days ago and I’m already starting to forget what happened. 

I’m going to start off with the worldbuilding: it was a bit all over the place. I wasn’t quite as confused with the multiverse thing that was going on as a lot of people were, but I had many questions regarding the Romans that didn't get answered. Why was Rome/romans chosen to be the colonizers at all? Unit 731 was part of the Japanese occupation and the opium wars were spurred by the British. My guess is that the author felt that basing the colonizers on the Japanese would be too controversial, and wanted to go for a more fantasy/mythological vibe. Like a clash between western and Chinese mythology, which would have been really cool and actually what I expected when I first heard of this book, but wasn’t the case. 

Is Rome a reimagining of our world if Rome didn’t fall? That seems to be the case even though it’s not made clear. I wish that Rome/Roman culture/whatever appeared more because it’s so undescribed; we don’t have a clue as to what it’s like, especially when her own culture is given so much focus. The Romans are a blank slate, you could so easily swap out the Romans with like. Any modern western country, because the only difference between the two cultures is that the Romans are brutal and that they have “overwhelming science.”

That was something that bothered me a lot throughout the book, the constant “our magic can not measure up to their powerful science.” I can’t tell if it’s meant to be a critique of racist portrayals of “primitive people” or if it unintentionally comes off that way. Because to me, it’s the latter. Especially when so often science was technology like planes and guns, instead of what people generally think of when they hear science like chemistry or labs. I feel like if “technology” had been swapped with “science” that connotation I mentioned earlier wouldn’t be as strong. There were so many times Ruying would be like “science is so evil but magic is powerless against it” and it honestly made me a bit uncomfortable. Stuff like “one [world] was rich with magic, one was rife with science (p4)” and “these bracelets of science around my wrists (p114),” which is referring to her magic repressors/shock collar. There were a lot more (some worse) but I didn’t mark where they were. 

The writing was. Incomprehensibly flowery. I’ll be honest, this is a good example of why I don’t like flowery, poetic prose. It’s repetitive and the metaphors and similes start to end up not making sense for the sake of every. Single. Sentence. Sounding like it’s part of a poem or trying to be quotable. I disengage quickly from the story, glaze over, and miss stuff. Though in this case, it’d be pretty hard to miss stuff since it’s very repetitive. And with the gods thing. Look. I get it. It’s in the title. The Romans compare themselves to gods (or did the Panglings do that first? It’s unclear). But Ruying constantly talks about how they are false gods, how they pretend to be gods, how the real gods abandoned them, and false gods rule, and WE GET IT. YOU ONLY MENTIONED IT 20 TIMES IN THIS CHAPTER. I was in all honesty a bit baffled as to why she would compare them to gods so much, doing so only gives them so much more power over them. Some examples of the writing:

P17. Too cautious of his wrath, too aware of my sister's mortal vessel with its mortal needs for opian [magic version of opium].  P155. Our shared moment, beautiful as the embroideries grandma used to sew, came apart, snarled into halves, barely held together by tangled threads. P221. In the meantime, I will let you in on a little secret if you promise not to tell anyone. History is a melody sung by the victors. Truths and lies are what I make of these chords. Stay loyal to me, and I promise the world will remember you as a hero, forged in this war of magic and science. Because, come fire or storm, I’m going to win this game of power, and I can give you a legacy that will outlive you. A name to be whispered for thousands of years. 

The whole book is like this. I have read so many books with this sort of flowery prose in the past few years, especially debut novels and I’m starting to think that young authors need a gentle reminder that not every sentence has to be outstanding and quotable. I get it, I’m a writer myself and so often I feel like if I have a couple sentences that aren’t filled with imagery, then it’s flat and boring. But come on. 

The book is technically NA (though in the UK it’s YA for some reason idk), and while I haven’t read a ton of adult novels, there were times where it felt so painfully YA. The narrative was honestly a bit confusing sometimes; there were times where I couldn’t tell if Ruying was being an unreliable narrator or if the narrative was saying something straight. It definitely fell into the pitfall I notice a lot of bad slow-burn romances do when the love interest where they are treated like we already know them and should root for them rather than them being strangers. Also, the eyes thing, oh my godddddddd I’m so sick of books going on and on about people’s eyes. Right after she stole money from the love interest, she notices his eyes at the end of an alley:

P39. “I caught a splash of green at the other end of the darkened alley” [note: please tell me he’s wearing green and she didn’t see only his captivating viridian eyes. (Edit: god dammit he wasn’t he’s wearing midnight blue)]

My personal explanation is that his eyes fucking glow or something. 

For as much as gods were talked about, Ruying’s gods were only very vaguely discussed aside from that they left about a thousand years (I think?)  ago according to myth. Death is a great example of this, constantly referred to but never explained. At some point I realized she was referring to Death as “he” which was jarring because I’m pretty sure no pronouns were used for Death in the first half of the book, which I preferred because it made Death feel separate from the living world. The only time any gods are talked about is when Ruying tells Antony a story about the goddess Nüwa (which is a real myth, slightly adjusted for the book), but it doesn’t really serve any purpose nor does it really shed light on further worldbuilding. The emperors are said to be descendants of dragons, but that also doesn’t get a lot of explanation. There were a few times I wondered if things like that were referencing Chinese mythology or culture that I wouldn’t get or if there were just things that weren’t explained well enough. 

Moving on to the characters. There was a pretty small cast: the MC, Ruying; her twin, Meiya; their grandmother; love interest/childhood friend, Baihu; her childhood friend, Taohua; Prince Jade Orbs, Antony; and a few other side characters. But we see very little of them besides Ruying and Antony, even if she’s being isolated from them. Ruying constantly talks about what she would do for her family, but we see her interact with her grandma exactly once and every interaction with her sister (which is like. three) is a fight involving both of their views on the colonization and oppression of their people. Meiya wants to fight with the resistance and would rather die than kneel forever at the Roman’s feet. She tells Ruying off and that she’s deluded when she explains that she’s the Prince’s personal assassin in order to protect her family and peace. This book does so much telling instead of showing and it’s very clear when it comes to the characters and the relationships between them. Ruying as a character has a lot of potential, someone who is afraid of their own power and the high that it gives them, both hating and loving their ability, desperate to save their family. I think that if the romance was completely cut out, then she could have been a cool character. But this girl is as delulu as it gets. 

When she met Antony, I thought I might enjoy their relationship, not in a “omg I ship it, I don’t care if it’s toxic” way but in a “this dynamic is so fucked up and I can’t stop reading” way. The few times I’ve run across ships (used in the loosest manner) like that, I’ve been able to enjoy it because even if the narrator is unreliable, it’s clear that it’s not romantic. I backtracked so quickly because the narrative did not want to depict it as abusive and toxic, it wanted to depict it as romantic. My notes went from “okay so far, kind of into this, because it’s so clearly toxic” to “oh god this is becoming romantic FAR too fast.” 

I spent so much of the book intensely irritated at Ruying because she is constantly making him sympathetic and excusing him. This starts from the very beginning, not even when they actually spend time together:

P111. I swallowed the lump in my throat, and my heart beat a little too fast when he said my name, so gentle, so benevolent [he is meeting her in a cell in the dungeon and about to propose that she become his personal assassin or die.] P141. there was a quiet fear in his voice. A softness. As if he were a man confessing something he didn’t want to be heard. In this moment, I wanted to believe his words, see him as someone other than a prince monstrous in his greed. [less than an hour ago he put a loaded gun to her head and said that he would kill her, her family, and everyone she loves if she attempted to kill him again.] Pp 151-152. before I knew it, someone had drawn me into their embrace. A safe place of tenderness to hide from the cold of everything else.  In silence, Antony Augustus held me tight, as if doing so could hold all of my broken pieces together, keep me whole against the cascading gray waves of hate striking me like an ocean striking at crumbling cliffs. Deep in my bones I knew everything about this moment was wrong.  Leaning into his touch was wrong, wrapping my arms around his and clinging to him for life was wrong.  But I did it anyway. [He just made her kill a person. This one of the very few times that she feels something is wrong or that he’s being manipulative until much later and several people tell her to snap out of it.]

If I remember correctly, this was all in one day. He is a little nice to her and she so quickly forgets that he is the enemy. This is the same person who spent the first few chapters talking about how much she despised the Romans and how all Romans were evil. Right after the last segment, Antony tells her his sob story that as a child he lived in poverty and he had robbed his adoptive father, the Roman emperor’s son. His soon-to-be adoptive father came to his house and told Antony to either kill his biological parents, or all three of them would die; he chose the first option. What the actual fuck. And then she says “He was a prince of Rome. He had no reason to lie to me (p158).” I fucking stopped dead in my tracks and stared at these sentences. HE HAS EVERY FUCKING REASON TO LIE TO YOU???? TO MANIPULATE YOU???? YOU CLEARLY DIDN’T THAT HIGHLY OF ANY ROMAN EARLIER

His whole thing is that because he grew up poor, he knows what it’s like be in her shoes, and he also doesn’t want to commit mass genocide like his grandfather or brothers do (or so he claims; we don’t get a lot of insight as to what his grandfather and brother do want to do, though I suppose that’s book two). He doesn’t want a war/genocide and wants her to assassinate key people that would bring war quicker. He gives her very little evidence (though to be fair, also very little choice) to show how this would actually do anything. He says he wants her to kill both Romans and Pangulings, but as far as the reader is aware, she only kills Pangulings. There’s a six month time skip after the deal, and she has killed 48 people and she’s in love with him. This is unfortunate because while I understand the reason for that time skip, those six months would have been crucial in both their character development and the development of their relationship. Ruying is so utterly convinced that Antony is a good person and wants peace and it takes her twin sister and her childhood friend/other love interest telling her to wake up and realize that he’s just using her before she starts to think “maybe? He’s a bad guy?” How did the girl that hates the Romans so much get to this point? We didn’t get to see that. 

It’s not super clear if Antony is manipulating her. I mean, he is to an extent, but how far it goes isn’t clear. Because it would make sense if he was manipulating her into thinking that he is in love with her. But we get one chapter in his POV where we find out he is in love with her and is like “if only we were different people, we could be together :(“ and drops this line:

P293. He had starved himself of love, laughed at the Romeos and Juilets of his world, the love songs that echoed on the radios. Now, in this bed with Ruying beside him, Antony finally understood what his grandfather meant when he said love was a weakness. 

*rolls my eyes in aroace* god, poor baby that must have been so hard. I bet you were pushing away women right and left because who isn’t into someone that experiments on humans and threatens their lives and loved ones. Though you never know with straight people. Oh yeah, he has done/is doing experiments on her people, especially those who have magic. That’s the big leadup for the story, which wasn’t a big surprise to me because I was spoiled by that, but he actually mentions that his people have done experiments on hers and she doesn’t even take note of it?????

Here’s the thing: there’s an author note saying that she was partially inspired for this book by the Russian and Japanese occupation of Manchuria China. Her own grandfather lived during that time and told her fictionalized versions of real horror stories of the Japanese occupation and of unit 731 as a kid, though she didn’t realize this until 2020. She asks the reader to understand that Ruying isn’t a hero, just a girl who wants to protect her family. I have no problems with an author tackling difficult subjects like this, in fact, I think it’s great because it’s a form of catharsis and can inspire readers (especially ones that are less familiar with the subject) to look further into it and educate themselves. 

However, I feel like the author didn’t really do what she wanted justice. Because of that author’s note and attention brought to Unit 731 specifically, I expected the book to focus heavily on that. The actual part that is similar to unit 731 is so short, so glossed over, so contained, that it does not feel respectful or handled well in any manner. What happens is that Baihu takes Ruying into the labs and they see her childhood best friend experimented on (draining her blood? Her life energy? It’s a little unclear even when Antony explains what the experiments are for) and then die. One of Ruying’s requests before becoming Antony’s personal assassin was that he released Taohua and he agreed. So while she’s obviously distraught about her friend dying, most of her focus is that Antony lied to her; not the actual experimentation or any of that. (The reason for the experimentation also feels weirdly out of place; Antony’s world is dying because of climate change, which is why they want to colonize and move to hers; why more people haven’t moved yet isn’t clear. Antony and his adoptive father wanted to find out if people with magic could be, in essence, be used for more sustainable energy because their magic has the potential to be super energy efficient. In theory, an interesting and horrifying concept; in practice, badly executed.)

I watched a couple reviews of this book on youtube who had also mentioned unit 731 and I decided to look into myself because I had heard of it, but nothing more than it was one of the most horrific historical events and that it involved human experimentation. I only looked at wikipedia and I had to stop when I got to the section on experiments involving frostbite (which was not very far in), and I have a pretty strong stomach. The experiments were done pretty much purely for the sake of sick curiosity. Biological warfare was committed on surrounding cities to observe the results. It is truly so sicking, and I can not comprehend how someone can learn about this and have family who was personally affected by it and go “yeah, I’ll put that into my enemies-to-lovers romance where the main love interest is the one involved in this sort of thing.”

At first, I was kind of apathetic to this book. I’m glad that I read a bit about unit 731 (and I should probably look more into it) afterward because it puts it in a completely different light. Now I’m just a bit disgusted. No hate to the author, but I really wish that she had put more thought into this. It also just feels weird because while there is a love triangle going on, the way she marketed it made it very clear that the main romance is between Ruying and Antony, with calling it dark romance enemies-to-lovers, Zutara on steroids, etc. Not to mention in her author’s note, she says that she thinks that grandfather would be proud of this book, which, I don’t know, felt a little weird to me the way that it was phrased. 

I want to go on a bit of a tangent about the whole thing about Zutara and this book relating to fanfiction. I checked out her tiktok page, and 99% of it is basically the same three slideshows promoting the book, and almost every single one is about Zutara on steroids/the tropes in the book. I think it’s very bad practice to promote traditional books based almost solely on tropes and popular ships. It makes sense with fanfiction, there’s an established setting and cast of characters who people are already emotionally attached to. I think that it shows weakness in your writing if you rely on things like “only one bed,” “touch them and you die,” “enemies to lovers,” “morally gray characters,” “knife to throat” to set the foundations of your book on. These can be incorporated into your book and be done very well, but so often now (not necessarily just in this book) it feels like books are being built on tropes. It’s becoming the cake rather than the icing. Anywho. 

I didn’t see how it was supposed to be like Zutara at first besides the broadest strokes of “he’s a prince and his people bad and committing war crimes against hers.” To be honest, I’m not really a fan of Zutara, I just don’t vibe with it and I find that a lot of fans of it are kind of intense. I do like Zukka (mostly it’s like “hey what if dumbass one and two got together?”) and have read a shit ton of it, so I feel like many of the same things about Zutara can apply to Zukka. Anywho, I was more  focused on whether or not the personalities match (Ruying a little, Antony NO), but I started to see some similarities. I guess. Someone said “yeah it’s zutara if Zuko was Ozai” which I think really hits it on the nail. Zuko, while he made lots of bad decisions and yeah, I suppose you could call him a morally gray character, is fundamentally a good person. Antony is not, despite whatever the author was doing to what, humanize him? Make him a sympathetic villain? Am I supposed to be sad for this guy that 1) killed his parents 2) threatened to kill the MC and everyone she loves and 3) of his own will, did experiments on people? Yeah, no. Not to mention that he doesn’t really try to understand her/her culture or what she’s gone through being under occupation of his people; he doesn’t care and thinks that spouting proverbs in her own language every other sentence gets him brownie points. 

I won’t say that fanfiction has perfectly delved into these issues nor can I say much about colonization and its lasting impact on people, but I guarantee you that I have read fanfiction barely beta-ed that handled these topics more tactfully than this book, and included romance between someone who is a part of the oppressed population and someone whose family is directly responsible for that oppression. A few people have said it feels like fanfiction just in general, which I don’t 100% agree with, but it does in the way that we are sort of expected to understand the world and know who the love interest is and the development between the two. There is almost zero buildup and explanation when it comes to Antony, you’re expected to root for him and love him because he gave her a hug after making her murder a person. I think that is the biggest pitfall for authors who started writing via fanfiction or convert their fanfiction into novels; any time a character shows up, it feels a lot like when a celebrity appears in a disney show and the laugh track cheers and you have no clue who they are.

Yeah in short, it started off fine, went downhill and then crashed into a wall. I may read the next book simply out of curiosity, but I’m not sure I could handle it.