#romanticism chats

[lesamis]

Do you have any poems or POC poets you'd recommend that aren't Capital R romantic but very well could be ?

hi anon! sorry for a much longer and less helpful answer than you were likely hoping for: i think this is a pretty difficult question.

if we tried to list all the reasons we think of the romantics as a Movement, as a Moment of Literary History, we might just end up with a lot of cultural markers that are inseperable from, well, from them being white, and often english, and often male individuals who lived in the metropole of the world's most rapidly expanding empire. they wrote about liberty and about the sublime they saw in a gust of wind and about the darker depths of the human soul. i think they did this from a place of genuine curiosity and emotion, but also from a very deep-seated (and, i think, often subliminal) belief in their own superiority - as white men; as englishmen; as men. so it wouldn't be an entirely neutral thing for me to sort poets of colour into this tradition in an uncomplicated way, because it skirts close to erasing the facets of white supremacy that shaped romanticism as we think of it now. but they're important to acknowledge: romantic poetry would not be romantic poetry if it didn't frame the british countryside as the most civilized space in the world, or didn't argue in deeply paternalistic and racist terms for the abolition of slavery.

none of this is to say that there were no writers of colour then (of course there were!) or that there are no writers of colour now who consider romantic poetry an important reference for their own work (of course there are!). of the latter category there are probably an endless number, because british romantic poetry is so overblown in syllabi across the world thanks to colonialism. it's the first kind of poetry in english many of us run into. its influence gets everywhere, which makes it even harder to distill any recommendations for you because it's hard to say where a, like, standard Education Conducted In English ends and a Romantic Influence begins.

sorry for all of the above, anon, this question honestly disjointed me a bit. i'm sorry the answer is such a cop-out. the most recent poem by a poet of colour that made me think of the romantics is Morning Prayer With Rat King by kaveh akbar. it's incredible. i hope you'll like it a lot. whether there's actually romanticism in it or not is for smarter people than me to figure out.

[boybasher]

[asterdeer]

thinking about all the verbal (and, at least once in the books, physical) abuse from regis that richard just reacted to, then apparently absorbed and moved on from. and then when he literally sets regis’s entire building on fire — on purpose, for revenge — he still expects regis to go “oh well, i’ll let bygones be bygones, lets get out of here and start over.” which is. not what happens. how conditioned to just…….. getting over abuse do you have to be to set your boss’s building on fire on purpose and then be surprised when he’s angry and vindictive about it

[7weaslesinacoat]

maturing is reading a dark romance book and feeling like someones touching you without consent.

[sputniksweethe4rt]

[todayisafridaynight]

mine and aoki should be put in a room for ten minutes because i want mine to make it clear he wanted to join the yakuza for brotherhood and Family and i want aoki to seethe and rage and pop a blood vessel

[akindplace]

Hi! About the Taylor album…it’s tongue-in-cheek. Joe Alwyns group chat was called “The Tortured Man Club”, so the album is “The Tortured Poets Department” in reference to egotistical romanticization of the self in that image. It’s not because she’s calling herself a Tortured Poet.

Yes! I wasn't aware of that group chat thing, but I thought it was going to be about how some men she dated have those "tortured artist" vibes, and maybe how some people criticize her for making sad songs about her exes. It feels very obvious but some people just act in bad faith. Thank you for telling me that anon! I like her music, and I have a very broad music taste, and I have a huge distaste over people being overly critical and not letting people enjoy things... it's so 2010 tumblr when people would call each other posers for not being a true fan of an unknown band, instead of, you known, allowing people to enjoy it and get the band more recognition. It's so immature. It's kind of obvious it was going to be tongue-in-cheek as you said, and realizing that is so easy that people don't even have to like her songs to notice it, so that thing was written in bad faith, coming from a biased notion by someone who never left 2010 while at the same time glorifying mental illness and addiction. It's the worst take possible on every artist mentioned... what about their art? their writing? their songs? they lived meaningful lives and changed the world forever, that's what mattered most. Not their deaths. Their lives!

Thank you for the message!

[macfrog]

I would just like to say that clm is one of my top favorite reads on this app ever, and discovering you and your work has been a blessing during this time in my life. I just graduated college and am struggling with feeling so lost, confused, and absolutely bored to tears, but your writing has reignited my own love for writing. I’ve worked on pieces before but I’ve never had the courage to post them, let alone finish them. Because of you, I have actually taken up rewriting a few of my stories. I’m thinking about posting my writing for the first time soon as well :) who knew a fandom could lead to something as magical as this? ily max! keep being amazing <3

wooop congrats on graduating!!! that’s an amazing achievement, and you should be super proud of yourself. i’m proud of ya, kid 😘

the period immediately after graduating is really fucking weird, because you’ve just spent all this time and energy focusing on this one goal, then it’s just…all over and done with. in the blink of an eye. all of a sudden you're pushed off into the world and you have all this potential and all these possibilities and you’re expected to know what to do with it all - instantly. but it’s okay to not know!

try to see it like that scene from night at the museum - you know when ben stiller’s like i have no idea what i’m gonna do tomorrow and robin williams is like how exciting!!!!! like yeah, dude. revel in the confusion. enjoy the freedom of not knowing what to do. lean into the boredom and figure out what you really want, then go fuckin get it. be poetic about it lol

and yay for picking writing back up!!! have fun with it! i hope i see something you’ve written on here sometime soon 🩵

[therevengeoffrankenstein]

'doing more than just listening to "the cure" (sid y nancyboy)'

i've wanted to kill myself as long as

i've known what it is.

the feeling is still there,

but when you're pressed against me,

all i want to do is

live and die with you;

you give my life temporary purpose,

like when you explained to me

where all the best places to do it are....

-

i've made my vow:

i won't kill myself without trying to fuck you

first.

you make this life worth living,

for now,

but what about later on, when,

when...?

-

el partido de waiting.

el partido de waiting es

sin fin....

no necesito 'con'

('trickery; deceit')

fin.

sin 'con' fin....

-

i never want you to outlive me,

but, at the same time, i know i couldn't live without you.

there is a simple fix,

the tried and true 'cure' to all of this,

and it involves the most vicious

and viscous of kids...:

me y senor CON fin.

this isn't throwing my life away;

it's laying down,

gently,

to sleep, to dream

in your hands.

el partido de us,

sid y nancyboy,

con fin.

- ellie revenge

helpful resource link for anyone struggling with suicidal thoughts.

and another.

i am simply expressing myself and my struggles here....

[townofcrosshollow]

The one sided intimacy of zooming in on somebody's artwork and seeing the individual brush strokes, the stippling of the background, the subtle texture you'd never notice that they went to great pains to add. Seeing the pixel size of their pen, which lines are stabilized and which are drawn loose and raw, the little bump where one solid stroke connects to another in an attempt to look seamless. The patches where their shading was detailed and from reference, and the patches where they lapsed into that primal artist's intuition. You see every tiny gap in their lineart and wonder if it was made with a single absentminded stroke of the pen, or if they agonized over that gap. You wonder how much of their time they've given to this creation, and in turn to you.

[tokagrem]

I had the realization recently that i might be homoromantic bisexual and its fucked me up real good

[lesamis]

mary shelley is really so extraordinary. "little england" & "little englandism" became an entire political discourse in the late 1800s (best as i can tell from c. 1870 onwards) & denoted those - often, not always, anti-imperial - thinkers who advocated for economic isolationism and wanted to limit the british empire's expansion, administration, and aggression, maintaining that england was best when contained to its own borders. the term is still in use - nowadays in brexit contexts - and was throughout the entire twentieth century.

it is also, in much the same sense in which it'd come to be used fifty years after the novel's publication, somehow in The Last Man - which shelley finished writing in 1826.

The plague was in London! Fools that we were not long ago to have foreseen this. We wept over the ruin of the boundless continents of the east, and the desolation of the western world; while we fancied that the little channel between our island and the rest of the earth was to preserve us alive among the dead. It were no mighty leap methinks from Calais to Dover. The eye easily discerns the sister land; they were united once; and the little path that runs between looks in a map but as a trodden footway through high grass. Yet this small interval was to save us: the sea was to rise a wall of adamant—without, disease and misery—within, a shelter from evil, a nook of the garden of paradise—a particle of celestial soil, which no evil could invade—truly we were wise in our generation, to imagine all these things! But we are awake now. The plague is in London; the air of England is tainted, and her sons and daughters strew the unwholesome earth. And now, the sea, late our defence, seems our prison bound; hemmed in by its gulphs, we shall die like the famished inhabitants of a besieged town. Other nations have a fellowship in death; but we, shut out from all neighbourhood, must bury our own dead, and little England become a wide, wide tomb.

[rozecrest]

race as we experience it isn’t one-to-one applicable to any of fatt’s settings (with the exception of bluff city) but good god do the austin walker black npcs hit

[asterdeer]

look it took me a while to come round to astarion but there is something about the scene where he's just standing in the sun that kind of got me after i've spent the entirety of this spring, rain or shine, staring and reveling in the trees and the plants around me, like i haven't seen the color green in years because in a lot of ways i haven't, i had gone blind to my favorite color because it Didn't Matter, i hadn't realized how deep depression had been holding me under for years until march when the woods i've lived in since i was 8 have suddenly become brand new to me. and it's not like i'm dancing around joyously or anything, it's not made me some kind of positive upbeat optimism fairy, it's made me angry if i think about it too long, so i've just been trying not to think about it and just be, not try to be happy or optimistic or hopeful but just appreciative. and. idk. i think i kind of Get It. he's never going to be my very favorite but man. i would like to stand in the sun with him sometimes

[anaalnathrakhs]

my parents have guests over so we’re going to the restaurant, okay, and there’s whipped cream on my dessert, so i arrange with somebody who already has whipped cream on his that he takes mine, like, i transfer mine to his plate, and his wife just goes like “i’ll help you” and digs HER spoon in and takes some from what’s still in my plate. which. alright okay i guess i wasn’t gonna eat that. but then she goes for seconds with the same spoon she ate from. and later on she goes back for thirds in my vanilla ice cream and goes “oh i thought it was whipped cream” when i politely remind her that this is MY goddamn plate. and like. bitch. i never even said YOU could take the fucking whipped cream or touch my plate with your fucking spoon. stay in your lane. you’re over 60 years old. i’ve seen you for like 48h in my entire life. grow up.

[kyaruun]

Tsukasa type scene

He'd definitely build a garden if his lover asked

noooooo this is the sweetest thing <33 i'm sure he would. he absolutely would