March has been a really good reading month for me. I've read some books that I didn't expect to exist, which were published quickly and which I found really exciting. I also read some stuff I have wanted to read for quite a while and finally sat down with. March has been really busy for me but I still made time to read. It's nice to know you can make room for books if you try. I'm going to start posting a few recommendations here, in addition to a story or poem I've read that I think deserves a little more attention.
A Task by Ken Baumann
A haunting novel with incredibly precise language, detailing its view of human life, its urgent warnings, its deeply felt despair and hope. This book was published through a Kickstarter campaign because the author didn't want to compromise its nature. I wish more literary works were published that way, a directness shared between writer and reader. Suicide is ever present. This novel explores why.
Something Gross by Big Bruiser Dope Boy
I have trouble focusing, which is why it's hard for me to find books I like. Why it's hard for me to find things to listen to, to watch. I have a hard time engaging. Novels like this one, which open their gates and go right into the important stuff, really feel like gifts to me. I'm able to stay with them. This is a novel that doesn't waste time. It is visceral, sometimes disturbing and always sad. Its sincerity is so refreshing. It's a novel I was totally present for and that made the reading experience meaningful. Big Bruiser Dope Boy's work all seems to do this, and for that reason, I'm always happy to see more of it has made its way into the world.
Horror Vacui: Poems and Other Writings by Shy Watson
I found Shy Watson's work because I saw people talking about it on twitter. I'm grateful I've found so many writers that way. It feels more magical to have a book recommended to me by strangers on the internet because that's the new "word of mouth" I guess. And when this book got to my house I read it in one sitting. And then I read it a second time the next day. It's rare for me to find this combination, this sweet spot for what I'm looking for in poetry. A solid balance between the everyday and the otherworldly. The moving with grace between these two spaces. These poems do that and because I see the everyday details of the speaker's life, I can move along into the ghostly, witchy stuff too.
The final section of this book contains "quarantine diaries." And they felt so dreamlike, so offbeat and distantly psychedelic. Which is exactly what my quarantine experience was like. And I'm glad to finally encounter this in a book. It made me feel human, feel connected to the book I was reading for the first time in a year.
Hobart: On a Layover in Brooklyn by Silas Jones
I've been thinking about this piece since I read it at the beginning of the month. It's so readable and it's sort of everything I love in contemporary stuff that's being published online. It'll do your soul good.
