— WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA, translated From The Polish By Clare Cavanagh & Stanisław Barańczak.

Love is nothing without intention.

-J.Wool

El amor no es nada sin intención.

-J.Wool

“There’s a lot of pressure for people to make a very polished poem, to keep shining and shining it, and say here, it’s a perfect gem. There are many beautiful poems like that. A lot of Mary Ruefle’s poems are like that. But there’s also beauty to me in what I perceive as excess. One way I define poetry is as a blueprint to a feeling, so every line matters, even if it feels inconsequential or tangential. Even those tangents matter. So revision is really hard for me as a poet. Certain poems call to be revised because they want to look like that gem. Other poems are like, accept me as I am. Accept this mess.”

— Devin Kelly, from “On allowing yourself to be surprised”, from a conversation with Denise S. Robbins, published December 21, 2022 (via kitchen-light)

Jericho Brown, "To Be Asked for a Kiss"

tumblr is not social media. idk how to explain but its so calm here. like this is the field and the valleys. over there is the town and people. but here we are little sheep in our pastures eating our grass and laying in the sun <3

i love when words fit right. seize was always supposed to be that word, and so was jester. tuesday isn't quite right but thursday should be thursday, that's a good word for it. daisy has the perfect shape to it, almost like you're laughing when you say it; and tulip is correct most of the time. while keynote is fun to say, it's super wrong - i think they have to change the label for that one. but fox is spot-on.

most words are just, like, good enough, even if what they are describing is lovely. the night sky is a fine term for it but it isn't perfect the way november is the correct term for that month.

it's not just in english because in spanish the phrase eso si que es is correct, it should be that. sometimes other languages are also better than the english words, like how blue is sloped too far downwards but azul is perfect and hangs in the air like glitter. while butterfly is sweet, i think probably papillion is more correct, although for some butterflies féileacán is much better. year is fine but bliain is better. sometimes multiple languages got it right though, like how jueves and Πέμπτη are also the right names for thursday. maybe we as a species are just really good at naming thursdays.

and if we were really bored and had a moment and a picnic to split we could all sit down for a moment and sort out all the words that exist and find all the perfect words in every language. i would show you that while i like the word tree (it makes you smile to say it), i think arbor is correct. you could teach me from your language what words fit the right way, and that would be very exciting (exciting is not correct, it's just fine).

i think probably this is what was happening at the tower of babel, before the languages all got shifted across the world and smudged by the hand of god. by the way, hand isn't quite right, but i do like that the word god is only 3 letters, and that it is shaped like it is reflecting into itself, and that it kind of makes your mouth move into an echoing chapel when you cluck it. but the word god could also fit really well with a coathanger, and i can't explain that. i think donut has (weirdly) the same shape as a toothbrush, but we really got bagel right and i am really grateful for that.

grateful is close, but not like thunder. hopefully one day i am going to figure out how to shape the way i love my friends into a little ceramic (ceramic is very good, almost perfect) pot and when they hold it they can feel the weight of my care for them. they can put a plant in there. maybe a daisy.

being self aware is the worst thing ever. can’t even be pissed at my dad properly without having a disco elysium ass internal monologue about it

Everytime I read Frankenstein, the same line makes me put the book down and stare at the wall. It’s my favorite line in the book; it has its own highlighter color in my annotations. The first time I read it, I literally detoured after my last class just to tell my lit teacher how much I liked the line because I couldn’t wait until second period the next day. Here’s the line:

“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.”

This is said by the creature. He wanted to live. He wanted to live life so badly even though he had had such a difficult one. He still loved the song of the birds and the smell of the flowers and the joy in the world even if he never got to truly experience that joy. I just. AHHHH.

He wanted to fight for a life he never got to live.

Andrei Tarkovsky.