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dianalogbooks on Instagram: "#SealeyChallenge 9/31To Those Who See by Gwen FrosticA gorgeous art book published in 1965 by Presscraft Papers (Frostic’s own prin…"
#SealeyChallenge 9/31To Those Who See by Gwen FrosticA gorgeous art book published in 1965 by Presscraft Papers (Frostic’s own print shop — still in operation as of 2018 at least, according to Wikipedia). Perceptive followers might recall that I found & read a copy of Frostic’s Wing-borne last year. I recognized her linocut style, nature themes, & Heidelberg press-produced papers as soon as I picked up this book today (Aug 12, still playing Sealey catch up) on my volunteer shift at @fopl_bookmark 💛#TheSealeyChallenge2026#TheSealeyChallenge #31BooksInAugust #poetry {Image 1 description}Book sits on scratched-up light-colored wood counter of The Bookmark Bookstore. The spine & 1” into the cover is grey-brown paper with a pattern reminiscent of book cloth. Wrapped over that, the rest of the cover, is cream paper printed with tall green furled fiddlehead ferns & brown vines, grasses or ferns reaching up from the bottom. Along the bottom edge, in darker green stylized-handwriting, large text over the plants/stems:To those who see - -{Image 2 description}2 pp spread in Frostic’s To Those Who See shown.On the left, on dark green paper, in black text: caterpillar - - - [slightly bigger]cocoon - - - [bigger still]butterfly —can one not believe in miracles . . . . . ?On the right, embedded in a sheet of white rice paper, is a very realistic-looking butterfly (brown & white wings, green body & antennae, red eyes). Through the rice paper, the following cream-colored p can be seen, w/ a green print of tall grasses, long blades & grainy top heads blowing in breeze.
![Read It Slant: A Reading Group’s Reading List
(October 2024 – October 2026)
October 2024: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition Emily Dickinson, ed. R.W. Franklin
F407, “One need not be a Chamber -- to be Haunted --”
F517, "A still - Volcano - Life -"
F731, "A Thought went up my mind today --"
F1104, "The Crickets sang"
F1426 "Bees are black"
November–December 2024: [various], Diane Seuss
January 2025: Good Monster, Diannely Antigua
February 2025: Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay
March 2025: Urban Contemporary History Month, Scott Woods
April 2025: GHOST :: SEEDS, Sebastian Merrill
May 2025: Scattered Snows, to the North, Carl Phillips
June 2025: One with Others, CD Wright
July 2025: The Tradition, Jericho Brown
August 2025: So to Speak, Terrance Hayes
October 2025: Her Read: A Graphic Poem, Jennifer Sperry Steinorth
November 2025: Helen of Troy, 1993, Maria Zoccola
December 2025: Pattern-Book, Éireann Lorsung
January 2026: A Letter to the Luminous Deep, Sylvie Cathrall
February 2026: Red Wilderness, Aaron Coleman
March 2026: What Feeds Us, DIane Lockward
April 2026: If Today Were Tomorrow, Humberto Ak’abal, tr. Michael Bazzett
May 2026: Ante body, Marwa Helal
June 2026: Now Do You Know Where You Are, Dana Levin
August 2026: Green of All Heads, Aracelis Girmay
October 2026: Appalachian Elegy, bell hooks
November 2026 & beyond: ???](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kg3vwn7ouahoqs7cldnlkqpm/bafkreihvm4a5utlomujqolasf3kwjo6ckpehgv5qoz5wy6q5tsgdcsojzu)
![Prose poem shown [line breaks are maintained here, but the text looks like a prose paragraph visually]:
Exhausted. I can't climb anymore. Yet I could, possibly, hang here for a moment, stop
this exertion, just cling, catching my breath, to this cascade of long dark hair which
she has let down from the window. The window that didn't look nearly so high, only
balcony level, wasn't it? when I started. Those hours ago. Haven't I been climbing for
hours? Above me, my overextended arms quiver and ache all the way down to their
sockets; the round swollen muscles of my shoulders press to my ears. Is she calling?
I can't hear. When I look up, I see the cascade of her long hair, nothing beyond that.
But it's as difficult to pause as to climb, so I keep going. To tell the truth, I never
paused. Deaf and blind, I keep tugging myself up into that falling blackness. I who
am bringing her the moon.
[Added blue text] Poem on p 9 of Gander's (& Shear's) Knot](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreiagbuwsz5h4z4ij5j267vv2f3ae2e4hvigys222oa4gdoyp6tfewu)
![A paragraph shown:
The book you hold in your hands participates in this shift of the light, even if it does not exclusively spell out the mechanics of that change or remain solely & expensively interested in it. These poets assume a fuller breadth. Assembled here, these poets represent our Globe, one undergoing a series of ongoing revolutions not just in identity, but in Ways of Being—of Being with Each Other; that is, in our relations and, always, in power. Those of us Trans Beings, or our allies, understand the exponential rate of Time's arrow, and welcome the world steadily arriving by way of that Time, and we are in love with it. You get the feeling reading these poems that each poet adores their glorious change, whether that change is seen on the surface or sits more privately, nestled deep in the Soul's core. These poems assert we have always been who we are. Those of us Trans Beings recognize the world that is today, as if another bolt of lightning has in fact arrived, straight from God, forcing us all to be whole, to be intact and complete. So that we can be our own soulmates.
[added blue text]
End of the introduction "On (Trans) Ways of Being" by Rickey Laurentiis in Splendor: Trans Poets (p 19)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreihxxomdyqlbkq5fk75657yvetvly5tsi6qqhdy2tn2tbpuvn6hqsq)
![Poem on p 75 of Splendor: Trans Poets shown.
An almost-see-through sticker on the window
It looks like stained glass
breaks the light the same way
Take a big sip of water
Tilt your head from side to side
It really feels like the ocean
in your mouth
The same cool weight
as holding movement between your hands
[Added blue text]
From The Ocean in Your Mouth by Luka Holmegaard, translated from Danish by Sophia Hersi Smith & Jennifer Russel](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreic3bfqui6yd32ga25ffjrteudzmhccnyd546won3vjga3ixerz6xy)
![Swag collection shown. The main prize is a canvas tote bag: it’s emblazoned with a black, white, & orange stylized San Francisco, with about 16 cats, most with speech bubbles saying “meow” in diverse languages 😻
On & around the bag are:
a Two Lines Press (fluorescent green) bookmark & (orange) sticker,
a (yellow) TBW Books matchbook that says “Do your part… BUY MORE BOOKS!!!! say yes to truth and NO to COWARD SCUM,”
a pink sticker reading (in white & black) READ TRANS POETS,
an orange coozy stating “[in white] I’m looking at the sea, [in black] it’s all I do.”
& a sliver of a postcard from The Center for the Art of Translation featuring Lauren Tamaki’s illustration. Scenes of someone reading in City Lights (over the word “Booksellers”), 2 people walking toward the Chinatown gate, & a dressed up person singing under flowers (with “Yerba Buena) are visible.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreicquuxmj6ruw4nvuqtbaq6e3nqmhoypv35apfij6xlvywryp7exbi)
![Poem on p 156 of lovelace’s _the witch doesn’t burn in this one_ in brick-red text reads:
you
think
your body
is made up
of mostly
water,
but
really
your body
is made up
of mostly
poetry.
wherever you go,
you leave behind
puddles of
words
in your
wake.
collect the
integral pieces
of yourself
&
call the
words back.
you deserve
to be whole again.
[ital.] - the sign you've been waiting for II.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreifdolmcdevqypfggpxlhu7ehrqnnl3mn27rgf2zsv33k7scqfgswm)
![Book sits in wood.
On slate grey background, all text is left-justified.
In large yellow:
Seamus
Heaney
In moss green:
The Haw
Lantern
In tiny yellow, far left bottom corner:
Poetry
[small Faber and Faber “ff” icon in grey in the far right bottom corner]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreich5gcu5stuqyntg5ugu4yec5zrx4nh3xhhhvyt6xvwjregv3tuly)
![Screenshot of ebook cover.
Art by Josée Masse in saturated pastel-style blues, greens, yellows & whites shows (on the top half) a day scene with characters (like a flying Pegasus, eg) from Greek myths, columned classical buildings, & a boat with sail in the middle; (on the bottom half, upside down) a night scene with the same buildings, contemporary-looking children in a sailing ship, with a constellation-filled sky above (below) them.
All text is inside a central white divider space, accented with gold.
In a triangular space like a roof above the rest of the text area:
REVERSO POEMS
about
GREEK MYTHS
To the left:
Marilyn
Singer
In the middle, very large:
Echo [orange sigil dingbat] Echo
To the right:
Illustrated by
Josée Masse](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreicp3v3qpnalcfst6rqnftaubzgo3lk3s6lqh2qslon5ecn37nih3q)
![A p from Singer’s Echo Echo reads
[in large gold, centered]
Narcissus and Echo
[on the left, on white background, in blue]
"Here,
here..."
Was
that
a nymph?
Was
that
an echo?
Leave me,
foolish pursuer!
I will forever be the
only
one
that
I desire—
the most beautiful of youths—
a flower among men.
[on the right, on blue background, in white]
A flower among men!
The most beautiful of youths!
I desire
that
one
only.
I will forever be the
foolish pursuer.
Leave me,
an echo
that
was
a nymph,
that
was
here.
"Here..."
[at the bottom, inside a light blue panel stretching all the way across horizontally, in tiny blue text]
Narcissus was a vain young man. He spurned the young woman, Echo, who loved him. She was turned into just a mournful sound—an echo. He fell in love with his reflection in a pond, wasted away, and was transformed into a flower.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreiab7vr7pnchgjcegg4gva6ie6bojqoqxbkqq5lokr4frjnktqqk3q)
![Book sits on wood.
Cover image (by unnamed artist, who nonetheless contributes, in addition to this piece, a dozen+ B&W line-drawings to the guts of the book: classic 1980s-90s Scholastic-style) is a photorealistic illustration showing (foreground) a boy’s hand pulling a bright orange out of his black jacket pocket while (background) a girl with long hair in a green & tan winter coat, blue skirt, & brown loafers stands in a green field smiling down at a half-opened chocolate bar. Deep background shows some 1-&-2-story buildings above a hedge & a grey sky above.
Text is centered.
In large orange, inside a red stripe across the top:
A FIRE IN MY HANDS
Inside a red rectangle at the bottom:
[small yellow] A BOOK OF POEMS
[medium, bold, in orange] GARY SOTO
[tiny, in white, at bottom left corner] [open book icon] SCHOLASTIC](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreigzwu5yl6cte67dwlzazu3ajlnxppbjxa67cnl3fx72imydfgiygq)
![In a split image, 2pp poem reads:
IN AUGUST
A blimp was above me
And then gone,
Like all I would ever know.
Like father with hands in my hair.
Like uncle on the porch with his arms
As And little else. I walked
In the alley looking up
Until it wasn't the sky before
Me, but a plum tree,
Its dark fruit, notched and open
Where birds ate. I climbed
Into it, searched, dropped
With two in each hand.
I walked from the alley
To Coleman Pickle
Where brother, friends, tiny sister
Were standing in barrels,
Pickles in their hands
And saying, they're good,
Better than plums. I climbed
Into a barrel and fished for one
— came up to see the blimp
Pass quietly as a cloud,
Its shadow dark enough to sleep
Or dream in. We watched
It, with food in our mouths,
All wondering, until it was above us
And then gone,
Like all we would ever know.
[added blue text] Poem on pp 13-14 of Gary Soto's A Fire in My Hands](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreihh5jtxpl4zj7zx6ucepgdlsrlk4tveniuukmfjikgkljys2eawpq)
![Screenshot of cover of audiobook shown.
On a black background, most text is centered.
In tiny white text:
A SMALL BOOK ABOUT YOUR POWER TO CREATE BIG CHANGE IN OUR [added in from below with a caret & in handwriting]CRAZY WORLD
[In huge yellow orange] WHERE
[in huge white, with an Earth (Atlantic Ocean center) in place of the O] TO
[In huge yellow] BEGIN
[to the right of “BEGIN” in small white] READ
BY THE
AUTHOR
[in tiny white] NATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF [yellow ital.]HEART TALK
[in large pale pink] CLEO WADE](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreigyj4m4fz5zubdgil4mj43xiz6xn44ets2b3zt5rtdr3p2yzpwnbu)
![Opening of the poem “Knowledge” (p 47) in Chen’s Perennial Counterpart reads:
[in grey pixelated-embroidery text] Knowledge
I read your letter last night
I slept
& in my dream felt the need to rest, immense the pull towards rest.
I was dying of old age. And if I wanted to live, I could, but I would have
to resist the resting. It was like making
my entire body vibrate with waking. Waking the dream
comprehends. I was lying down. I could lift my head
to look down at my body. Like this I lived. The dream took me
somewhere else through its cerulean channel.
The dying felt good, not unwelcome
to the senses, & was true. A true dying.
It helped me not be afraid.
The resisting felt self-contained.
If I
resist & in the resisting
resist the resisting would it be like listening? Here is the song. It leaves.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreihsjfpbnsqay4nla3x3e2bo6g3sqpe22dxatprwad5iigl3kboygy)
![Chapbook sits on wood.
Text in large wood type — on textured cream (Natural Via Laid) cover stock — takes up almost all the space.
[in gold, left-justified]
ROGUE
NUN
[in black, centered]
DANA
LEVIN](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreia7w3ywk7eovxjajj6q2i3vpnyfvamaqc5zac3sa6xepmuzoorlhe)
![Screenshot of audiobook cover.
On a cream background, centered black text all together creates a visual rectangle (kind of book-shaped) in the white space.
[along the top edge, all on one line, small] 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem
[below that, huge, as if in the biggest possible wood type]
NAM
[slightly smaller vertically, but center-justified so it stretches horizontally to equal width as all above]
LE](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreib32vnd66pxq5iou4valqgsnxfuweszehshwvnybnofwsjqgk4ffu)
![The poem "[12. Communist]" from Nam Le's 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem as posted on poetryfoundation.org shown. (Most of this text is added to the screenshot, smaller & in blue, at the bottom)
We are for perpetual revolution!
We are for monkeys and tigers!
We are for permanent re-education!
We believe in necessary rectification.
We are against cows and snakes!
We are against monsters and demons!
Let rocks and pebbles turn into rice!
Let a hundred flowers bloom!
(Tell us: What are the correct
revolutionary traits of the moon?)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreicip2agamyjvpzxgbnfs5acpre6p43jmub3ncopuel2dscukwvgdm)
![Screenshot of audiobook cover.
On a yellow background, all text is centered.
[in large black] SHARON CREECH
[very small] WINNER OF THE NEWBERY MEDAL FOR [ital.]WALK TWO MOONS
[in big blue] LOVE
THAT
DOG
[small] a novel
[childlike black line-drawing of a dog]
performed by SCOTT WOLF
[in a blue stripe along bottom edge, in big white] UNABRIDGED](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreigxgm7iwsotl77eggkozjute5elrfbqkupihwdwa56o7uurhcsw2q)
![Book sits on wood.
Jacket photo (“Morning Fog on the Yachats Hills” by Russel Tomlin) is a totally socked-in landscape, all grey & fog-blurred. The top half is lighter grey & blueish, suggesting sky behind the clouds, & the bottom is dark grey, with a couple perhaps-evergreen trees poking up, suggesting forest valley.
Text, all left-justified, large, & in the top left corner, over the lightest part of the sky:
[blue] Ocean of Clouds
[green] Garret Hongo
[white] Poems](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreiaajkw36qmnzdkihofh2gnq363dfhyrn5jnw6im3bzrwlcc5rcs5i)
![Part of poem (“Beaches”) on p39 of Hongo’s Ocean of Clouds reads
[ital. & indented] Punalu’u
The magical underside of the world,
black glass shattered into sands
heaved into the dark spires of each successive wave...
Bowl of shadows lined with white curls of froth,
fingers of seawrack wreathed in spume,
baubles of turtles sliding through your grasp,
You heave with the sighs of an invisible moon,
you mount the earth with salty loins,
you crest with pyramids of desire,
while indecipherable wisdoms,
intoned by each splash of the sea
reach out to us, surging to steal the shoals of our bodies,
to bring to us its barren, black-toothed bite.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreigdov6ivrljj5qv3j7b3baufk6nt6egzsvzeqhbctvulk5636gjwu)
![An early p in Zapruder’s How to Continue shown. It’s the last paragraph of his introductory note & reads:
Poems are my way of staying engaged with things, and the people who touched and made them. They are a way of staying alive in relation to language. And a way of remembering all that still matters, and all that must be preserved.
[in added blue text:] End of forward to Zapruder's How to Continue](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreifbvz5gokf37jopsc3tux46nq3alup4j33tjr6a27ren3v6c3obse)
![Screen shot of audiobook cover. Image is a photo (“Cone Nebula Close Up” ©️ STScI), perhaps taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of distant stars & clouds, gray, white & yellow against deep red background.
Centered text in white large white:
LIFE ON MARS
[smaller, in brick red]
TRACY K. SMITH
[tiny, in white]
POEMS
Circular gold seal, bottom right reads in black text:
WINNER
of the
PULITZER
PRIZE](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreie43qob35efc72qvqxsctaaycnzyy6v7vdjzndsnjzeemmzdhetbe)
![Split image.
On the left, book sits on a silver platter etched with tiny stars. Cover is rusty red marbled paper & spine is black. There are no words on it.
On the right, title page is shown. Inside a rectangle, all in black, centered text:
ENOUGH ROPE
Poems by
DOROTHY PARKER
[oval image in silhouette depicting a human figure (a monk?) sat at a writing desk, pen in hand. HL overhead]
NEW YORK
HORACE LIVERIGHT
1926](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreidjrpgtchpw5cecgo24a5xn246triyizvou7ud3pn4nd3ih72yova)
![Book sits on my (black-dress-clothed) lap, on an airplane.
Cover image (by Eli Afram) is a very zoomed-in (as if viewed through a microscope) asterisk-shaped snowflake taking up a whole windowpane (while the other few windowpanes, only partially seen, are fogged or frosted in a “normal” way) against a wintry night tree line.
Text, centered, in black, near the bottom edge, reads:
[small, ital.]poems
[larger]JENNY GEORGE](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreic3vqyxvz3y5eqin3rhlpwsjps2aa7nom7cpunadtihthdhuueiza)
![Book sits on my (black-dress-clothed) lap. LAX carpet at the top 2 corners of the photo.
Cover image (B&W photograph in green monochrome) on the bottom 2/3rds might be flowers & leaves crushed into dirt/ground.
The top 1/3 is white with slightly distorted black text flowing from left to right down & across it reading:
GREEN O
F A L
L
[right-justified]HEADS
[right-justified]POEMS
To the right, near the bottom of the photo, in white:
ARACELIS GIRMAY](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreibzdxkmkdg2afgz53xp42txwj3aunut7o6ohlv5a2tjjrjxpl2lvy)
![Library book sits on wood.
Jacket art — Charlie Buckley’s painting “Flooded Delta Nocturne, 2025” — shows 2 big trees in silhouette against a night sky full of stars & light, all of which is reflected in a glass-still body of water.
All text is centered & overlaid.
In huge white:
NIGHT
[much smaller, in yellow:]POEMS
OWL
In white medium-size, along the bottom edge:
AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL
[in tiny yellow:]
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF
[in medium-small yellow]
WORLD OF WONDERS](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreih64u4pq4trtj27q3n44hudx3jitu3r2tmkwywl2g72fcodhxwgiy)
![Poem on p29 of Nezhukumatathil’s Night Owl reads:
FIREFLY NOCTURNE
I never feared the dark. I welcomed it, let it rush
into my unbuttoned blouse. When I was a girl,
I learned the light of a firefly signals [ital:]summer.
Signals [ital.]heart. Bare skin.[end ital.] There is a certain sparkle
of beetles that knows how to blink in synchronicity—
a visual heartbeat in the darkest owl-filled atria
of a forest. Once, we held our own universe
in the morning rain. And like the firefly, I've mistaken
too many cars too many street and porch lights
for small moons. In late spring, the first branchlets
of bee balm and calendula color the air. Eventually
peeping frogs shiver awake when it turns warm again.
When we are old, I hope the firefly conversation we have
still thumps and thumps. I hope it's still green-gold.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreiezfwxwq6nfcoe2ypzyhy3dyk3w5b4wl5ckyuvt77n6kkfzavy3ry)
![Book sits on silver platter etched with little stars.
Cover art is Robert Henry’s painting “Bird & Man II.” Lower half depicts a ground-sitting human figure, bent forward over raised knees, painted in dark silhouette over a red swath of background (suggestive of a plateau?). Upper half depicts a large dark bird perched in profile, facing the same direction as the human, over a pink/beige swath of sky.
In contrasting & complementary colors to the paining & evenly distributed over it in slightly dancing, slightly different sized text:
THREE
SYLLABLES
DESCRIBING
ADDICTION
[smaller] poems
[big again] KATE
DANIELS](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreigyxdgzgy2f6iq2uexxb5wnma5pjlcyg3j2n3hfuwy2oondczj6ym)
![Poem on p 36 of Daniels’s Three Syllables Describing Addiction reads
DRIED FLOWERS: VISION AT A
HALFWAY HOUSE
When the full-flowering blossoms of early spring
Are at their prime, slice them from their stems
While they are still pliable and gorgeous. Before
They murder themselves with their own dark beauty.
Then bind them up in loose bunches, and carry them
Inside to the dry heat of a dark back room where
Televisions run all day, and cigarettes burn
Unheeded in ashtrays. Outside, the unchosen blooms
Have overtaken the garden. They will go on dying
Naturally, and in their time. But here inside,
The chosen few are stored away, instructed to rest
For as long as it will take to achieve the dried-out state
That mimics life and keeps them breathing. Humming
Their tuneless tune: [ital.]Not using. Not using. Not using.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreib25f26fj5yedkeqbtdkjs36jvlqvohdbg3hsvmydc57ulmedlxnq)
![Book sits on wood.
Cover photo (by Alain McLaughlin) is B&W: Mirikitani (a Japanese American woman, w/mid length dark hair, wearing a leather jacket, a watch and a ring on her left wrist & ring-finger), smiling, leans out of a 2nd or 3rd story window over a fire escape above a blurry street scene.
Above the photo, in large white hollow text on a burgundy & black pattern:
LOVE WORKS
Below that, on a black horizontal stripe, in medium text:
[grey]Janice [white]MIRIKITANI
Below the photo, on a wider orange horizontal stripe, inside a thin white rectangle, in small text:
SAN FRANCISCO POET LAUREATE • SERIES No. 2](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreiha4w3lps4z6dcjex2ldppvd5kipbyepy6icdnqphg7l7b2qomleu)
![Poem on pp 70-71 of Love Works reads
THE STORYTELLER
for Brenda Wong Aoki
and Mark Izu
Her voice
a pool of silk
slides over our shoulders
enters our ears.
White crane maiden
weaves feathers
plucked from her heart
into a loom
of words
[ital.]tsu-ka tsu-ka.
A single thread, stained with blood,
is woven
into fables
of greed and love
and who prevails
Who prevails?
Sometimes we
[ital.]fly.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreidvkcvjfm2fgi3zf57kcqb7nmzv7bp72aebohxuuebg4firclnfyi)
![Book sits on patterned fabric (blue confetti on white).
The title sits on a sandy white background between 6 vertical slices of a blue & black landscape showing water up to hills up to sky (Rockwell Kent’s painting “Dublin Pond”).
[in large black:]
We Are
Not Where
We Are
[in medium size blue, centered:]
Matt Donovan
&
Jenny George
[in small white italics, inside the central bottom blue painting slice:]
an erasing of
Thoreau’s Walden](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreidj3svy6zoar7ef6r4xkezrxqmtfvznxaeh2zpge5jex3ceupqive)
![Poem on p. 8 of We Are Not Where We Are reads:
[bold:] I would fain say something
—we could not speak low enough
to be heard as when two stones
into calm water break
we are merely breath
all animal
commonly bodily
we cannot
we cannot say
but there was room enough
within the great solitude
into which the rivers empty
chickadees
in the pine the sound of praise
in disguise](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u2v3xos3vdyjm6ypwksdwi24/bafkreif4wljk4zwmlxr6rkfak35ospu3b74cgziqve4qyad5v4qrg6gxyq)
