Books

But it occurred to me that maybe if I began (or, to be honest, continued) super-producing both asked-for and unasked-for recordings of my uke covers as gifts, I could possibly help jump-start a creative gift economy that would spill over into the larger world of exchange.

Barbara Browning, The Gift

"The science of existence was completely out there for me to explore. Me, a twenty-five year old female. There’s no mystery why poetry is so elaborately practiced by the young. The material of poems is energy itself, not even language. Words come later."

-Eileen Myles, Inferno (a poet’s novel)

"Sometimes I wonder what it is I could tell you about her for my job here to be done. I am looking for a short­cut—something I could say that would effortlessly un­tangle the ball of yarn I am trying to untangle here on these pages. But that would be asking too much from you. It wasn’t you who loved her, or thought you loved her."

-Chloe Caldwell, Women

"Eventually you can’t help but figure out that, while gender is a construct, so is a traffic light, and if you ignore either of them, you get hit by cars. Which, also, are constructs."

-Imogen Binnie, Nevada

"The sheets in the photographs match the sheets on the bed. The body looks good. The face isn't much. I smile. I'm one of them now, a blade in the guts of some future girl."

From Things to Make and Break, by May-Lan Tan