pickOne of the most soulful, connecting and real books I've read in a long time
I could feel the author connect with me
Reading this was a much needed wake up call when we tend to lose ourselves in cyclic mundane routines. It's a book I will probably re read again.
Put yourself away. Let go of yourself. Tune in to other people. To the movement of the branches, the sudden coming of rain or the patterns in the waves. To how those two lie on the grass. To how that one sits on the bench with their hands clasped, looking up... To how that young one shifts the weight of those shopping bags and tries to keep up with their mother's strong legs. This is it. This is the thing. This is the beautiful thing.
The reader is the gate that has to open to let the meaning through.
panI think I‘m just gonna give up on Kae Tempest. I think this was the opposite of their intention, but this felt like a collection of overgeneralised platitudes about ‘art is this‘ and ‘creativity is that‘ and I felt judged for doing any errands or activities that aren‘t building symbolic creative fires in the wilderness, and that having a soul is incompatible with having Spotify and all media is bourgeois and hollow. Just exhausting to read.
"The work that I do on myself may not be evident in my daily exchanges, but little by little, if I continue, I hope that my actions will reflect my changing mindset, and next time, I promise myself, I'll do things differently. Getting on top of my shortcomings is not immediate; it's endless."
"If we give as much as we expect to take from a novel, a poem, an image or an album (or a conversation, or a relationship), it has a greater chance of becoming profound. As readers, we feel this happen when something speaks directly to our experience and we feel the words burning themselves into us... ??
"Words on a page are incomplete. The poem, the novel or the non-fiction pamphlet are finished when they are taken up and engaged with. Connection is collaborative. For words to have meaning, they have to be read.”
Relevant to the subject matter 😸
Pausing my other books to read this one - Kae Tempest's latest. This is their first non-fiction prose work, about how artistic creativity fosters inter-personal connection, deepens our relationship with the world, and develops self-awareness.
Although I was a little disappointed with their last poetry collection, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one. It starts with a William Blake epigram, so that's promising: "Unknown, not unperceived".
On Connection | 
