Thursday, July 29, 2021
Cat Thursday - Lurking
Thursday, July 22, 2021
Cat Thursday - Cats rule the house (moon)
Thursday, July 15, 2021
Cat Thursday - Happy Birthday, Merida!
Merida turned one year old on Monday. She is such a joy and has really helped fill the void that was left when my sweet Alice passed (though Alice can never be replaced). Her older sister, Arya still hasn't warmed up to her, but I'm hoping that someday they will get along.
Here are various shots of Merida on her birthday (please ignore the lady in the picture lol) and over the weeks before. She was spayed in early May and her hair STILL has not grown back where they had to shave her. That belly! In some pics, she really looks like she's been on a bender. She's such a mess. You will also see she has a favorite chair (though she has taken to sleeping with me on my bed of late).
We adore her and have been so lucky to add her to our family. Here's to many more years, Merida. I know your sister across the Rainbow Bridge wishes she could have celebrated with you too.
Thursday, July 8, 2021
Cat Thursday: Authors and Cats (104) Jean Stafford
The second Cat Thursday of each month is Authors and Cats Thursday. Each time I will feature an author (with a birthday during the month), pictured with their/a cat(s), or guest posts by cat loving authors who also (sometimes) write about cats.
Monday, July 5, 2021
Sherry Quan Lee's Septuagenarian - Review
I love poetry because, not only does it give insight into the poet, I also catch glimpses of myself, or aspects of my life and loved ones among the verses. I couldn't help thinking of my mom who is now also a septuagenarian. The words really resonated with me.
I found so many beautiful words as I read. This verse from "Night Tremors" made me think of children who do not have easy lives:
The weight a child wears"What Preceded Today," a poem about the Black experience:
bears so much room for sadness.
You know you don't love the me that is defiant,
that is angrythat needs to know what preceded me, thatneeds to knowwhat separates me, that separates us, that needs to understand...
These lines from "I Didn't Need to Save the World" spoke to me of the realization that things happen for a reason, whether we believe this because we believe in God, or because we believe in fate, as I do. The words hit home.
Whatever road I would have taken wouldhave endedat the same destinationBecause it's story. And story ends where it begins.
These lines from "Love Is What Happens" remind me of the rhetoric during the pandemic "you wear masks, stay in lock down, social distance because you are afraid." Powerful.
I hear fearful I see me brave.We know who will die next. Are we ready to end the pandemicof hate your neighbor, hate the person that isn't you?
This...what could be a better explanation of love? From "And When I Die":
We surge together what is brokenfor another glimpse of love.Perhaps, the heartbroken is what saves us;perhaps, if we love for only one dayit's enough.
At the end of the collection, Quan Lee talks about the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. It's her explanation of how she made sense of the things going on in the world, and what was on her mind during the pandemic. At least, that is my interpretation. It's brilliant. Here's an excerpt from "Writing Exercise":
I discovered within my memoir of verse that I was saying more than I had said, that for me the personal continues to be political, and all things are temporary. The memory of what has preceded me implodes and love is my act of survival.
"Love is my act of survival." Let that sink in. Wow.
Amazing, amazing collection. This is one I'll be coming back to again and again. Highly recommend.
Septuagenarian: love is what happens when I die is a memoir in poetic form. It is the author's journey from being a mixed-race girl who passed for white to being a woman in her seventies who understands and accepts her complex intersectional identity; and no longer has to imagine love. It is a follow-up to the author's previous memoir (prose), Love Imagined: a mixed-race memoir, A Minnesota Book Award finalist.
In Septuagenarian, Sherry Quan Lee accepts her own invitation to look at life in retrospect, but with a new lens. Pulling from and expanding upon her previous body of work, she examines the version of herself that was writing at that time. The dignity and fire of her seventy-three-year-old gaze taking in snapshots of those selves...straightens my spine and gives me a vision for myself traveling today into my future septuagenarian. Lola Osunkoya, MA, LPCC
Sherry Quan Lee writes courageously to understand herself and the world. She uses rich language and her skills as a storyteller to focus her sharp lens on what it means to have a complex, sometimes complicated identity: becoming invisible as she ages, a history of passing unseen, love and sex, grieving and celebration. She ruminates on history, which repeats itself in the current moment and widens her lens to look at the bigger, global picture to tell truths in poems that tenderly hold memory, time, rituals, trauma, mothering, fear of death and love in many forms. Her poems offer deeply personal, intimate and perceptive insights and opportunities to reflect on what it means to truly live. It feels like I've taken the journey with her, and I'm wiser for it. --Shay Youngblood, author of Soul Kiss and Black Girl in Paris
Get a Copy of Septuagenarian
About the Author:
In Septuagenarian, Sherry Quan Lee accepts her own invitation to look at life in retrospect, but with a new lens. Pulling from and expanding upon her previous body of work, she examines the version of herself that was writing at that time. The dignity and fire of her seventy-three-year-old gaze taking in snapshots of those selves...straightens my spine and gives me a vision for myself traveling today into my future septuagenarian. Lola Osunkoya, MA, LPCC
Sherry Quan Lee writes courageously to understand herself and the world. She uses rich language and her skills as a storyteller to focus her sharp lens on what it means to have a complex, sometimes complicated identity: becoming invisible as she ages, a history of passing unseen, love and sex, grieving and celebration. She ruminates on history, which repeats itself in the current moment and widens her lens to look at the bigger, global picture to tell truths in poems that tenderly hold memory, time, rituals, trauma, mothering, fear of death and love in many forms. Her poems offer deeply personal, intimate and perceptive insights and opportunities to reflect on what it means to truly live. It feels like I've taken the journey with her, and I'm wiser for it. --Shay Youngblood, author of Soul Kiss and Black Girl in Paris
Get a Copy of Septuagenarian
About the Author:
Sherry Quan Lee, MFA, University of Minnesota, is the author of Chinese Blackbird, a memoir in verse; How to Write a Suicide Note, serial essays that saved a woman's life; Love Imagined: a mixed-race memoir (a Minnesota Book Award Finalist); and, the picture book And You Can Love Me a story for everyone who loves someone with ASD-published by LHP, Modern History Press, Ann Arbor, MI. She is the editor of How Dare We! Write: a multicultural creative writing discourse, an anthology finding home in university writing classrooms.
Thursday, July 1, 2021
Cat Thursday - Miscellaneous Laughs
Welcome to the weekly meme that celebrates the wonders and sometime hilarity of cats! Join us by posting a favorite lolcat pic you may have come across, famous cat art or even share with us pics of your own beloved cat(s). It's all for the love of cats! Share the link to your post with your comment below.
Hope everyone has a safe and celebratory Independence Day!
Art credit: Cyra R. Cancel
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)