Archive (Page 12) • The Main Event, by stacy-marie ishmael

All the Earth has borne beguiles us / & battered bodies build our acres.

September 26, 2021

A month back in New York. Two days away from three weeks into the new gig.A worrying number of as yet unopened boxes of books.A forest of packing...

I repent better in the waning / season

September 19, 2021

Something I finally learned is that you can run out of energy long before you run out of time. I appreciated this Scalawag piece on the relentlessness of...

We might find a humanity that is not asking to be seen, but demanding instead.

September 12, 2021

I haven't worked out of an office since November 2019. This week I go back into one, at least for now, because attempting to forecast the contours of this...

I mean, / what pearl forms around a grain of plastic in an oyster?

September 5, 2021

A housekeeping note for paid subscribers: I'm working on the note about your subscriptions further to last Sunday's update. Still no action needed on your...

the dead are changeless. / They grow no older. / It is I who have changed,

August 22, 2021

I have never been a fan of those "[person] would be [x] years old if they were alive today" posts, because they're not alive and what does it matter how old...

i want to talk about respect. / how even the desperate deserve it.

August 15, 2021

Most people born into generations of US passports, most people who are white and comfortably middle class, most people who practice one of the religions not...

did you know roots are easy / to snap?

August 8, 2021

I am organizing my books, and the Discourse is misrepresenting Marie Kondo again, because where would we be if the commentariat consistently read the work we...

The being of some is: to be. Of others: to be without.

Premium post · August 1, 2021

I slept a lot this weekend, and not because I'd planned to take the time off. Earlier this week I had an allergy panel done - I got tested for the severity...

Invisible until you won’t see them / won’t bend and lift their comfort

Premium post · July 27, 2021

There was a tiny window when it was possible, if you squinted at just the right angle and allowed yourself an unreasonable optimism, to feel hopeful about...

The After Party: "community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist"

July 25, 2021

Editor’s note: As often as is possible I'll be handing the keys to this newsletter over to paid contributors (pitch me! It's $450 all-in). These special...

Just take the imagists. Their heads explode.

Premium post · July 18, 2021

I've been taking a voice acting class, which is still a sentence I am not entirely comfortable saying aloud. I am taking this class precisely because merely...

Do not raise your small voice against it. And do not / take cover.

July 11, 2021

A deep resentment borne of the months and months and months spent in collective acknowledgement of the duty of care toward endless unknown others while the...

It feels better to move with time than it does to constantly race against it.

July 10, 2021

Editor’s note: As often as is possible this year (pitch me!) I will be handing over the keys to this newsletter. These special editions, which I am calling...

a different kind of life

Premium post · July 4, 2021

There are weeks that really feel like inflection points. Oh, the ocean's on fire? Fire clouds? Sure. Why not. When I was in high school, I placed second in a...

hope bleeds slowly from my mouth / into the dirt that covers us all

June 27, 2021

I have been thinking about Britney Spears, and the absolute horror of her conservatorship. I grew up in an era in which pop music was defined in no small...

The After Party: "Identity is a hallucination...and everything is a story"

June 20, 2021

Editor’s note: As often as is possible (pitch me!) I will be handing over the keys to this newsletter. These special editions, which I am calling The After...

You are trying to be precise but everything is a carbon-like surface that scrolls by with pinpricks emitting memory’s wavy threads.

Premium post · June 13, 2021

I’ve learned how to ride bikes a few different times. As a kid, on a faux-BMX, from a combination of parents and that one uncle who was like a parent and was...

The magic settles uneasy; it turns out fairy dust was always / fake.

June 12, 2021

How To Wash Your Makeup Brushes 1) Assemble supplies at a leisurely pace. Pause to contemplate whether you really need three different but functionally...

I ask that they describe / an object right in front of them, to make / it come alive, and one writes about death,

June 6, 2021

"He started writing the list in 1984, six years after he first suspected there was something wrong, that patients were suffering symptoms with no explicable...

Reporters & fathers call your generation “the worst.”

May 30, 2021

Every week I google "em dash" and then I copy and paste the symbol onto the otherwise empty page. I have memorized the shortcuts for the acute accent, the...