Kelle Groom’s memoir-in-essays, How to Live, is a journey that showcases to the reader exactly what the title suggests: how to live. But it’s living through loss, grief, and pain that Groom really tackles most. As Groom moves across the country, we witness her learning this more than we are told explicitly how to do it. The memoir exemplifies how a writer can use their prose to reflect the content of their work. Groom’s often disjointed mindset as she moves around to new places appears physically on the page in the form of short, staccato sentences, some of which are only a word or two long.
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People's experiences from childhood immensely shape the kind of person they may become and can impact their decision-making later on in adulthood. Some children with complicated upbringings often tell themselves they’ll do better than their parents, learning from their mistakes. However, some cycles are harder to break, and those kids can unknowingly become exactly like their parents. In her debut novel, Waiting for Beirut, Rebecca Dimyan explores themes of generational trauma by artfully creating subtle patterns to produce a beautifully tragic narrative.
The biggest question we as humans can ask is: “Why?” The contemplation of our mortality frequents art in many forms, and Grzedorz Wróblewski’s poetry not only contemplates the human experience, but also discusses what it means to exist in our current society. His writing sheds light on topics like capitalism, heteronormativity, and the normalization of violence in a way that is new and abstract. The reader must want to actively seek out what the meaning of each poem is and, by doing so, they become closer to the topic that Wróblewski selected to discuss.
Grzedorz Wróblewski’s Dear Beloved Humans, is a collection of poems spanning multiple decades of authorship. Born in Warsaw in 1962, Wróblewski grew up in the creative communities and culture of Poland where he began his career as a poet and artist. In 1985, Wróblewski emigrated to Denmark, prompting a shift in perspective and a new form of inspiration for his poetry. As I read through this collection, I found myself understanding the turmoil that Wróblewski felt over the course of his life and the humorously analytical and at times nihilistic way in which he portrayed his surroundings in his writing.
Temptation, angst, and lunacy all rear their heads as Sheena Patel explores the obsession that comes with unrequited love in her debut novel I’m a Fan. The fan in question is an unnamed narrator who has wrapped herself up in an affair with an aloof, womanizing older man. Patel, an established poet, chronicles the bad decisions of the unnamed narrator through blunt but enticing prose. Patel puts stock into the power of fan presence, linking political influence to the number of devoted followers one has. The narrator, a woman of color with little recognition, pales in comparison to the white female influencers with whom she must compete. She speaks to privilege packaged as #goals, to algorithms and whiteness discounting indigenous and black and brown creators, and to the universal immature desire to be liked.
As a fellow member of the Dead Parent Club™, Stephanie Austin’s Something I Might Say caught my attention because it made me want to compare notes on grief. In this brief collection of nonfiction essays describing an even more brief portion of Austin’s life, she explores the many layers of grief that overwhelmed her in just a few months' time due to back to back losses in her family. If you have experienced significant loss in your life and yearn for someone who can genuinely empathize, not just sympathize, then this collection of bite sized essays is for you.
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