I was going to title this There is No Hope and the World’s on Fire: “I think the poets might disagree,” invoking that cheeky line from Laurie (a lá Timothée Chalamet) in Little Women. But I’ve actually never seen the film, and I’m trying to write this sincerely, so we’ll hold off on the third-hand interpretation. And while that will soon graduate from my To-Watch list to my Watched list (I promise!), I’m going to spend the next nineteen-hundred or so words trying to convince you to add a couple of things to your own lists. Poems, books, a couple of essays. Some music and movies too because I just can’t resist a thorough collection of recommendations. This is all one-part advice and two-parts my selfish desire to get more people talking about things I can hold conversations on. I hope you find something you like. 

My methodology for sorting was to establish broad themes, find fragments of writings that fit them, and then expand from there. So, you’ll get a heading, a couple of things I like, followed by stream of consciousness, all wrapped up with a little “prescription.” Nothing here is listed for the purpose of passive consumption, even if watching a movie feels like kicking your feet up. You can learn from anything. These suggestions just happen to be (hopefully) more fun than a textbook. 

I. On Having an Understanding of Context

Home by Warsan Shire

No one leaves home unless

Home is the mouth of a shark.

You only run for the border

When you see the whole city

Running as well.

The truth is, being raised by immigrants and refugees while growing up in a world with a deepening hatred for immigrants and refugees can make you feel pretty numb. I remember starting college on the heels of Biden pulling out of Afghanistan. I remember my house being quietly tense for weeks beforehand. I remember pictures of civilians falling off of planes, clinging desperately to the landing gear in an attempt to flee with the few aircrafts that were taking any non-military passengers. My father and uncles had Tolo News on for days in a row, the broadcasters growing more and more grim. So, when I saw a headline saying that over 2,000 Afghans were being blocked from entering the United States only days after Trump’s inauguration, my heart dropped to my feet. This came quickly on the heels of news that ICE agents are now allowed to enter “sensitive locations,” places like churches, hospitals, schools. I’m not sure where people think anyone should go, if home is the mouth of a shark and wherever you run to wants to hunt you. Prescription: watch Vice (2018, dir. Adam McKay) and listen to Bad Bunny’s new album DeBí TiRAR MáS FOToS. Read How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez (buy it in a physical copy if you can) and The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, focusing on how the main character deals with her family’s legacy. Print out ICE red cards; you can find them online at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. Keep one in your wallet, your backpack, on your person. Distribute others for people to pick up and see. 

The Interviewer Wants to Know About Fashion by Hala Alyan

If you listen close enough,

You can hear the Earth crack like a neck.

Be lucky. Try to make it to the morning. 

Try to find your heart in the newsprint.

Please. I’d rather be alive than holy.

I don’t have time to write about the soul. 

There are bodies to count.

The line “I’d rather be alive than holy” haunted me for weeks after I read this piece. I still think about it a lot. In December, the Instagram account @grieftolight posted a Terrance Hayes poem (I recommend his book American Sonnets for my Past and Future Assassin) called “The Same City.” In it, a man’s car breaks down in the rain and his father comes to jump it. His stepdaughter is in his arms, and infant, and he’s thinking about the biblical parallels of raising a child that isn’t “yours.” Hayes writes, “Let me begin again/I want to be holy.” There’s so much life in Hayes’ writing, it’s hard not to agree. I want to be holy. Alyun is more likely talking about choosing life over martyrdom—she’s Palestinian. A lot of people are surviving more than they’re living right now. Prescription: read The Punishment of Gaza by Gideon Levy and Perfect Victims by Mohammed El-Kurd. Listen to Mustafa’s song “Name of God.” Watch Democracy Now! whether it’s their clips or full episodes. Boycott what you can. There are alternatives to Coca-Cola. 

II. On Ourselves and Others

Journal, Day 3 by Richard Siken

Everyone I know is in some kind of pain. Everyone. How do you like them apples?

This whole prose piece is great, I really can’t recommend it enough. In fact, maybe it would help to know that I have it written and/or saved in about five different places. This is in case I misplace a copy, or it ever gets taken off the Internet. Actually, poetry.com was down for maintenance once when I needed to read it quite desperately, and luckily, I’d typed the whole thing up in Notion. Which is what you do when you’re very normal about something. That aside, this reminds me of the Robert Anton Wilson quote, “Under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded,” or pretty much any line from Dan DeLillo’s White Noise (talk about literary existential crisis). Truth be told, I’m still often astounded by how little I know about the rich inner lives of other people. Sometimes one of my classmates will share a personal anecdote in class and I’ll get psychic whiplash. It’s humbling. Prescription: you should join a book club or make one. Find a way to talk to other people about the things you read and watch if you don’t feel much like talking about yourself. Read Cosmos by Carl Sagan and consider your place in the universe and then read They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib. Watch HyperNormalisation (dir. Adam Curtis, 2016) on YouTube and consider how we got this far. 

Be Not Afraid by Ellie Black

He said through a thousandth

mouth I could not see: YOU MUST BE 

VERY CAREFUL AND YOU MUST

BE KIND YOU MUST BE AFRAID 

YOU MUST NEVER BE AFRAID YOU

MUST BE THE CONDUIT THROUGH WHICH THE WORLD

SEES ITSELF A MIRROR HELD INFINITELY UP

TO ITSELF

I like poems about angels who talk in all caps. Keaton St. James wrote one called “texts between angels trying to live as mortals” that’s divine. But this poem is less about angels and more about some sort of godly mandate to act in the best interests of humankind. There’s also something comforting in the contradiction. You can be afraid, but you can’t let it stop you. I am even more content with the lack of contradiction in “YOU MUST BE KIND,” and even more happy at the use of kind instead of nice or good. There’s some kind of weight to “kind” that doesn’t exist in its synonyms. I liked when the father in About Time (dir. Richard Curtis, 2013) says, “Remember to marry someone kind,” in his best-man speech, and how he went back in time just to say “I love you” to his son. Prescription: read Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre and then read it again. There are a lot of valid criticisms of Sartre, but he has some valuable points in that lecture. Read Three Flash Fiction Stories by Barry Charman (published in ergot press). Feel a little scared and then watch About Love (dir. Richard Curtis, 2013). Try to live your days like Tim does by the end. 

III. On Where We Go From Here

24. Cheryl Strayed (Dear Sugar Letter #24)

“You go on by doing the best you can. You go on by being generous. You go on by being true. You go on by offering comfort to others who can’t go on. You go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and allowing the pleasure in other days. You go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage.” 

I don’t really read self-help books per se. I’m of the mind that any book can help you with yourself, so I read fiction mostly (purely personal preference). But Strayed’s advice columns are written like a hug and sometimes like a Heimlich. This excerpt in particular reminds me a little of the poem “[for comrades who ask]” by Tim Blunk, which reads like a long list of suggestions. Especially now, I think it’s important to point out that Blunk wrote this while imprisoned for protesting against the US’s support of apartheid in South Africa. Sometimes it’s easy to look at the dark times and think that there is no point in finding joy, that it’s selfish or futile. But a community is only as strong as its most exhausted individual. Remember to rest. Prescription: watch LaRussell’s Tiny Desk Concert on YouTube (starting at 13:22 will get you to one of the most joyful renditions of any song I’ve ever heard in a long time, but the whole thing is great) and listen to Himera’s “Himera Remixes The World” on SoundCloud. Read Mutual Aid by Dean Spade. Give your time when you can’t give your money. 

On Living by Nâzim Hikmet 

Living is no laughing matter:

you must live with great seriousness

…

you can die for people—

   even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,

   even though you know living

is the most real, the most beautiful thing.

The only way this essay can end is with this poem. It’s only two fragments from the entire thing, which is much better in whole than it is in parts, but these are some of my favorite lines. Other than perhaps the part where he talks about living life seriously “like a squirrel,” which is great for a lot of reasons. I saw a pair of students laughing at a particularly chunky squirrel as I walked to lunch. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone laughing so loud behind Olmstead before. Living is no laughing matter, but laughing certainly matters in life. Prescription: read Murderbot: All Systems Red by Martha Wells and any of the Lego movies, but the Batman one is best. They’re funny but genuine, and both of them manage to handle heavy topics with the gravity they deserve, just with interesting packaging.

On the reality of seriousness and living, you should read up on Nâzim Hikmet. You should also look at Edward Hirsch’s take on the poem. Hikmet wrote this in prison. Even locked away, he remained steadfast in his commitment to the importance of living—and dying—for other people. “Even for people whose faces you’ve never seen, even though you know living is the most real, the most beautiful thing.” Hopefully you’ll never be faced with that sort of choice, but I don’t think it’s bad to put it into practice. Caring about the wellbeing of strangers is not just important, it’s necessary. Prescription: read “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. LeGuin and then “Those Who Stay and Fight” by N.K. Jemisin and then “Why Don’t We Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim. Choose who you want to be.