Do you ever dream or poems, essays or books? Last night I dreamed of Weeding — the gorgeous pamphlet by Jess McKinney, and as I can’t freely make my wee up to my wee attic room where all my books live what with my broken ankle and the already extremely dangerous stairs up to it, instead of rereading it today I had to think back over the times I have read it which was actually a really internet and worthy experience. I realised that for many years I was unable to own the books that I loved—through being poor or not being properly settled in a place, always trying to remain unweighted by objects— meaning often I would have experienced a book only a handful of times, perhaps only once—and I wonder if this made my relationship with such a book different somehow.
Memories of books encountered in libraries and bookshops or in the homes of friends and colleagues at parties are so vivid in my mind sometimes. Sometimes even more concrete in their feel than books that I know are actually upstairs. I wonder about this all, about the nature of the things loved from afar, from the edges instead of up close, and I wonder what impact the internet might be having on the relationships we forge with objects like books.
Seeing something like a particular book over and over again if the author has a particularly active publicity team can make it lodge itself in our collective brain certainly but what about the books we don’t really see as we scroll? Those by the writers we don’t encounter on repeat in every newsletter or journal, on every podcast and radio show, at all the festivals? Those who feel confident enough to steer clear of social media (and who aren’t contracted to be there!)…
Some of my favourite writers aren’t on Instagram or Twitter and would never consider a newsletter either. What is it about that path that is so appealing to me, although I cherish interaction with readers more than I can say?….
Are we losing out on something in the constant cacophony of the internet more widely; the actual thing that might draw us to a writer or book and so on as individuals? And what role might we as creatives play in all this? How do we support the sharing of new voices we value whilst also feeling ok to step out for a while, to place ourselves somehow back in that place of quiet interest in things; allow ourselves to be inspired by what we are genuinely drawn towards instead of feeling directed— even if those things do end up being things we love— is it beneficial to allow ourselves to make the way back to unburdened, freely born inspiration?
My dream of WEEDING made me long for Jess’s beautiful words again and so I turned to the internet (yes, I hear you, an interesting choice given the thoughts above…)
This is a beautiful recording of Jess reading ‘The Deer’— a poem that came to her in a dream, ‘it came from trying to make sense of a shadow’—and I am so moved by this sense of dream becoming poem; deer becoming shadow becoming light.
Just before Cacophony Of Bone came out, on my toddler’s first day at their new kindergarten , my partner and I
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to g l i m m e r s to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.