As I noted in my previous post, last week was chaotic. Four days of travel turned into five days of travel capped by a 12-hour layover in Charlotte, which meant about 36 hours without sleep. Fortunately for me this coincided with the Labor Day weekend which meant an extra day of down-time, which was really a day of catching up on neglected chores and errands.
My partner, Zyra, has spent the past few months planning the Kultura Celebration 2026 here in Grand Rapids, at Fountain Street Church. As this post goes live the celebration will be entering its last hour, with the MexiCuba Duo providing live music, and the Journee leading a poetry workshop. Between food, dance, spoken word, panels, and music, I expect it will be a superb event.
Reading
My work projects are winding down which means I am only working 40 hours a week, which leaves me with a little reading time for the first time this year. Well, outside of three weeks of vacation back in July. So I’m reading.
I am slowly catching up on John Scalzi’s oeuvre, with The Kaiju Preservation Society while stuck in the Charlotte International Airport and Starter Villain while crashed out on the couch on Labor Day. Now I have a pile of new poetry books thanks to a book release event for the Grand River Poetry Collective this past Thursday – GF Korreck’s The Pope’s Astronomer, Lamont Arrington’s The My Heart Blues, and Japanese Garden by Nellie DeVries.
Writing
Recently I wrote down scraps and bits of a few poems which, if I apply myself, might end up in the time capsule project led by Grand Rapids Poet Laureate Christine Stephens Krieger. The prompt is “Hello, Future!” and the poem is meant to be read in 2076 when the time capsule is opened. What do you say to someone in 2076? I don’t even know anyone who lives there right now.
Weekly Writing Prompt
Subject: Revenge, Cyborgs
Setting: Subterranean
Genre: Folk Tale
Listening
The Soulbenders, “Hey Joe”. I knew the guitarist, Jeff Boughner, back in the 1990s and 2000s. We worked together at Schuler Books.
Interesting Links
- “Israel and the Far Right Want You to Believe There Is an Islamic Invasion of the West” (Curro Jimenez, Naked Captialism)