Bella Furst Week 12 | So. Much. Reading.

 I guess you could say I've been 

reading a lot lately.

Lately, I’ve returned to my middle school habits of staying up till 2 am reading whatever the heck I can get my hands on. Ironically, I’m a little behind on Frankenstein, reading I actually need to do, but I have been reading so much else in the world of novels and webcomics. I just finished "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander and oh my goodness. It’s so eye-opening to read as a white person living in America and I would recommend this book to anyone!! It’s so informative and well-written and it really gives you the opportunity to step back and really recognize the privilege you have.

But in other news, I have fallen back into the hole of webcomics!! I’m a huge nerd for sci-fi and cliche or tragic romance, so naturally that’s what I have been reading the most. I recently started reading “The God of High School” because I want to watch the anime really badly and felt like this was a necessary read. So far, pretty good! A lot is happening at once though and it’s a little confusing, but I will bear with it.

My favorite thriller webtoon actually came back recently after about a year of hiatus! It’s called “Tales of the Unusual” and I recommend it to literally anyone. It’s my favorite, favorite, favorite ever and I just really enjoy it. It’s short thriller stories with plot twists and it’s in comic/manga format, so what’s not to love?

I’m going to stop here because I could ramble about the million webtoons or manga series that I’ve been reading lately, but it just feels so good to ignore all my schoolwork and slip into that tranquil state of “just reading.”

Bella Furst | Week 11 “Ash” by Tracy K. Smith

 

"Ash" by Tracy K. Smith

We are everything that we have experienced.

    “Ash” is a darkly written poem that personifies the self in the form of a house. The poem is written eerily and uses wording like “House whose rooms are pooled with blood” to enact a haunting sense of dread. 

    By personifying the house, Smith dictates that a “house we must keep and fill” with memories and life’s experiences that are simultaneously thrown at you, one after another. The house is not simply the individual, but encompasses everything they have lived and the people they have met; it has become a structure of isolation and bravery. There exist “other houses built. Houses of lies”, the houses of other people with their own sense of selves. The house is a house of “pride a bone. House afraid to be alone” and the house itself holds the experiences of life; memory, pain, love, and human emotion and pride.        The house begins to become more than just a house. It is a “House that believes it is not a house” and memories haunt the individual, build their character, and form them into their fullest self. 

    This poem is simply beautiful. It shows that the self is not just a bundle of characteristics and traits, but rather a complex site of emotion, experience, and memory. We are what we live and defined by that which we have seen and that which we have accomplished. We embody the relationships we have built and the mistakes we have made, and I think Tracy K. Smith is perhaps the only person who could’ve written this and taken into account the littlest things that make us into what we are.