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Jack Gilbert, Collected Poems; "Tear it Down"

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When Toni Morrison said the grandeur of life is the attempt, not the solution… And how she went on to explain that it’s about behaving as beautifully as one can under completely impossible circumstances. The power that has, you know? It’s really just the making room for what breathes in the presence of the attempt. In the coming-to-be. 

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Paul Eluard, “Gabriel Péri”, Selected Poems (trans. Gilbert Bowen)

[Text ID: “There are words that help us to live And they are plain words The word warmth the word trust Love justice and the word freedom The word child and the word kindness.”]

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“In a culture so besotted with personal ease, it is a profound act not to turn away. To commit. To speak up. To protest. To teach. To gather in community and action.

So much of this moment involves breathtaking misinformation, attachment to ideas, conflation of preservation and narrative - the insistence that one person's safety can only exist by siphoning another's freedom. For many allies, the antidote is to continue to relationally show up, look for openings, continue to humanize, continue to seek out messy, uncomfortable conversations.

And for those contemplating and questioning: remember that at any given moment you may choose to reevaluate an idea. You may choose the risk of curiosity. The power of private, quiet reckonings: the ones happening behind the scenes, the tender confrontations between you and yourself, between yourself and a long-held belief.

It is easy to focus on the sense of powerlessness, the inconceivable loss, the vetoes, the complicity. It might feel cognitively harder to recognize our collective power, to remember the impact of small actions: they dismantle powerful narratives, seed curiosity, mount political pressure.

There is no miraculous tide that is shifting: the tide is made up of millions of people around the world choosing to pour their hearts, time, resources, hearts, personal ease into not looking away.

Steadfastness says more about the relentlessness of oppression than some magical patience inherent to the oppressed.

There is nothing glorious about steadfastness: it is a task like any other. Nobody should be asked to do it. Steadfastness, endurance, resolve: these are choices in the service of our moral compass and value system, of how we want to spend our time on this earth.”

— Hala Alyan

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Pieces of media to watch to educate yourself on Palestine’s long history of suffering from the zionist Israeli occupation :

“Jenin, Jenin” a documentary by Mohammad Bakri (available on Youtube)

“200 meters” a movie by Ameen Nayfeh (available on Netflix)

“Born in Gaza” a documentary by Hernán Zin (available on Netflix)

“Samouni Road” a documentary & animation by Stefano Savona (available on Netflix and Palestine Film Institute’s website)

“Edward Said on Palestine (1988)” a TV documentary style film by Christoper Skyes (available on Youtube)

“To My Father (2008)” a documentary style film by Abdel Salam Shehada (available on Palestine Film Institute’s website)

“Salt of this sea” a movie by Annemarie Jacir (available on Netflix)

“Children of Shatila” a documentary by Mai Masri (available on Netflix & Youtube)

“The Present” a short movie by Farah Nabulsi (available on Netflix)

“Frontiers of Dreams and Fears” a documentary by Mai Masri (available on Netflix & Youtube)

“The Crossing” a short film by Ameen Nayfeh (available on Netflix)

“Tantura” a documentary by Alon Schwartz (available on Youtube)

“3000 nights” a movie by Mai Masri (available on Netflix)

“Farha” a movie by Darin J. Sallam (available on Netflix)

“Arna’s Children” a documentary by Juliano Mer-Khamis (available on Youtube)

“Ma’loul celebrates it’s destruction” a documentary by Michel Khleifi (available on Youtube)

“A World Not Ours” a documentary style movie by Mahdi Fleifel (available on Netflix)

“Like Twenty Impossibles” a movie by Annemarie Jacir (available on Netflix)

“Omar” - a movie by Hany Abu Assad (available on Netflix)

[this list will constantly be updated with more movies & documentaries that i’m reminded of, or with new pieces that i find and watch… if you have any suggestions please send them my way so that i can add them to this list]

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- j (x)

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James Baldwin, from Just Above My Head (1979)

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— the shape of a pocket by john berger

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truly i am so lucky to be known and liked and loved in so many different capacities by so many different people. i hope i never take one ounce of even the vaguest fondness sent my way for granted

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Roja Dove on His Favorite Scents for The Cut

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Toni Morrison on grief

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small talk? it was quite big to me. i love you

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Sunrise, Louise Glück

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oh i get it now i made mistakes that made my life fundamentally more painful so that i could be more devastated by poetry

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JOY HAS A HABIT OF RETURNING. BTW

#For when i need it

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Rainer Maria Rilke, "The Prodigal Son." The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Stephen Mitchell)