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Recent diary entries
Brendan Lorber on Why Daydreaming Is Important
Feb 20, 2019
Brendan Lorber on Why Daydreaming Is Important
Feb 20, 2019
Feb 20, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Alina Pleskova, Marwa Helal, June Jordan
Feb 19, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Alina Pleskova, Marwa Helal, June Jordan
Feb 19, 2019
Feb 19, 2019
20 Free and Magical Ways to Engage in Self-Care
Feb 15, 2019
20 Free and Magical Ways to Engage in Self-Care
Feb 15, 2019
Feb 15, 2019
11 Valentine's Day dates for badass witches
Feb 14, 2019
11 Valentine's Day dates for badass witches
Feb 14, 2019
Feb 14, 2019
Survival and Truth: How Tori Amos' Under The Pink Changed My Life
Feb 8, 2019
Survival and Truth: How Tori Amos' Under The Pink Changed My Life
Feb 8, 2019
Feb 8, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Monica Youn, Traci Brimhall, Rosebud Ben-Oni
Feb 6, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Monica Youn, Traci Brimhall, Rosebud Ben-Oni
Feb 6, 2019
Feb 6, 2019
How Do We Name Ourselves?
Feb 4, 2019
How Do We Name Ourselves?
Feb 4, 2019
Feb 4, 2019
Your February 2019 Horoscopes Are Here
Feb 1, 2019
Your February 2019 Horoscopes Are Here
Feb 1, 2019
Feb 1, 2019
Kristine Esser Slentz on Polyamory & Being Raised as a Jehovah's Witness
Jan 30, 2019
Kristine Esser Slentz on Polyamory & Being Raised as a Jehovah's Witness
Jan 30, 2019
Jan 30, 2019
Poetry by Brandon Amico
Jan 29, 2019
Poetry by Brandon Amico
Jan 29, 2019
Jan 29, 2019
A Grimoire For Self-Love: A Peek At Light Magic for Dark Times
Jan 28, 2019
A Grimoire For Self-Love: A Peek At Light Magic for Dark Times
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019
5 Books I Had No Idea Existed and Must Find at Once
Jan 28, 2019
5 Books I Had No Idea Existed and Must Find at Once
Jan 28, 2019
Jan 28, 2019
Vi Khi Nao Reviews Diana Hamilton's God Was Right
Jan 25, 2019
Vi Khi Nao Reviews Diana Hamilton's God Was Right
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Omotara James, John Murillo, E. Kristin Anderson
Jan 25, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Omotara James, John Murillo, E. Kristin Anderson
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019
Brandon Amico on Why He Doesn't Want to Be Unreachable
Jan 24, 2019
Brandon Amico on Why He Doesn't Want to Be Unreachable
Jan 24, 2019
Jan 24, 2019
How To Become A Freelance Writer: On Starting Out, Discipline & Ritual
Jan 23, 2019
How To Become A Freelance Writer: On Starting Out, Discipline & Ritual
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019
Bewitched: When The Velvet Underground Cast an Identity Spell on Me
Jan 23, 2019
Bewitched: When The Velvet Underground Cast an Identity Spell on Me
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019
DIY Gift Ideas for The Magical, the Dreamy, and the Crafty
Jan 22, 2019
DIY Gift Ideas for The Magical, the Dreamy, and the Crafty
Jan 22, 2019
Jan 22, 2019
Review of Christine Stoddard's 'Water for the Cactus Woman'
Jan 22, 2019
Review of Christine Stoddard's 'Water for the Cactus Woman'
Jan 22, 2019
Jan 22, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Vanessa AngΓ©lica Villarreal, Jessica Morey-Collins, Justin Karcher
Jan 18, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Vanessa AngΓ©lica Villarreal, Jessica Morey-Collins, Justin Karcher
Jan 18, 2019
Jan 18, 2019
June Gehringer Tells Us What She's Afraid Of
Jan 16, 2019
June Gehringer Tells Us What She's Afraid Of
Jan 16, 2019
Jan 16, 2019
5 Film & TV Inspired Nightgowns You Need
Jan 15, 2019
5 Film & TV Inspired Nightgowns You Need
Jan 15, 2019
Jan 15, 2019
Music Friyay: Stevie Nicks, Sun Ra, Hamilton Leithauser
Jan 11, 2019
Music Friyay: Stevie Nicks, Sun Ra, Hamilton Leithauser
Jan 11, 2019
Jan 11, 2019
Poetry by Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi
Jan 10, 2019
Poetry by Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi
Jan 10, 2019
Jan 10, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Kay Ulanday Barrett, Devin Kelly, Elizabeth Metzger
Jan 9, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Kay Ulanday Barrett, Devin Kelly, Elizabeth Metzger
Jan 9, 2019
Jan 9, 2019
Poetry by Karina Bush
Jan 8, 2019
Poetry by Karina Bush
Jan 8, 2019
Jan 8, 2019
Hillary Leftwich on Happiness & Why It's Important to Love Childhood Films
Jan 7, 2019
Hillary Leftwich on Happiness & Why It's Important to Love Childhood Films
Jan 7, 2019
Jan 7, 2019
This Moon Playlist Is Everything You Need
Jan 4, 2019
This Moon Playlist Is Everything You Need
Jan 4, 2019
Jan 4, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Chloe N. Clark, Faylita Hicks, Saretta Morgan
Jan 3, 2019
Poetry Weekly: Chloe N. Clark, Faylita Hicks, Saretta Morgan
Jan 3, 2019
Jan 3, 2019
Jordan Rothacker On the Apocalypse, Jared Kushner, and Daily Rituals
Jan 2, 2019
Jordan Rothacker On the Apocalypse, Jared Kushner, and Daily Rituals
Jan 2, 2019
Jan 2, 2019
Helene hille RydΓ©n

Helene hille RydΓ©n

7 Books You'll Actually Enjoy Reading

May 3, 2016

BY JOANNA C. VALENTE

These are books I've read in the last few months. I loved them, so I want you to love them too. 

1. Nathaniel Kressen - Concrete Fever (Second Skin Books, 2013)

This book is set right after 9/11 in NYC and follows around a teenager whose father has died, and whose mother is emotionally checked out. It is heartbreaking, but also full of suspense--it paints a realistic portrait of the modern American family--complications and ugliness not spared. What really makes the book unique, however, are the illustrations rendered by Jessie T. Kressen. "Dahlia Cassandra," Kressen's second novel, is due out in June--and I'm definitely looking forward to reading it if it's anything like "Concrete Fever."

2. Abigail Welhouse - Too Many Humans of New York (Bottlecap Press, 2016)

Welhouse, whose first chapbook is "Bad Baby" (Dancing Girl Press), is back with her triumphant second. This chapbook is centered around the strange contradictory nature of New York City, paying homage with elongated lines capturing the bizarre modern landscape. From her poem "Milk and Roses":

On Friday I went to a flower shop on 86th St. called Unique Flowers.

You thought I meant Manhattan but I meant Brooklyn.

There is an 86th St. in Bensonhurst and there is also a pizza place there.

The pizza place is called Lenny’s and it was featured in Saturday Night Fever.

There are photos of John Travolta on the wall. The pizza is good.

Anyway, I got the flowers and I put them in my apartment.

They cost five dollars and afterward I thought, "That was a good use of five dollars."

3. Melissa Broder - So Sad Today (Grand Central Publishing, 2016)

Broder hardly needs an introduction. These essays are absolutely brilliant--and completely full of the type of emotional nuance and vulnerability that literature is supposed to have. She is honest and raw about her relationships, open marriage, and emotional landscape. From an excerpt of the essay β€œI Told You Not to Get the Knish: Thoughts on Open Marriage and Illness”:

There is something about a long-erm relationship that takes away the ability to see the other person. We stop seeing them as their own entity. We stop seeing them as a possibility, rather than a possession. Or we stop seeing the possibility of them not being there. The gap we have to cross to get to them is no longer there: the gap filled with doubt as to whether we are loved or whether he will text or whether he likes me. We stop fucking in that gap, or fucking from across that gap. We start fucking in some new shared space that we feel we own. Or maybe the shared space is still the gap but we fuck there for so long we stop seeing it.

4. Simon Jacobs - Saturn (Spork Press, 2014 first edition, 2016 revised edition)

For all David Bowie fans, this is the book for you. Jacobs wrote this before Bowie's death--a book written about David Bowie's mysterious personal life--where Jacob inhabits Bowie in a way that the man seems less mythic, and more of a man who constantly reinvents himself as a way to become immortal and more human at the same time. From "David Bowie Watches The Storm Through The Window Of His Sizable Manhattan Apartment":

Later, when the city is finally put to sea, David Bowie wonders if the swiftness of its sinking is due to the combined weight of so many icons buried in a single tract of land. Or, their opposites: from the bodies hanging in the sky, spiraling and pulling back. Once again, he is thinking about planets.

5. Jonathan Papernick - There Is No Other (Exile Editions, 2010)

This is a short story collection obsessed with the existence of God, gender dynamics, sex (and weird sex), and Jewish identity. The characters are developed in such a way where they feel real, and the short stories are merely glimpses into their lives--as opposed to an overly ambitious retelling of their "whole story." Listen to "Skin for Skin" here.

6. Hila Ratzabi - β€œThe Apparatus of Visible Things” (Finishing Line Press, 2009)

Ratzabi's chapbook is full of wonderfully ethereal lines that remind me of Louise Gluck in the best way--full of the mundane, but portrayed in such a way where everything feels supernatural and otherworldly. She writes about real life--babies, strollers, pens. From "Seeing":

The eye sparkles where light arrives,
gathers, narrows,
affixes itself to a point:

a boy, two years old,
in a stroller on the subway,
a concerned,

wondering gleam that chose
to land here, inhabit
this one.

7. Daniel Borzutzky - The Performance of Becoming Human (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2016)

Daniel Borzutzky makes writing about bureaucratic nation-states interesting. We, as the reader, observe communities utterly destroyed, and we are left to question why and how and why and how humans let this happen. In particular, the bay of Valparaiso merges into the western shore of Lake Michigan, which exemplifies the horrors that happen on American soil and international soil alikeβ€”and how they are connectedβ€”and drawing the lines between the personal and political poignantly. This is a collection not to miss. From "Memories of My Overdevelopment":

I take a break from my suicide note and drink coffee and smoke a cigarette and eat hard, tasteless bread with butter in my undershirt


Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (forthcoming 2016, ELJ Publications) & Xenos (forthcoming 2017, Agape Editions). She received her MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. She is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, as well as the chief editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Some of her writing has appeared in Prelude, The Atlas Review, The Huffington Post, Columbia Journal, and elsewhere. She has lead workshops at Brooklyn Poets.

In Poetry & Prose Tags books, nathaniel kressen, hila ratzabi, jonathan papernick, abigail welhouse, melissa broder, simon jacobs, david bowie, daniel borzutzky
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Featured
Letters to the Dead: Shadow Writing for Grief & Release
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How to Add Magic to Your Every Day Wellness Routine
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How to Add Magic to Your Every Day Wellness Routine
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Ritual: Writing Letters To Your Self β€” On Anais Nin, Journaling, and Healing
Jan 31, 2019
Ritual: Writing Letters To Your Self β€” On Anais Nin, Journaling, and Healing
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How Rituals Can Help You Gain Confidence
Jan 17, 2019
How Rituals Can Help You Gain Confidence
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Jan 17, 2019
SEXTING GHOSTS
marvel and moon candles
Tweets by @LunaLunaMag
TONIGHT, Feb. 13, Brooklyn/NYC: join @attheinkwell + Luna Luna for a reading on Self-Love.
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Readings by @lisamariebasile @joannacvalente  @stephanie.athena  @erinkhar cbwilhelm @lifestudies + hosted by @anditalarico!
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When: 7-9 p.m. WORD Bookstore, 126 Franklin Street, Brooklyn A sampling of a few of the poets who will be reading at the FEB. 13 event at @wordbookstores for @attheinkwell: @lifestudies + @joannacvalente + @lisamariebasile + @anditalarico (our lovely host) πŸ–€Mark your calendars! February 13, 7pm, Word in Brooklyn Want to get into the writing life? @lisamariebasile wrote a guide to starting your freelance life. All about working from home, money & logistics, ritual and mindfulness, finding clients, developing a portfolio, and negotiating your rates. πŸ™ŒπŸ½ Visit lunalunamagazine.com to read! Our very own @joannacvalente has some images up over at @yespoetry from their #Survivor photo series. (There are more at Luna Luna, too!). πŸ–€ We’re about 200 followers away from 10,000 (!!!!) over on twitter πŸ™ŒπŸΎ Pop over and follow us if you haven’t yet (we’re VERY active there, always having conversations and sharing work and engaging with all of you!) β€” were going to do a giveaway at 10,000. Thank you for the love, it means the world to us πŸŽ‰ LINK IN BIO! WANT TO CONJURE LIZZIE BORDEN? Of course you do. Preorder Lizzie, Speak by our phenom editor & poet @kaileytedesco via the lovely @whitestagpublishing. πŸ‘» The Luna Luna crew! Stay tuned for a reading announcement in February here in NYC. πŸ’œπŸ–€πŸ˜ˆ HAPPY NEW YEARS, friends and readers! πŸ™ŒπŸ½ The lovely @joannacvalente posted your January 2019 horoscopes today. Head over to lunalunamagazine.com to check it out. We have good vibes about this year + we hope you had a beautiful celebration!
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PS, as Joanna says: β€œA lunar eclipse will occur on January 20 during a full Leo moon is going to be emotionally intense. It will stir up feelings about belonging, identity, and love. It might not be an easy moon, but it will  help you shed any unnecessary habits and relationships. Get rid of what doesn’t serve you.” Start thinking about ways you can release those things or people β€” and what you’d like to focus on instead. πŸ’œπŸ™ŒπŸ½πŸŽ‰

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