During one of my excursions to my favourite hideout (the Red Wheelbarrow Bookstore for those, rare I am sure, who don't know it yet!), I had the pleasure to meet Janet Skeslien Charles in person. She is the author of The Paris Library and Moonlight in Odessa (click on the links for my reviews of … Continue reading Q & A with Janet Skeslien Charles (in 🇬🇧, with a 🇫🇷 translation)
Over the course of a school year we watch as friendship and love bloom between Alice and Rémy, against the backdrop of a depressing little town called Starling. With a writing careful and lush without being too flowery, the author deftly conjures up the magic of childhood, this ability to wonder, always. "Leave behind what … Continue reading Starling, by Kirsten Cram
Oh this longing for the morrow,This queer sorrowThat only the future can alleviate!Onward,onward looking Like a mad mad spinning wheel.The gift of the present never enough,The cloud of the past ever too close.Thirsty for more and better,Can’t stay in placeNor look over my shoulder.Is it fleeing, this fluttering race,Tottering to the unknown?Is it escaping,this foolish dreaming And … Continue reading Longing
I recently finished reading Lean on Me and felt the need to put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard.). Here is the blurb, my scattered thoughts follow. "When a flock of crows invades their shared apartment block, farmer-turned-debt collector Ludovic and fashion designer Aurore speak for the first time. With nothing but the … Continue reading Lean on Me, by Serge Joncour, translated by Jane Aitken and Louise Rogers Lalaurie
I have been following Loujain's fight for Women's Rights in Saudi Arabia for a few years now and was very excited when I heard that a book inspired by her fight and co-authored by her sister would soon be released. And not just any book, a gorgeously illustrated picture book, the most perfect medium to … Continue reading Loujain Dreams of Sunflowers, by Lina AlHathloul and Uma Mishra-Newbery, illustrated by Rebecca Green
📲I wish I didn’t depend on the pingsTo feel seen.And didn’t feel a pangWhen my phoneRemains stubbornly mute. 🎵With no joyful thrill or dingTo ornateMy long days, to hush my cloyingUnease,To answer my chirps. 💅🏾I wish I could meet noticeAnd indifference With the same swagger and self-assurance.Always serene, confident. 💯That numbers would meanNothing.That my self-esteem Would remain Stoically incommensurable. … Continue reading (Un)Seen
A jar of wondersA cup of trinketsA dash of splendor,Shut in a casket... She was a collector.Day and night she graspedAt threads of colourShades of magic. Apt To see, prone to marvellingBut never letting go.A collector I said, and so,Drunk on having Possessing, amassing,Words and flowers. Flowers she sapped of fireWords she emptied of meaning She … Continue reading Chasing Wonders
"For me, the aim of poetry is to capture the true essence of things. But Truth is difficult to catch, understand and explain. Truth is hard to embrace in one sweep. So one must go tangentially, and turn around with a laser beam. One must shed light on each side of Truth like this, with words. And little by little, from this literary exploration, an approximation of Truth emerges. That's what poetry does."
"Although it deals with difficult and sensitives topics, I laughed and had a very good time reading Concrete Rose"
It's nanowrimoBut I got no novel in me, no.Nothing new here you know,I am not versed in the long form, so... Mine are short piecesBolts of what I'd like to call brillianceIt's a jaunty decadence Of words and sounds It lacks discipline.Its cadence is jerky, uneven.How I wish I had lived and seenEnough to write, … Continue reading No novel in me
Kemy's bookshelf 