Tag: chapbook

A Little Writerly Life Update

~ Brooke F. ~ Leave a comment

Tennessee weather is so unpredictable. Last week there was a chance of snow, this week it feels mid fall. Not that I’m complaining about the 60-70-ish degree weather. It’s a rather nice break from the grey I’ve been dealing with most of January.

It’s weird to think that it’s already almost March. 2023 felt like it ended just yesterday and suddenly we’re almost 3 months in. I hear that’s a sign you’re getting old but if that’s true, then please don’t tell me and allow me to live in blissful, timeless ignorance.

Hope you all have been doing well and that 2024 (that year still doesn’t feel real) is treating you well! I just thought it would be fun to do a nice little writerly life update seeing as I have a few matters to discuss and update the wide web on. I know you’re all waiting with baited breath.

First order of business, I’ve been working on a chapbook! It’s been in the making since last fall semester of 2023 and I finally am pulling all the pieces together. It’s a combination of everything I enjoy- poetry, science, stainglass windows, and angsty little musings about how I’ve poured money into an education and yet, on the cusp of my senior year, I still feel clueless. Yaknow. The standard stuff. A little sneak peak page can be seen below:

I hope to enter a chapbook contest and submit it for online publishing but we’ll see where this little project takes me. It was loads of fun to work on and I can’t wait to see what I end up doing with it whether its publish it or set it on fire. What matters is I am essentially done!

Second order of business, I am taking all writing classes this semester! I just need to finish up my silly little writing minor so I’m taking The Creative Market Place as well as Short stories and Fiction. Oh, and walking. Yes, I am taking a walking class. I needed the credit.

The Creative Market Place is a cool class where I get a little bit more insight on the business side of being a writer. We recently finished up a peer review workshop where we critiqued each other’s papers and reviewed books. Generally workshops can be a source of stress because I want to sit down and write a thorough and extensive feedback paper for each piece but, alas, time is not always on my side. Not to mention the fun of sharing your work to a class room. I was surprised to find that, ironically, sharing my overly angsty, corny poems doesn’t bother me in a class room setting but writing something semi-professional is. I think I just have to try extra hard to be professional and the poetry thing is just kind of fun. So when my professional review sucks, that’s a little more of a blow to my writer ego (something’s gotta keep it in check).

Short stories in fiction is both wonderful and awful. I’m having to fight against my long-winded tendency to describe everything in a room and what every single skin cell looks like on a character. I blame my consumption of Tolkien literature I think.

Final order of business, I am figuring out what I am doing with my life. This has proved to be a most arduous task and I still haven’t quite completed it. Most days I find myself torn between the two moods of “Yay! I’m almost done with school!” and “Oh no, I’m almost done with school!”. I’m not entirely sure what the future has in store for me with a bio degree and a creative writing minor. I am not entirely certain whether this writing thing will just be a brainless little hobby that I do when come home from a long day working at a lab or if it will actually be a part of my professional life. I guess it’s just whatever doors God chooses to open. So, with this in mind, I’m trying not to spontaneously melt from the stress. I know it’ll all turn out alright. All my college seniors out there know the feeling I’m sure.

And that’s it! Or all the important stuff at any rate. Thanks for taking the time to read my existential crisis about my quickly approaching future. Feel free to share any anxiety tips in the comments below and take care!

Nature, Childhood, and Brood

~ Brooke F. ~ Leave a comment

Childhood. It is something that is near all our hearts. I am sure many of us can recall summers spent outdoors. Bare are feet skimming the soft grass. The scent of freshly cut grass. The distant hum of cicadas. Fireflies blinking and winking at us from the dark. Fresh air that zips past us as we run and play and enjoy nature and childhood freedom.

Nature and childhood is often something that is connected in our minds, whether we realize it or not. It is this connection that Kimiko Hahn taps into in her chapbook titled “Brood”.  She explores this connection through a series of poems giving us a full sense of her childhood and nostalgia.

Hahn is a seasoned poet who is the author of a whopping 10 poetry books. This includes but it not limited to Foreign Bodies (W. W. Norton, 2020), Brain Fever (Norton, 2014), Toxic Flora (Norton, 2010), The Unbearable Heart (Kaya, 1996) which was the winner of the American Book Award, and Earshot (Hanging Loose Press, 1992), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and an Association of Asian American Studies Literature Award. Science and nature are common themes in her work and this chapbook is no exception when it comes to this.

Hahn grew up in New York and Tokyo. It makes one wonder if these urban backdrops caused her mind to wonder to what little nature there was in her childhood. Her chapbook “Brood” even opens with a little snapshot of a Damselfly caught in a web.

“When you spot a damselfly

Caught in a spider’s thread

Blow gently…”

Early on, Hahn draws our attention to the delicate and intricacies of nature. But, these pictures are also contrasted with humanity and the modern. One such poem titled “Folding Fan Advertising Kikkoman Soy Sauce” exemplifies this while also introducing us to a memory and a person who has passed.

“My kindergarten handprint in clay! Pearls! But you never belonged to me. I’m not sure I care, odd ephemera in the debris of my father’s home.”

She does the same in the following poem titled “Noise”.

“The neighbors teething baby wails, a grating cranks shut, a woman calls out, a man shouts back, the sanitation truck pulls to the curb with engine, men, and suction…”

Overall, this contrast between nature and the modern creates a well-rounded experience as Hahn delves into feelings of loss, nostalgia, and family. Hahn masterfully weaves these thoughts and ideas together to give us a colorful picture of childhood and her specific upraising. It is just a small peak as the works are often brief, but they are rich with vivid imagery and beautiful scenes that pull us in from the first sentence.

Pssst! Hey! Thanks for reading! This post is a bit different from my usual blog posts but I read this chapbook and did a review on it for school so I wanted to share. I not only got to pick the book but I found it was fun to share my thoughts. If you’re into poetry, definitely check out Kimiko’s work!