"Safe Metamorphosis!!"

This book is Otis Mensah's debut collection, which I've just re-read (that link goes back to my original post from first reading) to see if it still slaps, and it does. One notable change in the intervening years is that my copy is of his self-published first edition, which is no longer available anywhere, but the book has since been properly formally published (available here) in a new expanded version, which presumably means if you buy a copy of the newer edition it'll potentially have new stuff in it & so will almost certainly slap even harder.

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This book is Jonathan Kinsman's debut poetry pamphlet - this was a re-read (check out the link at the start of this for my original post about it*) to see if it still rocks, and it roundedly soundedly does.

* The only thing I would necessarily add to that original post is that Kinsman is no longer the host of the Guerrilla spoken word night, I am, having been handed the baton at the start of 2019, but regular readers of this blog (who am I kidding) will already know that.

Jesus the Son of Man

This book by Kahlil Gibran was an absolute treat. Having re-read his most famous work last night, I became curious about his other stuff and found this for 73p on Kindle, so immediately bumped it to the top of my to-read list - and I have not been disappointed.

   It's difficult to decide whether to classify this as poetry or short stories given the style & nature of the content. Basically what the book is constituted of is several dozen vignettes of various people's reactions to, recollections of, and reflections on Jesus of Nazareth; these range from his disciples (eg. James & John, Matthew, Peter, Thomas, Mary Magdalene gets three separate chapters alone) to his erstwhile foes (most notably the high priests Annas & Caiaphas, and Pontius Pilate) to random strangers (eg. a Persian philosopher, a Babylonian astronomer, a Greek poet, and my personal favourite "Ahaz the portly").* The attitudes presented range from worshipful awe to confusion to hostility - there is even one interestingly neutral perspective. Gibran seeks to tread the known and possible ground of the biblically-orthodox Jesus faithfully, making no theological points but as a work of socio-historical imagination driving home the pressing question - "how would you have related to him?"**

   A very readable, vibrant & faithful book. Highly recommended for those curious about what we can say or imagine about Jesus without resorting to outright fancy, be they Christian like Kahlil Gibran was or not.

* A couple of lacunae I would have liked to have seen filled would be Pharisees and the beneficiaries of his miracles, lepers & cripples & demoniacs etc, but I suppose you can't have everything, and admittedly Gibran is already doing a great deal here.

** Indeed, the final chapter, "a man from Lebanon [nineteen centuries later]" is Gibran's own reflections on meeting Jesus himself through the life of faith.

the Prophet

This book is the most famous work by Kahlil Gibran - I've read it for this blog before, hence the shortness of this post: that link goes back to my original post about it as I don't really have anything to add to what I said there* so go read that if you want to know about this brilliantly-wise & beautifully-written poetic work.

* Except one thing - the edition I read last time was a stolen Everyman hardback which since, in somewhat neat circularity, has been stolen from me (well, I lent it to someone, I forget who, but they kept it) so this time was reading my replacement, a fairly unattractively-formatted paperback with Gibran's own artwork interspersed with the sections, though I'll admit this didn't add much to the reading experience. I'd be interested to see his artwork in person, mind, as I'm sure it's a lot more impressive when it's not an A5 black&white copy.

What is Enlightenment?

This essay by Immanuel Kant, written in 1784 at the height of the Enlightenment, is the most famous answer provided to Zöllner's open question of what was going on. It's very short (seven pages, six if you don't care about footnotes) and can be summed up with its opening quote - "Enlightenment is mankind’s exit from its self-incurred immaturity," said immaturity being the inability to use one's own reason to move meaningfully through the world without the guidance of others.* Such an exit occurs when people are granted intellectual & spiritual freedom, though Kant also brings this into dialogue with obedience to the law, making the somewhat perplexing point that "a lesser degree of civil freedom... creates the room for spiritual freedom to spread to its full capacity." Historically this is a very influential essay, and certainly roundedly answers its title question, but if you're genuinely interested in seeing the answer unpacked I would instead recommend you read Fichte's The Vocation of the Scholar, which treads very similar ground but with much more useful & insightful depth.

* Concerningly I think there is a good case to be made that as of the 2020s we are entering a period of disenlightenment, in which independent "mature" thinking persons are increasingly outsourcing their own critical reasoning skills to the likes of ChatGPT... but that's a whole 'nother thing I won't pick apart thoroughly here.

the Monsters and the Critics

This essay (available for free online from that link) by J.R.R. Tolkien* is arguably the landmark work in scholarship on Beowulf, the most famous surviving example of Old English poetic diction and potentially fragment of insight into pre-Christian English mythology. As such, it has been poked & picked at by academics for centuries, digging for clues into this large blank space in our historical memory - but, argues the Professor, in doing so, we have neglected, to our loss, to consider how to & why should we approach & appreciate Beowulf as what it is - a poem, to be enjoyed. I won't provide a summary of his arguments here or give much reflection on it as everything I would be likely to say has been articulated excellently by Gavin the medievalist on YouTube, so check that out - but if you're interested in seeing how Tolkien's mind worked on an academic** rather than creative level, this essay is essential reading; if you're interested in Old English culture and literature & somehow haven't read this essay where the heck have you been - and in any case it will certainly give you much food for thought in how we are to understand (and enjoy!) texts from distant times. For an academic essay it's incredibly readable*** and rather short (I finished the whole thing in a ninety-minute sitting) so go have a look.

* People remember him for his hobby, which was writing his own mythology, but often fail to remember him for his job, which was teaching about the history of language and literature - his essay on fairy-stories is another great example of his powerful scholarship, and is just as readable as this one.

** The appendix is much more linguistics-focused and digs into technical specifics rather than more readably making a broader argument, but I loved them for the depth of rigour Tolkien showed in his passion for the scholarship.

*** Not surprising for a writer of Tolkien's calibre: I particularly loved his early allegory (and yes, while he cordially disliked the form didn't mean he couldn't write a damn good one when called to) of the man who built a tower out of old stones.

the Birth of Nothing

This book is a dystopian novel by Pavel Marek, and was far more intensively full of thought-provoking ideas & discourse than I was prepared for it to be. We follow Casimir, a young man whose dissatisfaction with the approaching-perfect world around him manifests in something of a rebellious streak. But is there any need for his dissent? I don't want to give away much about the plot - but the book elusively & definitively resists answering that question: Casimir's feelings about the world & the new revolutionary structures of the world itself play in a brilliant complex dialogue that raises some incredibly interesting & unique questions about truth, freedom, equality, tolerance, well-being, and more. Anyone interested in political perfectionism & what this can look or feel like will get a lot out of this novel, I guarantee.

Project Öcalan

This (available on my Google Drive from that link) is my Masters dissertation on Kurdistan; I decided to give it a re-read given recent events in Iran. Some day, when there's more to say & I regain access to academic libraries & journals, I'd like to be able to update & expand it, but for now I still think it holds up as a portrait of a highly-complex geopolitical issue.

Let Them Eat Chaos

This book by Kae Tempest is a masterful work of commentary poetry, and I would highly recommend reading it aloud to yourself if you can as it was written to be performed as live spoken word. The above link goes back to my post about this from the first time I read it as I don't really have anything to add.

Howl, Kaddish & other poems

This book by Allen Ginsberg is one I've read before on this blog, hence the link going back to the first post about it as I really don't have anything to add. I read it with a bottle of wine & treated myself to doing the especially good bits aloud, a diversion I can highly recommend.