Tag: #poems

Book review posts, Uncategorized

5-star book: A Bit Much: Poems

amybenoit

This year, I’d like to post more detailed blogs about some of the books I have read and rated 5 out of 5 stars. Here is the first one.

Book: “A Bit Much: Poems” by Lyndsay Rush

About the author: comedy writer and the poet behind the popular Instagram account @maryoliversdrunkcousin

When I read this book: January 2025

Quotes that stood out to me:

From “Make Like a Tree and Love“: “Scientists have a hunch that trees can become dear friends linking roots to swap resources, bending branches back to share sunlight, shielding each other from the wind. Most of what I know about love boils down to this simple distinction: who stays, and who leaves.”

From “Code Red“: “A great philosopher once said I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes (I saw the sign). But when you see the world through rose-colored glasses, it can be hard to recognize a red flag. So, what I have learned is this: If they’re mean to the waiter, they’ll be mean to you. If they never follow through, they will never show up. If it hurts your stomach, it will hurt your heart. You can’t temper a storm, but you can sure as hell evacuate the beach.”

From “I’m Giving up for Lent“: “What would it feel like to give up self-improvement for forty days? Would the tightness in our chests, throat, shoulders, and hips ease as we contentedly took the easy way out? Would capitalism crumble if we deleted our wish lists and framed the before photo? Sounds holy, if you ask me, to be sold on life as-is, to just exist with only this, only us, only what these two arms can hold.”

From “It’s Amateur Hour Somewhere“: “Starting something new is like a one-man show for a one-man audience; the only applause worth seeking is your own. Don’t rob yourself of that while you wait for approval from somewhere else. Sometimes winning yourself over is the greatest show on earth.”

From “Almond Joys“: “Sometimes all it takes to let joy in is a little reframing. Don’t believe me? Just watch. It’s not a vending machine; it’s an arcade game you always win.”

From “I Am Not Afraid to Be Seen Trying“: “Or changing my mind. Or getting it wrong. Or freestyling instead of learning the routine. I’m not afraid of self-promotion or making a big deal out of it . . . I’m not afraid of low like counts or pissing off the algorithm of content that flops. And I’m not afraid to be cringe, or extra, or A Bit Much. Sure, there are things I’m scared of – like sharks and blond beards and talking to strangers on the phone – but of all the monsters under my bed, the only thing I truly fear is letting fear get in between me and anything I really want.”

“Reassurances to Save for a Rainy Day“: “If cauliflower can be pasta, you can be whatever you want.”

From “Top Down, Cruising in My Own Lane“: “I slip the Do Not Disturb sign onto the doorknob of my life. I’ve got important work to do: minding my own business accommodating my whims. Guarding my joy: nose buried in the story only I can tell.”

From “Wild Goose Chase“: “When your surroundings begin to feel cold and uninhabitable and your environment no longer offers the support or sustenance you need, I hope you migrate. I hope, as you make your way south, that you find other silly geese to fly with too – in such a tight-knit formation that Wikipedia would refer to your crew as plump. And I hope that no matter how long the journey takes you, the wind is always at your back; nudging you closer to home.”

There are many other essays I really enjoyed that I did not quote here. I highly recommend this book to anyone!

5 out of 5 stars

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Book review posts, Uncategorized

October 2024 Reads

amybenoit

I read six books in October, two of which were short poetry books. Here is a blurb of each of the books I read in October.

“Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World” is a Christian book written by Jennie Allen and is filled with stories, science-based insights, and practical ideas for building deep community. I had several takeaways from this book, but here are just a few.

5 out of 5 stars

“We’re all just kind of waiting for connection to find us. We’re waiting for someone else to initiate and be there for us. We’ve replaced intrusive, real conversations with small talk, and we’ve substituted soul-bearing, deep, connected living with texts and a night together every once in a while. Quit waiting for people to reach out to you. Start initiating and asking people the questions you wish they’d ask you.”

Factors to look for in friendships include availability, humility, proximity, transparency, consistency, accountability to others, and a shared purpose.

Some ideas for building friendships:

  • invite friends to bonfires
  • plan get togethers
  • intentional, active listening
  • affirm your friends
  • ask your friends about the highs and lows of their week
  • join a club
  • ask deep questions
  • listen
  • share the real stuff

“A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota” is a collection of stories of what it’s like to live as a person of color in Minnesota, was published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, and was edited by Sun Yung Shin.

4 out of 5 stars

Here are some quotes that stood out to me:

“[People] unconsciously believe you are unfit to mother your own child simply because you are a Black woman.”

“Sometimes I catch myself staring at my son, wondering what he is going to do when someone gives him a piece of paper with boxes on it and asks him to check the box saying who he is – if he is going to pause before marking “Black.” As I do. Because Black is not a race.”

“To be a Korean adoptee in Minnesota is to be both hypervisible and invisible at the same time. It means that people can tell you they don’t see you as Korean as if that is a compliment.”

“If My Flowers Bloom” is a Button Poetry book of poems by Deshara Suggs-Joe, a queer, Black poet and visual artist. These poems were about desire, and many were sexual in nature. Honestly, this book was not one I enjoyed. I have included a snippet of my favorite poem from the book.

2 out of 5 stars

“ex traction” is a Button Poetry book of poems by Lara Coley, a San Francisco poet and educator who has taught creative writing and ESL in juvenile detention centers, schools, universities, and mental health treatment centers. Lara’s poems sharply dissect love relationships, and many are abuse and loving emotionally unavailable men.

4 out of 5 stars

Here are some snippets:

“How do you love so softly, so gently, so quietly, with your hand so tightly cradled around my throat?”

“We were lying on my bed and I asked him why, in our two years together, he’d never told me he loved me. He said he didn’t need to, that everyone knew. Een Jessica knows, he said. Well, good for her, I said. Good for Jessica.”

“She is wearing your affection like a coat, tailored to fit her. I remember stretching your love around my shoulders like a misshapen shovel that would never cover any parts of me that needed warmth.”

“Never Not Working: Why the Always-On Culture is Bad for Business – and How to Fix It” was written by Malissa Clark, associate professor of industrial-organizational psychology at the University of Georgia. Malissa is also a recognized expert on the topics of workaholism, overwork, burnout, and employee well-being. I highly recommend this book and will post about it in more detail sometime.

5 out of 5 stars

This book was filled with helpful information. This book covered signs of workaholic behavior, how to counteract workaholic behavior, the main components of workaholism, specific signals of workaholic culture within an organization, overwork assessments, and questions to ask after you get a job offer. Here are some of my many take-aways.

The most direct way to figure out what’s valued in a culture isn’t to listen to what people say is important. It’s to pay attention to who gets rewarded and promoted to leadership roles. Groups elevate people who represent their principles and advance their goals.

Here are some signs of workaholic behavior:

  • rumination – always thinking about work
  • overcommitment – always taking on too much and not knowing limits
  • busyness – always doing – unstructured time feels uncomfortable
  • perfectionism – nothing is ever good enough
  • poor delegation
  • poor scoping – underestimating how long it will take to do something
  • catastrophizing

3 questions to ask after you get a job offer to learn about the culture (courtesy of Work Life with Adam Grant):

  • Tell me about something that happens here that wouldn’t happen elsewhere.
  • Tell me about a time when people didn’t walk the talk here.
  • Tell me a story about who gets hired, promoted, and fired around here.

“All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive” was written by Rainesford Stauffer, an author, journalist, and speaker. This book contained a thoughtful exploration of ambition. Although this book contained several ramblings, there were some great takeaways.

4 out of 5 stars

So many modern ideas of ambition are rooted in work-related self-development, self-improvement, and career mobility, but ambition isn’t just about work. For those of us who feel that our performance at work – or our ambition – is the most valuable, worthiest, and most significant part of us, and thus, the most important part of our lives, we lose ourselves at the center of our stories.

Two primary sources of influence of our self-concept are our childhood experiences and our evaluation by others. Evaluation is ambition’s sidekick. Ambition is often registered as achievement.

Don’t let the world place limits on your ambition. Our efforts, time, imagination, and care can be oriented toward what matters to us most deeply in the face of a world that’s screaming to-do lists at us. Ambitions can be demonstrated in your hobbies, your values, how you care for yourself, your contributions to your community and causes, your friendships, etc.

Questions to ask yourself:

  • Think about your unrésuméd self – What are the things that actually fill you up that no one cares about, or you can’t put on your resume?
  • Who came up with this aspiration? Is it my idea or something random I thought I should aspire to?
  • What resources does it take to be ambitious about this, and is it worth it?
  • What does this ambition serve? It is me, a loved one, or something I care deeply about, or just an arbitrary marker of success?
  • How can the personal definitions we have of ambition expand?

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!

Book review posts, Uncategorized

August 2024 Reads

amybenoit

I read seven books in August 2024 – the most I have read in one month since starting school this year. Here is a brief synopsis of the books I read in August, some of which I will post about in greater detail in the future.

“The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control” was written by Katherine Morgan Schafler, a psychotherapist, write, and speaker and former therapist at Google. I got SO much out of this book and my notes covered the review pages for 2 books instead of 1! This book explored types of perfectionists, lessons learned, and strategies of coping with perfectionism. I will most more about this book in the future, but for now, here are a few lessons:

  • I am mostly a classic perfectionist (and partially a Parisian perfectionist). I value structure, consistency, predictability, an understanding of all the options so as to make an informed decision, high standards, objectivity, and clarity through organization. I don’t like disorder, I have difficulty adjusting to schedule changes, and I tend to experience spontaneity as stressful. Itinerary-centered existence can rob classic perfectionists of the opportunity to grow in a way that wasn’t planned or goal-oriented.
  • Right now, with all the things you have yet to achieve, you are as worthy of all the love, joy, dignity, freedom, and connection as you would be had you already achieved them. You are worthy of all these things because you exist.
  • There are many raw manifestations of perfectionism:
    • emotional (want to experience a perfect emotional state)
    • cognitive (want to understand perfectly)
    • behavioral (want to behave perfectly in my roles and perform perfectly in my tasks)
    • object (want external thing, such as desk, hair, etc. to exist in a perfect state)
    • process (want process to begin, continue, and end perfectly)

5 out of 5 stars

“If my body could speak: poems” by Blythe Baird included poems mostly about rape and eating disorders. Here are some lines that stood out to me:

  • “If you develop an eating disorder when you are already thin to begin with, you go to the hospital. If you develop an eating disorder when you are not thin to begin with, you are a success story.”
  • “If your body could speak, would she forgive you?”
  • “One day after years of starving and gaining and fighting, I stepped on a scale and suddenly that number didn’t say anything about me…and that night nothing on my plate said anything about me either. Later, I got ice cream from a truck and I didn’t have to make myself earn it.”
  • “I found a way to heal through the poetry. The stage is the only place I could tell my story where it wasn’t a liability I was putting onto anyone. This stage is where i learned to stop hoarding my suffering.”
  • “Do not say you didn’t try. Remember: you did the best you could in the situation you were in with the materials you had.”

4 out of 5 stars

“Lessons Learned and Cherished: The Teacher Who Changed My Life” was compiled by Deborah Roberts, an award-winning ABC News journalist. This book was touching, although the stories seemed to have a specific format/agenda – nearly every essay mentioned that teachers are underpaid/underappreciated at the end of each essay.

Here are four of the lessons learned and cherished:

  • Every teacher has the potential to make a student feel connected, valued, and worthy. The greatest gift you can give is your full presence.
  • A difficult teacher can inspire you to persevere and believe in yourself. – Deborah Roberts
  • Teachers mean the world for a child’s development. Kids are not guaranteed a wonderful home base. Kids can be struggling with emotional distress or even violence, and their teachers can be the safe haven.
  • When a teacher believes in a student before they believe in themselves, they blossom. – Keri Shahidi

4 out of 5 stars

“Picturing Joy: Moments of Connection” was compiled by photographer George Lange. George’s work has appeared in many popular publications, and he has shot many of the iconic images from TV shows and ads for TV shows. This book was not quite what I expected. George shared stories of how he captured those moments. There were some great photos and interesting stories. Here are some takeaways from this book:

  • Photos are the artifacts of the experience a photographer creates. Photos reflect what he feels more than what he sees.
  • The role of a photographer is only to be hip enough to get in the room but not have to be the center of it. His approach is to create a space for people to reveal a part of themselves to him, and his intention is to find a way to put love out in the world.
  • “My time with subjects is often incredibly brief. A small window into a life I would never get to share without my camera.”

4 out of 5 stars

“To Hell With the Hustle” was written by Jefferson Bethke, the New York Times bestselling author of Jesus>Religion and It’s Not What You Think and host of The Real Life podcast. This book was not what I expected and seemed very scatterbrained, but there were some good takeaways. Here are some that resonated with me most.

  • When our work becomes who we are and we derive our ultimate value and meaning from it, it runs the risk of becoming our god – the thing we worship, bow down to, and become slaves of.
  • It’s time to stop and consider the cost of all this hustle, speed, and disillusionment. To hell with it – meaning we’re done and it comes from Hell. Jesus was never in a hurry. He was actively resisting cultural pressures on many levels. Hustle isn’t him.
  • Scripture doesn’t talk much about goals. It is focused on our identity and who we are becoming. Are we becoming more like Jesus by the practices and formations we are doing?
  • Have you ever noticed how a lot of Jesus’ miracles were not a part of his plan? They happened on his way somewhere else. You have to go at a pace that can be interrupted. That can be responsive to the moment in front of you.
  • The goal is “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” NOT “Well accomplished, my busy and hustled servant.” Well done. Faithful. If we want to get there, we have to actively resist the myriad voices and influences that subtly hypnotize us into a busier, noisier, more hustled lifestyle. Say no, that’s not the way of Jesus. That’s not the speed of Jesus. That’s not the cadence of Jesus. To hell with the hustle. I’ll take him instead.

4 out of 5 stars

“The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness” was written by Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schulz, PhD. Robert Waldinger, MD is a professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. Marc Schulz, PhD is the associate director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and a practicing therapist.

The Harvard Study of Adult Devlopment has followed the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for more than 80 years – asking thousands of questions and taking hundreds of measurements to find out what really keeps people healthy and happy. I will post more about this book in the future, but for now, here are some lessons:

  • The good life is not a destination. It is the path itself and the people who are walking it with you.
  • Good relationships keep us happier, healthier, and help us live longer.
  • An investment in our social fitness isn’t only an investment in our lives as they are now. It is an investment that will affect everything about how we live in the future. Like a tree needs water, relationships are living things and need attention and maintenance.
  • Curiosity goes a long way in relationships. It opens up avenues of conversation and knowledge and helps others feel understood and appreciated.

5 out of 5 stars

“Calling A Wolf A Wolf” consisted of poems by Kaveh Akbar. To be honest, I didn’t really like this collection. The format of the poems bothered me, and the phrases were scattered with no punctuation. Here is an example:

There were many poems about alcoholism, but the language didn’t make sense to me. Here are a few lines I liked:

What Seems Like Joy – “My father believed in gardens – delighting at burying each thing in its potential for growth. Some years the soil was so hard the water seeped down slower than the green seeped up. Still he’d say if you’re not happy in your own yard you won’t be happy anywhere.”

Portrait of the alcoholic floating in space with severed umbilicus – “I always hoped that when I died I would know why. My brother will be so sad he will tell his daughter I was better than I was. He will leave out my cruel drunk nights the wet mattresses my driving alone into cornfields unsure whether I’d drive out.”

“Now I listen for the sighs of people who love me, each agitation I create a reminder that I am less than constant in my grace.”

2 out of 5 stars

I look forward to reading, learning, and sharing more with you soon!