Body Composition reading list
new & old favorites
I’ve been so busy with SARKA (we’re preparing to open novel manuscript submissions on June 1) and getting ready for a trip to Paris to read with Revue Transat that I haven’t had much time to write, but my friend Nicolette (author of ) suggested I put together a list of book recommendations, so here it is: my “classics” as well as new favorites, in no particular order.
A Bad Girl’s Book of Animals by Wong May
“I’ll not leap / the full length of / my chain to you. / I’ll sit counting links / like a miser his gold”
“The brain began to mistrust the body, it accused it of being ugly and undependable; it denied it by carefully covering its nakedness even in summer, not even allowing bare arms to be seen by strangers. The body revolted in illness against the imposed lack of freedom, or, as soon as the tired or intoxicated brain slackened its attention, took revenge with unpredictable outbursts that brought nothing but sterner supervision. The impulses from body and brain to a third being within her, which Rosalind was inclined to call soul, were so disparate that Rosalind often believed she would have to divide herself in two if she were not to go mad.”
Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq
“If all men are pigs, then what can a woman do but turn into a sow.”
“so come eat a cuttlefish at our table but afterwards I want you to fuck me the way I deserve”
Little Book of Meat by Selima Hill
“My nipples tick / like little bombs of blood. / Someone is walking / in the yard outside. / I don’t know why / Our Lord was crucified. / A really good fuck / makes me feel like custard.”
“Once it has shown itself unwilling to be free, you can treat that dog how you like: it won’t run away.”
Trouble in Mind by Lucie Brock-Broido
“I was a hunger artist once, as well. / My bones had shone. / I had had rapture on my side.”
What Are You by
“So alone, so alone, you say - you’re so so alone. I wonder if you remember that I once loved you, you and only you, with all the force of me, and you threw me away. You are the logical conclusion of you.”
“He told me the story of Paolo and Francesca. For all eternity, said Franz, they are condemned to fly through hell chased and pushed by violent gusts of wind. But they don’t let go of each other. Despite the torments of hell, they never cease loving each other. Animals don’t go to hell, said I.”
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai
“God killed me, and only after He had made me into someone else entirely different from the person I had been, did he call me back to life.”
“Perhaps because nothing in this situation encourages the basic narrative assumption, which is that the past is prologue to the present, the options remain open here. Anything could happen.”
The Joy and Terror are Both in the Swallowing by Christine Shan Shan Hou
“A prison is a / prison and the beginning / of my love for you”
Collected Poems by C.P. Cavafy
“Even if you can’t make your life as you want it, / at least try / as much as you can: don’t cheapen it / with too much contact with the world, / with too much activity and talk.”
Selected Poems by Yiannis Ritsos
“Night arrives / speechless / with her hands under her armpits / immersed in our fear’s dimness. / All suspicions are realized. / Darkness hides nothing. / A bat came through the window. / This has no meaning.”
Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq
“the permanent look of panic that the chickens gave you, that look of panic and incomprehension; they didn’t ask for pity, they wouldn’t have been capable of it, but they didn’t understand, they didn’t understand the conditions in which they had been called upon to live.”
Loose Woman by Sandra Cisneros
“My neck is thin / You could cup / it with one hand / Yank the life from me / if you wanted / I’ve cut my hair / You can’t tug / my hair anymore / A jet of black / through the fingers now / Your hands cool / along the jaw”
In the Margins by Elena Ferrante
“Beautiful writing becomes beautiful when it loses its harmony and has the desperate power of the ugly. And characters? I feel they are false when they exhibit clear coherence and I become passionate about them when they say one thing and do the opposite. ‘Fair is foul and foul is fair,’ say those extraordinary narrators who are the witches in Macbeth as they prepare to hover through the fog and filthy air.”
“May you not go around the world looking to fill what you fear you lack with the flesh of another human being.”
“Touch me on the inside part and call my name.”
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami
“If the love is true, then treat it the same way you would plant - feed it, protect it from the elements - you must do absolutely everything you can. But if it isn't true, then it's best to just let it wither on the vine.”
Path of Totality by Niina Pollari
“Every day brings a new tyranny. / I’m on my knees, just like the devil said.”
“The Monster: I’m sorry. The Monster: Steph. Don’t, I say out loud. Do not. The Monster: It goes without saying that I love you. Does it? I wonder. Go without saying? The Monster: Please.”
“I had a body and it was good / until you gave it meaning. / Meaning ruined pleasure / and created it / so ruin creates / and pleasure’s meaning”
The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
“Your head is what I remember that August / you were in love with another woman but / that didn't matter. I was the fury of your bones, your fingers long and nubby, your / forehead a beacon”
Poems of Akhmatova by Anna Akhmatova
“Wild honey has a scent – of freedom / Dust – a scent of sunshine / And a girl’s mouth – of violets. / But gold – nothing. / Water – like mignonette. / And like apple – love. / But we have learned that / blood smells only of blood.”
The Sacraments of Desire by Linda Gregg
“The polar bear hasn’t eaten since November / the television says . . . She rolls over / on her back and slides a little more.”
The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg
“Our dreams are never realized and as soon as we see them betrayed we realize that the intensest joys of our life have nothing to do with reality. No sooner do we see them betrayed than we are consumed with regret for the time when they glowed within us. And in this succession of hopes and regrets our life slips by.”
Selected Poems by Lucille Clifton
“now i watch myself whenever i enter a room. / i never know what i might do.”
The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa edited and translated by Robert Hass
“In this world / We walk on the roof of hell / Gazing at flowers”
Selected Poems by Kiki Dimoula
“Lord, could it be when you approved / these merciless contradictory psalms / you were still a man?”
“Are you hoping that one day she’ll stop acting and love you as herself forever? You might as well give that idea up. A mother doesn’t give that part up until God yells ‘Cut!’ Neither does a junkie. Neither does an actress. The hope you all have that women will act differently - somewhere, somehow - is just that: your hope. Actresses are themselves, if only they had one. Women are themselves,if only they could stop acting.”
I’m sure I’m forgetting so many books I love - expect new iterations of this list in the future. I’m working on my next Body Composition essay; in the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram @fmkrit to keep up with my trip to Paris and other projects. And you can email me some poems (send 3-5 poems and a biographical statement to fmkrit@gmail.com) if you want your writing to be considered as the subject of a future newsletter. Thank you for reading!