Junk Journal Week Four

Some people rave about washi tape; today's page is only my second attempt. Any reactions? How have you used washi tape? Any suggestions for things I might try?

About the books.

Poets in Their Youth is a memoir published in the early 80s that Time Magazine called one of the best books of the decade. As they say: "The author recalls her first husband, John Berryman, and his friends, among them, Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell and Delmore Schwartz, men who left behind some splendid poems and some sad histories of alcoholism, despair and suicide. But here they are young and joyful amid the possibilities of words, ignorant of the sadnesses that await them all." Simpson's book inspired me to return to all of these confessional poets.

Eb & Flow is a middle grade novel about two middle schoolers each serving a ten day suspension for fighting at school. One of the most impressive children's novels I have read in the last year.

I spent weeks, if not months, reading W. Somerset Maugham's stories, one story at a time. Very few people read him anymore, but Maugham was the best compensated writer in the world in the early twentieth century. Like other writers from a bygone era, yes, there are some issues -- he seems to occasionally uphold British and white superiority, and he occasionally lapses into cliche -- but, on the whole, his stories are worth reading.

Marie Helene-Bertino's Beautyland is something of an experimental novel about the life of a girl/woman who sends faxes back to her extraterrestrial relatives. However, it is also a touching story of a young Philadelphia woman who is a bit baffled by the challenges of trying to fit in and find meaning in life's. At times the book felt like a touching memoir.