khetsia's reviews
136 reviews

4.5: some deterministic/religious bits weren’t my cup of tea, but overall it simply reaffirmed my love for friendships, true friendships

Here are some extra gems

“Friendship is the strong and habitual
inclination in two persons
to promote the good and happiness
of one another.” (Eustace Budgell)

“Begin a friendship with
a blank canvas.
Imagine the possibilities and
wonders waiting to be discovered.
Sketch your hopes and dreams.
Paint brushstrokes of colorful
moments and memories.
Frame it with unconditional
love and concern.
It will surely be a masterpiece
for all to admire.”

“A friend is like an angel who
has earned its wings but still
chooses to stay on Earth
just to be near you,
guiding you in your ways, and
blessing your days.”

“Only when you are alone do you
fully realize the everlasting
joys of friendship.
It is in those solitary moments when
a friend seems to be at the heart
of your yearning.”

“A friend is like an angel who
has earned its wings but still
chooses to stay on Earth
just to be near you,
guiding you in your ways, and
blessing your days.”

“If you want to be inspired
If you want to be affirmed
If you want to be strengthened
If you want to be renewed
Then you must do no more than to
seek refuge in a friend.”

“Take a walk in the woods and listen.
Do you hear the birds chirping?
Do you hear the squirrel scamper
through the trees?
Do you hear the water trickle
over the slippery stones?
Do you hear the wind calling
your name?
Nature is inviting you to
be its friend.”

But yeah still convinced that “Friendship is the highest degree of perfection in society.” (Michel de La Montaigne)

3.5/5: pretty good but wouldn’t necessarily recommend (even if one was interested in poetry and photographs from ww1, I feel like a google search would suffice)

Good points: inclusion of poems from women and of one poem from a foreign soldier (someone who’s home was colonized by the same people he was now risking his life for); allowed me to discover a new WW1 poet to look into (Siegfried Sassoon); the photographs allowed for an immersive experience (life in combat, in the trenches, life amongst women back “Home”)

Not so good points: was looking for more heart wrenching poems, the best poems included I was already familiar with (Wilfred Owen’s works), would have preferred very intimate looks at war rather than a bunch of poems saying in different words that “war is bad” (didn’t looove the approach Waters took when selecting the poems though in the end I am happy with the many gems I found!

Relied way too much on stereotypes for my taste!

NO! NO! NO!

except for this poem:

read it AFTER listening to the song of the same title as interpreted by Nina Simone (imo, Billie Holiday’s version is CRIMINAL in comparison!!!)

Strange Fruit

I was out in the early evening, taking a walk in the felds to chink about chis
poem I was writing, or walking to the store for a pack of cigarettes, a
pound of bacon. How quickly I smelled evil, then saw the hooded sheets ride
up in the not yet darkness, in the dusk carrying the moon, in the dust behind
my tracks. Last night there were crosses burning in my dreams, and the day
before a black cat stood in the middle of the road with a ghost riding its
back. Something knocked on the window at midnight. My lover told me:

Shush, we have too many stories to carry on our backs like houses, we have
struggled too long to let the monsters steal our sleep, sleep, go to sleep,
But I never woke up. Dogs have been nipping at my heels since I learned to
walk. I was taught to not dance for a rotten supper on the plates of my
enemies. My mother taught me well.

I have not been unkind to the dead, nor have I been stingy with the living. I
have not been with anyone else's husband, or anyone else's wife. I need a
song. I need a cigarette. I want to squeeze my baby's legs, see her turn into
a woman just like me. I want to dance under the full moon, or in the early
morning on my lover's lap.

See this scar under my arm. It's from tripping over a rope when I was small,
I was always a little clumsy. And my long, lean feet like my mother's have
known where to take me, to where the sweet things grow. Some grow on
trees, and some grow in other places.

But not this tree.

I didn't do anything wrong. I did not steal from your mother. My brother did
not take your wife. I did not break into your home, tell you how to live or
die. Please. Go away, hooded ghosts from hell on earth. I only want heaven
in my baby's arms, my baby's arms. Down the road through the trees lye
the kitchen light on and my lover fixing supper, the baby fussing for her
milk, waiting for me to come home. The moon hangs from the sky likea
swollen fruit.

My feet betray me, dance anyway from this killing tree.

Foot notes
1. The title is from a song by Lewis Allan, often sung by Billie Holiday.
2. For Jacqueline Peters, a vital writer, activist in her early thirties, who was lynched in Lafayette, California, in June 1986. She had been working to start a local NAACP chapter, in response to the lynching of a twenty-three-year-old black man, Timothy Lee, in November I985, when she was hanged in an olive tree by the Ku Klux Klan.