#MatteredToMe - July 3, 2020: Basic Needs

Hello, it's Friday. Here are some things that mattered to me recently.

1. Vanessa Jimenez Gabb's poem "Basic Needs" feels like the ocean to me. The repetition of the 10th and 11th lines like waves. How it builds quietly and then in the last few lines breaks open. Every time I come back to it, I end up re-reading it 5 or 6 times.
2. Tressie McMillan Cottom wrote about class and consumption and how these inform whiteness's sense of itself, and how being forced into awareness of itself fuels the meltdowns we are seeing.
3. Keah Brown wrote about living unapologetically as a Black, disabled woman, and about joy as a revolutionary act.
4. Finally, Brandon Taylor's latest short story, "Even If All Fall Away, I Will Not," which is by turns melancholy and infuriating and sexy. And how Brandon creates a character whose apparent passivity is not what it seems, it's incredible.

As always, this is just a portion of what mattered to me recently. Please be safe. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.

Thank you.

-Mike