Media
(that inspires me, or that I find particularly resonant.)
Best Shadows - Kaveh Akbar
I wish you were here so I could bend a mirror
around your face, pour you back into you.
A poem I found in summer 2025. I still haven't read the collection, but I very much want to. There's so much of this poem that I love - how erratic and disjointed it feels, the questions, the theme of absence. Any media that references rivers and water is immediately close to my heart, and this is no exception; it brings to mind a specific spot on the Thames so vividly that I'm tempted to embed a picture of it here.
Book of Hours - Rainer Maria Rilke
You said live out loud, and die you said lightly,
and over and over again you said be.
I can't remember exactly how I stumbled upon Rilke's Book of Hours (Das Studen-Buch) in 2024, but reading it now, it feels like it perfectly matched my intuitive experiences of faith at the time. I initially (and only somewhat successfully) read the text in German and translated it to English myself with the help of many dictionaries, and have lately been returning to it via Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy's translation. I love the mysticism and intimacy of these poems, and how exploratory and contemplative they feel.