Listening: Explosions in the Sky – The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place
Reading: Becky Chambers – A Psalm for the Wild-Built
I have a hard time finding energy to write, or even read, when life is too much. My 2024 so far has been a lot of too much life, so I’ve been craving art that soothes. Not something innocuous or fluffy or feel-good, but a creative act of intentional softness. The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place acts as a psychological chiropractic when my soul is carrying too much tension. The beating-heart rhythm in “First Breath After Coma” loosens my spine and simultaneously quiets and awakens my brain. The instruments ease, layer by layer, into perception, like stepping into a forest that seems silent until your ears become attuned to rustling leaves, squirrel chatter, the roundly insistent peep of nuthatches, squabbling chickadees. The intensity of the post-rock soundscape rises and falls, but it leaves me feeling like I’ve been somewhere that can hold everything that’s happening.
Pair this sonic experience with A Psalm for the Wild-Built. A book for discontent dreamers, seekers, philosophers, mystics—and anyone who feels in their bones that they would follow Sibling Dex out of the city into the unknown wilderness for a chance to hear true cricket song. The first book in the Monk and Robot series introduces tender characters who follow their instincts without understanding why, and gently explores a post-crisis world through them. Chambers imagines humans have become the best version of themselves. Nothing that happens is too easy, nothing too hard, but the story moves through questions about humanity that are oh-so-familiar and doesn’t feel the need to answer them fully. It's literary respite, a reminder to dream of futures with effortless inclusion, with deep and caring interconnectedness. But with enough cussing and humor to avoid being saccharine.
— Jessica Coles (she/her) is a poet from Edmonton, Alberta (Treaty 6). Her work has appeared in Prairie Fire, Moist Poetry Journal, EcoTheo Review, Stone Circle Review, League of Canadian Poets — Fresh Voices/Poetry Pause, CV2, and elsewhere. She has two chapbooks available through Prairie Vixen Press (prairievixenpress.ca).
You can find Jessica Coles’s poetry in Issue 299 Spring 2024. Order the issue now:
Order Issue 299 - Spring 2024 (Canadian Addresses)
Order Issue 299 - Spring 2024 (International Addresses
