The Assemblage Letter #79
Horizon
Welcome to this week’s newsletter from Assemblage. These newsletters go out every Friday to highlight some of our top essays from the past week. As always, these are all friend links, so anyone can view them. Please click through on the ones that resonate and read the whole essay.
“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” — Christopher McCandless
Assemblage is now an essay-only publication, with all of our poetry being published at Loose Words, but we will continue to feature published poetry here from our archives.
Featured Writer
Each week we feature one of our writers and several of their essays (or past poems) on the homepage underneath the Featured Essays, Featured Poems, and Notes From the Editor sections. This week our Featured Writer is Jeff Barton. Jeff is a dad, runner, and author who writes about life, mental health, and running. He is starting life over, one day at a time.
Collection
Collections are groupings of essays or past poems with an overall theme. You can find Collections on the homepage underneath the Highlighted Essays, Highlighted Past Poems, Notes From the Editor, and Featured Writer sections.
Childhood features 8 different works from 8 different writers around this theme. This section is a great way to get acquainted with multiple works around one theme, as well as to find writers you haven’t read before or ones you shouldn’t miss. Take a look at our Collection this week and see what you may have missed.
Childhood features one work each from Lisa Alletson, Em Unravelling, Jessica Lee McMillan, Chloe Cuthbert, Jonathan Greene, Lance Baker, Arlene Ambrose, and Amy Rose.
Highlighted Essays From Last Week
The Swan Song of Dating in My 40s by Bonnie Barton
“The guy who said he realized he looked like Seth Rogan but identified as Paul Rudd. His actions proved he’s Seth Rogan. I want a refund.
The guy who said I was the woman of his dreams. Then ghosted me before we even met.”
In Tribute to Desmond Tutu by Greg Frankson
“He challenged all of us to embrace the challenge of social change when we returned home to our respective countries. He told us that we were the future of the planet and that it was up to us to embrace that reality. He said that he believed in us — that we could create a better future for the entire planet.”
Secrets of A Happy Marriage by Megan Minutillo
“If you watch them, though, it feels like something more profound. My parents are two best friends who are in love — they are one another’s home and most excellent adventure. They gently nudge one another to be their best selves. They wake up each day and choose one another.”
This One Quote Will Save the World by Iva Ursano
“The funny thing about that is that many of us are super passionate about some of the shit we know. So much so, that we think it’s 100% right without a shadow of a doubt and will stand our ground no matter what. Even if we’re wrong.
Aaaaaaaaand this is where the trouble starts.”
Highlighted Past Poems
Our highlighted past poems are a weekly homage on our homepage to our poets who wrote for us when we still published poetry at Assemblage. Although we are essay-only now, we love to feature a round-up of past poems for our readers. This week we have poems from Blithe Anderson, Zach J. Payne, Jay Sizemore, Dennett, and Caitlin Kratz.
Today is the best day to take a long look out at the horizon to realize how small you are, but also to realize how much more you can do by just being here.
“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
