The Assemblage Letter #81
Self-Awareness
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 goal of art was the vital expression of self.” — Alfred Stieglitz
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 Bonnie Barton. Bonnie is the queen of mixtapes, a lover of music, travel, and fashion, and an authentic sharer of life lessons and dating foibles.
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.
Self-Awareness 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.
Self-Awareness features one work each from Florence Wanjiku, Simran Kankas, Jonathan Greene, Carrie Wynn, Anna I. Smith, Vanessa Torre, Iva Ursano, and Melissa Kerman.
Highlighted Essays From Last Week
Why Is It That the Farther I Go, the More I Feel at Home? by Oswald Kyrre
“For most, “home” is equal to “family,” and there is nothing more calming than returning to your family at the end of a hard day. After all, the world is vast, and nature is a cruel mistress. No one can weather the storm continuously without ever taking shelter.”
Fading Memories by Jonathan Greene
“Fading memories dot the path that I walk on and it scares me to think that one day my children will have fading memories of me. It’s not like I am young anymore. I am over the hill, past the midpoint, and decidedly creaky and in need of oil like the Tin Man. I wonder if you remember me as I remember you. I wonder if your memories of me were erased when you left me. I hope not.”
I Wish We Could See Summary Statistics of Our Lives by Lauren Josephine
“It’s the not knowing for sure what the sum is of anything in your life because it’s the not knowing that compels that frustratingly insatiable urge to drag our weary legs out of bed each morning. To walk us into the new day, basket in hand, hungry to collect all of the minutes, moments, and sandwiches still out there for us to devour.”
Baby Showers In The Time Of COVID by Megan Minutillo
“It’s about seeing the joy of the love that surrounds you and your baby-to-be long before they enter into this world. It’s about celebrating the life you are leading and bracing yourself for how it will soon change.”
Why Snooping Makes You Crazy by Niki Marinis
“If you truly feel you have something to worry about and feel completely justified in rummaging around in his things, maybe it’s time to reevaluate your relationship.”
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 Jessica Lee McMillan, Connie Song, Jessica Lovejoy, Thomas Plummer, and Caitlin Kratz.
“Despite the natural belittling of one’s self, the doubts, the insecurities, we have to wake up to the realisation that we all write our own autobiography, we are the authors of our life story. Realising that, write a good story with your life and make sure to write yourself as the protagonist. Be the hero of your journey.” — Yossi Ghinsberg
What story are you going to write this year?
