The Assemblage Newsletter #73
Welcome to this week’s newsletter from Assemblage. These newsletters usually go out every Friday to highlight some of the top works from the past week. We hope these links (all friend links, so anyone can view them) find you wandering your way into spring.
“It is so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done.” — Matthew Arnold
Spring is here tomorrow. Are you going to take the opportunity to live, love, think, and do? Say yes.
Featured Writer
Each week we feature one of our writers and up to six of their essays or poems on the homepage underneath the Featured Essays and Featured Poems sections. This week our Featured Writer is Shannon Mastromonico. Shannon lives in a forest on a mountain. Read 6 of her poems on our homepage this week.
Collection
Collections are groupings of essays or poems with an overall theme. You can find Collections on the home page underneath the Featured Stories, Featured Poetry, and Featured Writer sections.
On Happiness features 12 different works from 12 different writers all with happiness in mind and words. 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.
On Happiness features one work each from Bradley J Nordell, Gillian Sisley, Russ W, Pandora Domeyko, Niki Marinis, Ashley Walker, Lance Baker, Jonathan Greene, Lauren Josephine, Sana Rose, Tania Caan, and Megan Minutillo.
Essays and Poems From Last Week
“I’ve sunk into life
a day on repeat
a steady sameness
that is both a light caress
and a sharp dagger”
I Will Take Care of Her by Dave Roberts
“You can simply add what resonates with you to expand and/or enhance your belief system. I am also convinced that the integration of different perspectives helps us more effectively navigate the life-altering challenges that we are sure to experience.”
“a rhapsody of each note undressing the tedious day,
unveiling the extrinsic night,
in a whimsical ritual to open portals
collapsed within uncomplicated sixty-minute intervals of time.”
This is What Existentialism Feels Like by Jasmine Freeman
“It’s dynamic. It refines itself alongside me. The more I learn, the more I grow, the more I change shape — it follows suit. It always fits me, like a transparent skin, wrapping around my every contour and bend. It’s never obsolete.”
Drink From a Deeper Well by Deborah McNamara
“Here, drink deep
and go deeper still
for there is always more.”
My Transphobic Brother Discovered I’m Trans by Cassius Corbin
“I sat there in silence for a bit as I listened to this man — who had just been baptized minutes before — rage on a heavily disadvantaged community he didn’t yet know I am a part of.”
What Are You Seeking From This Life? by Megan Minutillo
“Perhaps what you seek is everything you can hold,
and everything you cannot,
and everything in between.”
Weekly Note
“I am going to notice the lights of the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars, the lights of our candles as we march, the lights with which spring teases us, the light that is already present.” — Anne Lamott
Open your eyes starting tomorrow. Keep them open. And allow yourself to take it all in.
