connection
- queer futurism- epic theatre
- social mythologies
- fragmentary poetics
- non-linear storytelling
Virginia Woolf
- Navigating a very human emotionality in fiction that balances poeticism, wit, and intentional death and love symbolisms.
“Cruising Utopia; the Then & There of Queer Futurity”
- Understanding queerness as something that we have not yet reached, reaching for spiritual identity movements rather than commercial ones.
“Circe”
- Creating one’s identity in intentional solitude, learning the independence wrought by strong femininity, learning love of self through flawed love of romantic Other.
“Are Prisons Obsolete?”
- Book written by Angela Davis
- Imagining a future that truly engages in community care and mutual aid, tracing the experience of oppressed peoples to emphasize the importance of prison and police abolition.
Tarot Cards & Reading
- Specifically Temperance and The Hermit
- Emphasizing larger spiritual knowing through intentional symbolisms, trusting in the given path to provide the self with the knowledge that it needs.
Plato
- Works include The Symposium, Apology, Phaedo
- Analyzing humanity through the lens of truth, historically placing value on the universal understanding of your fellow man.
“The Inoperative Community”
- Book written by Jean-Luc Nancy
- Reimagining the Western understanding of community by considering myth, individuality, and the roles of literature and love in true but fragmentary togetherness.
“The Baby”
- Album by Samia
- Tracing a vision of a woman in her 20s through imagery that feels raw and unafraid, experimenting across genres and instrumentation to create youthful community through music.
“Bluets”
- Book by Maggie Nelson
- Poeticizing heartbreak through considerations of color, sex, intimacy, and ugliness, bringing the reader face to face with death through wordplay and rhythmic contemplations on the page.
“It Was a Religion”
- Album by Blegh
- Truly congruous storytelling employed in an album, using reoccurring motifs to hypnotize the listener into a mind loop and emotionally engage with the story.
“Literature Against Philosophy, Plato to Derrida; A Defence of Poetry”
- Book by Mark Edmundson
- Constructing a scholarly argument that speaks to the value of poetics in the face of philosophical hyperanalysis, valuing the intention alongside the construction.
“I’ll Give You the Sun”
- Book by Jandy Nelson
- Speaking directly to a Young Adult audience about the complexities of artistry, love, family, and death with an open heart, truly respecting and seeing youth readers and creators.
“Intimate Apparel”
- Play by Lynn Nottage
- Mastering storytelling through a Venutian lens, creating performance pieces that allow destruction and ethereal beauty to stand side by side.
“Madness, Rack, & Honey: Collected Lectures”
- Book by Mary Ruefle
- Employing poetics as commentary on interpersonal relations and the impact of words on the feminine and literary experiences.
“WILLOW”
- Album by Willow Smith
- Utilizing the musical medium to transcend audiences to a truly queer and spiritual space, engaging with the cosmic in an accessible yet deeply genuine manner.
“Don’t Call Us Dead”
- Book by Danez Smith
- Grappling with queer experience as directly connected to death, deeply studies mortality and how tied it is to true love and coming into the self.
“The Uncharted Journey”
- Book by Don Rosenthal
- Laying out real-world applications of Eastern spiritual medicine, emphasizes the importance of living in the present and of approaching those that we love with an open and giving heart.
“Twelfth Night”
- Play by Shakespeare
- Using wit and wordplay to reckon with grief, disguise, and love, balancing poeticism with performance and mastering the relationship between performer and audience.