I READ TWO BOOKS IN JULY AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS SILLY T SHIRT

I didn't even get a t shirt. What I read and why I didn't, July 2025.

July was a sweaty and speedy month… therefore a slow month for reading and being an intentional human living in this world.

I started a new job and before I even gained my footing, I found myself the leader of circle time in a Montessori Children’s House classroom with ages 3–6. Together, the 16 of us read about 16 books in my first three weeks.

Inspired by my mom’s old classroom as an elementary school librarian, I kept the library books flowing. Old favorites included Blueberries for Sal and Annie and the Wild Animals. New favorites included Hope in a Jar, When the World is Dreaming, and Little Wolf’s First Howling, keeping in line with our broad but inspiring theme for July, “ANIMALS.”

Special shout out to the sweetie librarian who has organized my outrageous volume of holds each week, and laughed with me through my issues with my library card instead of looking frustrated each time I approached the desk.

So what did I read in my skinny amount of free time? I reread my poetry all star faves. Just taking a sip of poetry inspiration here and there and in between class plans and circle time.

I remembered why every word in by Diane Seuss feels intentional and like a part of a giant 4D puzzle. FRANK: SONNETS blows my mind every couple of months when I decide to pick it back up and refresh myself with why I write.

It’s the kind of poem that I am constantly unraveling. Here is the poetry layer, the ars poetica of it all. Then we have the Seussian stark reflection on family ties. The images nail it for me, illustrating so clearly who the speaker's mother is. Then the rhythm of the poem. The sonnet form is beyond meta in this one !!!!! The brutal languaging and the tender. FLA LLA ELA.

Friends, this is why I believe that art can change the world…. Not to get so incredibly corny on main. This book changed my world. And while it may seem evergreen to write so candidly about it, a reread this July of Odes to Lithium solidifies it for me.

All I can say is flying from “I didn’t seek the horse,” carrying me so vastly and swiftly towards her ending line…. “I prefer choosing terror to a terror I didn't choose.” This piece, by Shira Erlichman, has done things for me that many would say poems can’t do for mortal souls.

I first saw Odes to Lithium advertised in Women and Children First in 2019, it’s publication year, and the year of many other books of poetry I continue to find to be touchstones– Hanif Abdurraqib’s A Fortune for Your Disaster, and Paige Lewis’ Space Struck. To name these three for a reading at the bookstore together…. my poetic mind could not compute the 360 that was about to take place.

BUT TO BE QUITE HONEST: I saw Shira’s book cover and felt exposed. At the time, lithium was a deep secret for me, and this book title was naming something new and dangerous. I was trying not to look too closely at this part of me. I’m fantastic at pathologizing my own mental health, and with a new prescription that damning, it’s even easier to do so.

I didn’t say all of this to fellow poetry pursuer Sierra, but we made our way to Andersonville to see what sort of business this trio had in store for us.

And as Shira started reading her pieces, I felt that someone had turned a spotlight on me. Could everyone see the sweat dripping down my back?

These poems! I really didn’t think I could write about these things. But me, too! These things were mine, too!

Rereading this book flooded me with those original feelings. Testament that I had been there. That I was here, too. I will reach those depths again but I will not go there alone.

I am, I am, I am.

Birds and birds.

But back to the classroom and me, hiding in the closet in which I spent a couple afternoons drying off my tears. Here, where I feel so underprepared and overwhelmed, I know that I care deeply for the children and believe in their futures. The backbone of all of this.

As I spent so much time curating a new (to me) afternoon classroom, I thought a lot about the children in Gaza. The care I poured into this class in Chicago was something that felt like the ultimate privilege. To have a job allotting the space to caretake for these young people. Children. Who are learning to read and write at a speed I couldn’t imagine possible. Who have two meals and a balanced snack each day. Because when you are believed in and supported in such radical ways, you can do astounding things.

• Art by my student

All children deserve this. Nothing I write can go untouched with the knowledge that there are multiple genocides taking place on this planet.

My heart across the miles to Gaza, and the Palestinian children who are deserving, beyond question, of three meals a day and hands to guide theirs into letters into sentences powered by a fueled imagination. Free Palestine.

Link attached goes directly to fund families who need support.

With love,

Emma