hmccowen's reviews
65 reviews

Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink

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5.0

Why did the chicken cross the road? 
Because the dead return, because light reverses, because the sky is a gap, because it's a shout, because light reverses, because the dead return, because footsteps in the basement, because footsteps on the roof, because the sky is a shout, because it's a gap, because the grass doesn't grow, or grows too much, or grows wrong, because the dead return, because the dead return.
Chasing the Sun: The Epic Story of the Star That Gives Us Life by Richard A. Cohen

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To be sure, we are not blameless; but neither are we ruinously all-powerful. It is as if it offends us to think that we are still at the Sun’s mercy. But we are. And of course the Sun has no mercy. 
He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

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5.0

Her desire was the radiance of the sun, an immensity that filled every part of her without exception. Who else understood what it was to feel something of this magnitude; to want something with the entirety of their self, as she did?
The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

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5.0

“The first thing I will do,” Essex said to Gloria, “is make you a crown of flowers.”
American Primitive by Mary Oliver

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the moon 
swims in every one; 
there's fire 
everywhere
The Lottery and Other Stories: 75th Anniversary Edition by Shirley Jackson

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"God has given me blood to drink," she said to the nurse, and the nurse said, "Don't rinse your mouth or it won't clot."
What Do We Know by Mary Oliver

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5.0

Summer is over, or nearly. And therefore the green is not green anymore but yellow, beige, russet, rust; all the darknesses are beginning to settle in. And therefore why pray to permanence, why not pray to impermanence, to change, to- whatever comes next.
Selected Poems by Marina T︠S︡vetaeva

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Both your wings, as they yearn for the ether, become unfurled, For the world's your cradle, and your grave's the world.
Bestiary: Poems by Donika Kelly

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Closed means the earth is in the body, means the body is full of wings. 
Wings mean you are alive and someone is not. Alive means you swallow each day like a stone.