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What's in our basket?

George

30 Apr 2025 — 1 min read

Why a handbasket? For the alliteration, and because you can carry it with you, even through hell.

Because it recalls Ursula le Guin's Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction.

Because it is woven, made of organic material, and can be mended.

Because practicality and beauty are inseparable.

Because you can put it down when you need to, and then pick it up again when you must.

In this basket you may find

Portions of shareable nourishment and refreshment
Swatches of language
Keepsakes and mementos
Some portable tools
A mirror and a set of casting stones
Other useful and beautiful things that you put it

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Swamped

Theodor Adorno declared that “poetry after Auschwitz is barbarity.” I won’t say this is precisely why it has taken me several weeks to put something new in this Handbasket, but waves of grief have been swamping me and I have not been able to make sense in the turmoil.

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Back to reality: read poetry, not political debates

Blossoms against the machine

What's under the big numbers?

Swamped