Sign in with Facebook
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 Quotes
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
by
Sheila Heti410 ratings, 3.74 average rating, 68 reviews
Open Preview
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018 Quotes
Showing 1-6 of 6
“A LITTLE SONG AND A RECEIPT.
Doe: a deer, a female deer—
Often chased by sonneteers of old.
Caught, and killed, and bathed in fear,
turned to human blazons to be sold—
Eyes—$twin models of the stars.
Skin—$fine tissue wrought from gold.
Lips—$your favorite kind of flower.
Sex—$a secret still untold/ a Silk Road to unfold/ a thing for you to mold/ a source by you controlled.
Total: $—————.—”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
Doe: a deer, a female deer—
Often chased by sonneteers of old.
Caught, and killed, and bathed in fear,
turned to human blazons to be sold—
Eyes—$twin models of the stars.
Skin—$fine tissue wrought from gold.
Lips—$your favorite kind of flower.
Sex—$a secret still untold/ a Silk Road to unfold/ a thing for you to mold/ a source by you controlled.
Total: $—————.—”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
“Language spoken by parents to each other: fluent Korean. I grew up hearing marriage as a foreign language—literally and figuratively. I grew up hearing the sound of Korean as a language of Korean-bound han syndrome, disappointment, fury, resignation, the sense of being trapped forever, resentment, guilt. Every other word: a door slammed.”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
“This reservation would never have occurred to me in a million years, so it’s a good thing that people are born twenty years after you are, so you don’t have to wait more than a million years.”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018
“MUTANT BLAZON
My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun.
To look at them will mean that I go blind.
His mouth beside my ear—they form a gun.
Each breath: a bullet targeting my mind.
My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun.
His throat: a fist to silence mine designed.
His reason: a ventriloquist’s illusion.
No tenor in the end could hearing find.
My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun—
Too close for any vessel with a mind.
Survive or get to die—that is the question.
No longer have I any will to mind.
My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun—
Not dead, not living, neither keen nor blind;
A daily haunting; memory rebegun;
Disaster in some future undivined.
I write, rewrite, a “sonnet” about rape
To hunt that voice I wish I could escape.”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun.
To look at them will mean that I go blind.
His mouth beside my ear—they form a gun.
Each breath: a bullet targeting my mind.
My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun.
His throat: a fist to silence mine designed.
His reason: a ventriloquist’s illusion.
No tenor in the end could hearing find.
My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun—
Too close for any vessel with a mind.
Survive or get to die—that is the question.
No longer have I any will to mind.
My rapist’s eyes remind me of the sun—
Not dead, not living, neither keen nor blind;
A daily haunting; memory rebegun;
Disaster in some future undivined.
I write, rewrite, a “sonnet” about rape
To hunt that voice I wish I could escape.”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
“News
“…she fell into the water from the sky…”
Jae-in Doe
Decedent is an Asian female.
Twenty-two she just had turned.
The cause of death we cannot tell
Despite the many things we’ve learned.
TOP SECRET
My Doe-type can be difficult to track.
Yet here I am, my voice-box playing back
From lips hydrangea-lavender in hue
His thoughts during our first few interviews.
The hair is shoulder-length, the color black.
The height and weight suggest she won’t fight back.
The fingernails are unadorned and short.
The eyes are brown; no makeup do they sport.
The skin appears unpierced and untattooed,
Yet scars of ruby-pearl seem to protrude
Like self-inflicted jewelry on each arm
And wrist—which means she’s vulnerable to harm.
The language of her flesh, as I assess her,
Reveals Confucian worship of professors.
Her deference Korean gives me right
To use her innocence for my delight.”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
“…she fell into the water from the sky…”
Jae-in Doe
Decedent is an Asian female.
Twenty-two she just had turned.
The cause of death we cannot tell
Despite the many things we’ve learned.
TOP SECRET
My Doe-type can be difficult to track.
Yet here I am, my voice-box playing back
From lips hydrangea-lavender in hue
His thoughts during our first few interviews.
The hair is shoulder-length, the color black.
The height and weight suggest she won’t fight back.
The fingernails are unadorned and short.
The eyes are brown; no makeup do they sport.
The skin appears unpierced and untattooed,
Yet scars of ruby-pearl seem to protrude
Like self-inflicted jewelry on each arm
And wrist—which means she’s vulnerable to harm.
The language of her flesh, as I assess her,
Reveals Confucian worship of professors.
Her deference Korean gives me right
To use her innocence for my delight.”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
“Sometimes I dream that his rare book collection
Is made of all “his” women turned to fiction.”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
Is made of all “his” women turned to fiction.”
― The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems
