Dear Friends,

Here are some pink roses from our backyard for you. I love tending to them. Where is your attention these days? How do you make your garden grow?

This week, Juneteenth was signed into law, becoming the first new national holiday to be approved since Martin Luther King Jr Day.  I attended my first Juneteenth celebration last year over Zoom, hosted by my friend Valerie Boyd. This gathering featured Atlanta-based mixologist Tiffanie Barriere. (Read more about Tiffanie and Juneteenth in this article in the Bitter Southerner.

Here are five things I wanted to share with you this week:

1. To Read: A sobering and important Op-Ed about the toll of the pandemic in India: “The Ganges Is Returning the Dead. It Does Not Lie.” (New York Times). 
2. To Listen: Tanu Mehrotra Wakefield (author of Undersong) sent me this episode of the On Being-produced podcast Poetry Unbound: a reading of Roshni Goyate’s “Coconut Oil.” I LOVED it, so I’m sharing it here with you.
3. To Read: This powerful essay by my friend and former teacher Gail Hosking. It’s about memory and family. 
4. From the Archives: If you missed me in conversation with Holly Wren Spaulding about her poetry book Familiars in April hosted by Writers & Books, you can catch the replay via the link on my website.
5. To Watch: This Is One Way to Dance was nominated for the CLMP (Community of Literary Magazines and Presses) Firecracker Award in nonfiction (alongside luminaries such as Claudia Rankine!). The Awards night is Wednesday, June 23. Register to attend and join me at this link. 
   
   Warmly, as we approach the Summer Solstice,
   
   Sejal

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This newsletter was originally sent out on June 18, 2021. You can subscribe to my newsletter here.