Maria Martelli's Blog

In 2024 I’ve wanted to read more books from around the world, and I failed. I read a lot instead (more than a 100 is a lot for me), and a lot of good science-fiction. So this list is

Articolul A year of reading – Reviewing 2024. Books as companions  apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.

I’m still softened by just having finished “The Deep” by Rivers Solomon, listening to Drexciya and trying to gather my thoughts, waving like seagrass. Just a few days ago I also finished “Blackfish City” by Sam J. Miller, which is why I’m writing about both of them now, still fresh in my mind. They both embody worlds of water, one colder than the other.

Articolul Dark & Cold Water Worlds – The Deep & Blackfish City apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.

I read “Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow.” by Noor Hindi like one passes through a storm, intensely and hurried, and then I read it again with a close friend, N., slower, letting it simmer through us.

It is powerful, superbly formed, disruptive of anti-arab narratives,

Articolul Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow or Dear Poetry, How Are You So Powerful apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.

Because I love lists & speculative fiction & remembering what I thought about what I read, I’m making this one - it has no order except kind-of-a-chronological order? And it contains a bit of cheating because the last two I finished in 2024 and

Articolul 10 speculative fictions I read and loved in 2023 apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.

In the essay “Gaza asks: When shall this pass?” poet and academician Refaat Alareer  writes with force and vulnerability about the long-held resilience of Palestinian people, the reliance on saying “it shall pass” from grandmother to mother, transmitted intergenerationally. One form of resistance is storytelling, as he writes:

Articolul Read Palestine: Light In Gaza & Palestinian poems apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.

From the very start, we know where the show is heading, and we are left to answer the question of “How”. Just like in other tales, fictional or real, about cannibalism, it is the most interesting question: how did they get there? Below, I’ll unfold some of my thoughts on the symbolism of “meat” in Yellowjackets.

Articolul A vegan view of Yellowjackets – Meat, Power and Belief apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.

Praline: sunt dulciuri mici, care conțin nuci și mult zahăr, după care se intitulează colecția de poezie a lui Yigru Zeltil [...] tematica consumului, a acaparării capitaliste și a transformării în marfă a tuturor lucrurilor, inclusiv a artei, revine constant de-a lungul volumului, dintr-o poziționare rezistentă („umbra mea nu aduce profit / umbra mea nu vrea să aducă profit / nu vreau eu să aducă ea profit” /11). 

Articolul „Praline” de Yigru Zeltil – un volum despre ceea ce nu poate fi consumat apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.

One could even say this book is a study of mourning, an ode to life with its sticky closeness to an ever-coming end. 

Articolul Journeying through “How High We Go In the Dark” – a constellation of mourning apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.

As a child, who has not wondered why they were given certain parents, and not others? And maybe, our parents have wondered the same about us.

Articolul “Abolish the family” – On the unfairness of kinship practices apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.

The first season (...) builds up to show us meritocracy is a lie - a cunning, deep lie, made to re-affirm those in power to everyone, including themselves.

Articolul 3% – The Cult of Meritocracy and Imagining Otherwise apare prima dată în Maria Martelli.