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Whatever it is, gently: Quiet Meditations for the Noise of the Pandemic
220 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 21, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 10, 2024
“Introverts, check in on your extrovert friends during this time of need. They are not OK.”
I was not OK.
As the extrovert-in-chief of my friends group, I once thrived on the company of others. That was before 2020. Before lockdown. Before reopening. Before a second wave. Before an election. Before a vaccine.
It’s Wednesday April 22. Now it’s Friday but the Friday before that Wednesday. Now it’s Monday the 13th. Now it’s the 15th, which is somehow also Monday.
I misplace memories of lockdown, reliving the isolation. In reliving, I watch as I lose myself in the new ESO Greymoor DLC. In watching, I remember the loss of social connection, like so many arms and legs. In remembering, I misplace memories of lockdown, reliving the isolation.
Cyclical, scattered patterns like these are what make me love Devon Spier’s ‘Whatever it is, gently: Quiet Meditations for the Noise of the Pandemic’. My left ear captures my incoherent musings, while Spier's windmills of wandering fill my right ear. I can listen to a meter in time with my own. Each page drops me somewhere new, without direction or context.
I can’t decide if Spier’s words are closer to a carefully threaded needle or a Romanian three-harness loom, but their meditations help weave gentleness and self-compassion through my memories of lockdown. So much so, that now these memories carry a warm comfort that, in 2020, I desperately sought in seemingly everything else. Despite publishing in the fall, I somehow remember having these comforting words earlier than I ever did.
Addendum:
Immediately following the publication of this review, I scrolled to find the following post on Spier's socials, "my aesthetic is a haphazardly assembled powerpoint with off white spaces, sound effects where you lease expect it, fonts that make you question the existence of humanity and a surprise final slide of an angry chicken."
If so little has changed in four years, then I eagerly await their next work.
I was not OK.
As the extrovert-in-chief of my friends group, I once thrived on the company of others. That was before 2020. Before lockdown. Before reopening. Before a second wave. Before an election. Before a vaccine.
It’s Wednesday April 22. Now it’s Friday but the Friday before that Wednesday. Now it’s Monday the 13th. Now it’s the 15th, which is somehow also Monday.
I misplace memories of lockdown, reliving the isolation. In reliving, I watch as I lose myself in the new ESO Greymoor DLC. In watching, I remember the loss of social connection, like so many arms and legs. In remembering, I misplace memories of lockdown, reliving the isolation.
Cyclical, scattered patterns like these are what make me love Devon Spier’s ‘Whatever it is, gently: Quiet Meditations for the Noise of the Pandemic’. My left ear captures my incoherent musings, while Spier's windmills of wandering fill my right ear. I can listen to a meter in time with my own. Each page drops me somewhere new, without direction or context.
I can’t decide if Spier’s words are closer to a carefully threaded needle or a Romanian three-harness loom, but their meditations help weave gentleness and self-compassion through my memories of lockdown. So much so, that now these memories carry a warm comfort that, in 2020, I desperately sought in seemingly everything else. Despite publishing in the fall, I somehow remember having these comforting words earlier than I ever did.
Addendum:
Immediately following the publication of this review, I scrolled to find the following post on Spier's socials, "my aesthetic is a haphazardly assembled powerpoint with off white spaces, sound effects where you lease expect it, fonts that make you question the existence of humanity and a surprise final slide of an angry chicken."
If so little has changed in four years, then I eagerly await their next work.
November 17, 2020
Devon Spier is the kind of writer that you don't just engage with at a distance but one who truly pulls you into her work. There's such an intricate mix of the personal, political, spiritual and abstract that you feel seen, known, and called to a deeper way of seeing the world in her poems and meditations. I've been a fan since before Heart Map and the Song of our ancestors, and continue to be changed and challenged by her work. Everyone should experience her art no matter what background you come from. There's beauty and pause in her work that is so needed. It's the kind of beauty and pause that the noise and rush of a 21st century capitalist world doesn't allow for on its own. Devon helps us find it. We need work like Whatever it is, Gently now more than ever. Pick it up! You won't regret it.
December 24, 2020
I've been following Devon's poetry for a while.
Her imagery is compelling, fresh, and inspired.
The way the poetry progresses within a chapter means you can read each poem individually, or as a single, intricate thought that leaves you brought back to where you started, but fully changed. It's written right-justified (Hebrew is written right-to-left), but it doesn't feel affected, but definitely inspired by ee cummings's work (and you can see it as a worthy homage).
Her poetry will move you, and you won't regret a minute spent on it.
Her imagery is compelling, fresh, and inspired.
The way the poetry progresses within a chapter means you can read each poem individually, or as a single, intricate thought that leaves you brought back to where you started, but fully changed. It's written right-justified (Hebrew is written right-to-left), but it doesn't feel affected, but definitely inspired by ee cummings's work (and you can see it as a worthy homage).
Her poetry will move you, and you won't regret a minute spent on it.
August 19, 2021
This book is one of the best things that came into my life last year. Not every poem spoke to me, but the ones that did felt like they were written FOR me, as if Spier had peered into my soul and written a cradle for my heart, so I have no doubt that those other poems are similarly FOR someone else.
Spier's vulnerability and tenderness as she puts words to her (and our) loneliness and fear and pain and loss is as profound as it is occasionally shocking. I'm not used to these things being put into words, to being gently, but openly, addressed and acknowledged. This book is a gift.
Spier's vulnerability and tenderness as she puts words to her (and our) loneliness and fear and pain and loss is as profound as it is occasionally shocking. I'm not used to these things being put into words, to being gently, but openly, addressed and acknowledged. This book is a gift.
December 20, 2020
Devon writes with one of the truest voices I have ever come across. Her extraordinary vulnerability coupled with a wondrous gift with language result in living, breathing meditations that move and change me and so many others. This young woman’s ability to breathe tenderness into terror is breathtaking! 💜
January 4, 2021
Devon is the light that leads you through the brackish backwaters of your emotions and brings you safely to the clearing you need to regroup and forge on. Her poetry is provocative, creative, brave, and absolutely necessary. She has gotten me through some very difficult times, and I cannot measure my gratitude for her.
May 23, 2021
I don’t really know how to talk about this one! What a gift! Devon met a need that was so urgent during the pandemic, these poems are perfect little air pockets. Space to open and breathe and laugh or cry, even for a few moments. Devon’s writing refuses constriction and expands hearts. I am so grateful for it.
December 29, 2021
I began reading Devon Spier’s poetry on RitualWell and later Twitter, and this collection adds to her themes of reassurance, self-doubt that need not be, and a Jewish God (and a Judaism) centered on calls for justice.
Her poems provide reassurance for the soul, even the souls of Jewish atheists who don’t believe in souls.
Her poems provide reassurance for the soul, even the souls of Jewish atheists who don’t believe in souls.
December 23, 2020
I breathe in Spier's poems and reflections as her work revitalizes my heart and makes me feel seen. The joy and love jump off the page to assuage current everyday anxieties. And, most truly make one feel connected to others in this age of social isolation.
November 19, 2021
Quiet Meditations for the Noise of the Pandemic is a soothing balm for tired souls. There is much depth in the spaces, the pauses.
The depth of compassion is an unexpected kindness in a noisy world.
The depth of compassion is an unexpected kindness in a noisy world.
November 29, 2020
As always, Devon Spier is the master of seeing into our hearts and truest thoughts.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews