Hi everyone. I hope you're doing what you can to keep yourself and your community safe.

We're reading echolalia echolalia by Jane Shi. I'm reading the pieces from "pictures/que" and also reading "ICE vs. Everyone" by Erin West for n+1. If you're catching up, reading ahead, or if you have something else you'd like to share, I'd love to hear about it in the signal chat.

We're approximately at the halfway point, so if you haven't bought echolalia echolalia yet, you can still catch up, but you might want to consider buying the next book (or the next several books) to be ready.

Our next book will be Tip of the Spear by Orisanmi Burton. I'm expecting that we'll start February 16, so please try to place an order soon.

If you want to consolidate orders to save money on shipping from Open Poetry, the next book after Tip of the Spear will be Theory of Water by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.

If you can't buy from the bookstore, please consider making a donation directly to one of the Sameer Project's campaigns, or consider sharing a fundraiser with friends. If you can't do any of that, consider sharing the reading group with some friends; if some of them can buy the book from Open Books, or even make direct donations to The Sameer Project, then that would help enormously.

my reading plan

As I said, I'm reading the pieces from "pictures/que" this week. I'm also going to read "ICE vs. Everyone", and reflect on ICE terrorizing Minneapolis and all of us, with the casual killings of Keith Porter, Renée Good, Alex Pretti, and the countless prisoners who have been killed in detention centers.

I'll try to post some reflections later this week, and on Saturday at 12pm ET we'll get on video chat¹ and talk about whatever pieces we've all read.

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useful info

Here's some stuff I mostly also said last week, but didn't want to delete it in case this is your first email from me. Maybe the regular reminders will also be helpful.

a reminder about reading pace

I don't expect people to read at the same pace as me. Some pieces will stick with you longer; others might bounce right off. Some weeks, you'll be too overwhelmed by the world to do any readings; other weeks, reading will be a welcome escape.

Do what you can to try to keep your head above water. I'm trying not to require people to read everything at the same pace. Just tell the group what you have read so we have some context.

(my) schedule

here's my reading plan for now:

I think that's everything for now. I'll have some reflections to share later this week, and we can chat on Saturday (or on signal). If you have any questions, comments, future book suggestions, or anything else, please let me know.

Please take care of one another; hopefully we'll talk on Saturday.