Meraki

English stinks. I love to write in English mostly because it stinks. Bullying English by exploiting its grammar homonyms and numerous other peculiarities can make for amusing poetry. However I find the language to have one unforgivable flaw: there is only one word for the notion of love. While Sanskrit boasts 96 words for love we use one measly catch-all term to describe feelings towards coffee family partners and strangers alike.  When I was trying to come up with a way to categorize poems written from age fifteen to the present the only thing I could come up with was to organize themes in terms of what type of love they convey. The Greek language facilitated this and a book with Greek chapters needs a Greek title. From there Meraki: Love Letters to Language was born. The title came quite naturally as I have poured much of myself into this work. The subject sections include self-love fondness flirtation desire enduring love familial love love for humanity lament and hospitality. The themes vary widely: nature queerness spirituality community grief and more. As you'll see throughout Meraki I find language generally fascinating. However don't mistake me for a polyglot. It's all Greek to me - pun intended. You'll find poems that draw inspiration from Greek Hebrew Hmong Somali Spanish Norwegian Japanese French and Northern Sámi. Many thanks to the native speakers who helped me verify translations and concepts. Some poems are fully in another language and then translated into English on the next page. One poem in this book is only in English but is nearly unrecognizable; it uses obsolete vocabulary to tell a story about someone who reads the dictionary as she falls hopelessly in love with a librarian. Don't worry I provided a glossary on the next page.  At the end of the book you'll find an appendix providing further information and context about each poem if you'd like to learn more or did not catch a reference. I'm always curious what writers were thinking while they wrote so I provided a bit of the behind the scenes for you. I aim to write the kinds of books I'd want to read. Meraki is simultaneously a love letter to language and hate mail addressed specifically to English's rusty old mailbox. I hope you enjoy reading Meraki just as much as I enjoyed creating it.