The Books Were Speaking
On creative transmission, cultural memory, and making space for the message
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When you are young, you die hard for your Hermanas.
United, we’d play like we were The Virgin Suicides – tempting men with our Madness, Rack, and Honey making them suffer because we knew we weren’t giving up the goods.
You get GRIT as you overcome obstacles along your camino – One More Thing – it is The Infinite Plan you are after.
We were never taught to be Super Attractor(s), or to Never Search Alone. It is no wonder we have no idea how to Quit Like a Millionaire.
We do our best to grab a seat at the table and are only lucky enough to come up with a Table for Two.
I’ve felt as though society has always viewed me as a Citizen Illegal – trying to shove Lessons on Expulsion in my face.
They try to control me. They say, Here! Read these 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think.
There comes a time when we each have to face The Labyrinth of Solitude and earn the Courage to Be Disliked, and it’s only then that we understand that On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
Once you’ve overcome all of these life obstacles, that is when you are truly Unshakeable.
© 2025 Carla Monroy
Day 12 of 100 – a daily poetry practice
Prompt: Write a poem incorporating the titles of books on a shelf
The Prompt That Wouldn’t Leave Me Alone
I was cleaning my workspace when my eye caught on the books lining my shelf. Not the spines individually, but the shelf as a whole—assembled, accumulated, waiting. The thought arrived fully formed: What if the titles themselves were the poem?
I didn’t workshop the idea. I didn’t test it. I took a photo and moved on.
The Fear of Being “Too Late”
After writing the poem, I discovered that Jessica DeFino—one of the writers I follow on Substack—had recently published a poem constructed from holiday email subject lines. The reaction was immediate and familiar: Someone got there first.
That fear is one of the fastest ways to abandon an idea.
Ideas Don’t Belong to Us
Rick Rubin articulates this better than most in The Creative Act: A Way of Being, a book I return to slowly and deliberately:
“If you have an idea you’re excited about and you don’t bring it to life, it’s not uncommon for the idea to find its voice through another maker. This isn’t because the other artist stole your idea, but because the idea’s time has come.”
Ideas move. They look for hosts. Timing is not ownership.
What emerged from this exercise wasn’t cleverness. It was continuity. The poem echoed themes I return to again and again: identity, resistance, inheritance, agency. Whether that coherence came from intention or transmission hardly matters.
The message arrived intact.
Clutter is the Enemy of Clarity
I’ve come to believe that the universe—our ancestors, our histories, whatever language you prefer—is always broadcasting. Our responsibility is not to force meaning, but to make space for it.
This year, I’m practicing that discipline. Less noise. Fewer distractions. More listening.
An Invitation, Not a Conclusion
Is there something you’re working on that keeps resurfacing? A thought you’ve dismissed because it didn’t arrive loudly enough or quickly enough?
Make space for it and share it in the comments below. There are benefits to creative conversations. Subscribe so we can keep it going.
