June 20, 2025

Reconsidering My Weirdo Hero

I wrote an essay for The Common about a poet I first discovered in seventh grade English class. Richard Brautigan, in that poem, seemed to be speaking directly to me—that made me remember him, and when I saw that he had written a novel, In Watermelon Sugar, I devoured it. And kept on devouring, as he wrote new books.

Check out the essay if you’re a Brautigan fan, or even if you’ve revisited some writing that once enchanted you and later you think, hmmm … have I changed or has this changed, somehow?