HeyJaredSweetbitter
I discuss modern topics in literature, classical studies, and academia.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 8
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- Sep 22, 2026
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- Jul 20, 2026
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“And How Did the Lamb Subdue The Falcon?”: Three by Na Zhong (opens the original)
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“A child, sensitive to her own vulnerabilities, is bound to be haunted by one fear or another.” A picture of my maternal grandmother sleeps within my white vinyl photo album. In it, she is young—late-thirties, hair shimmering blonde, a smile that radiates on her lined face. She’s forever standing in the front yard of my childhood home. She grew up a wanderer, tumbling between the sands of Florida and the rough concrete of suburban Ohio. Until I outgrew my own childhood, I thought little of hers.
Orpheus, Sing (opens the original)
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Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedIt was not love but desire that made Orpheus weak. When he chose to look back, blood rushing in his ears, mortality but a plaything to him, it was not an act of love. It was an act of desire—the siren song of laments and supplications, the pretty kiss of his lyre’s strings to his fingertips. Orpheus knows the myth this failure will make of him. They will say he was too overcome with desperate love to save his beloved. It wil
Otherwhere by Carolyn Forché (opens the original)
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“It is not your right to feel powerless. Better people than you were powerless.” —Carolyn Forché, “Return.” What makes a life? For Carolyn Forché, it is witness. Testimony. The recognition of ourselves within the other and the other within us. She herself has described her poetry as not political, but as a “poetry of witness” and “politically engaged.” Forché published her first poetry collection Gathering the Tribes in 1976. Since then, she’s spent a lifetime documenting the human conditions in
Ph.D. Journal: On Beginning Year Two (opens the original)
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Oh, what to say about graduate studies? A year ago, I was bright-eyed and ambitious. I did not know yet all of the politics and the bureaucracies of my university. I marveled like a child at all of the opportunities laid before me. The romanticism waned quickly. For those of you who are new to my newsletter, hello! I’m Kaitlin, a Ph.D. student pursuing a degree in English and Comparative Literature. I research English and Greek Romanticisms. My background is in classical studies which I apply to
Grief as Time's Mother (opens the original)
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Last year, I began chronicling my experiences as a student in an English and Comparative Literature Ph.D. program. Most of those essays are simply titled “Ph.D. Studies Journal” on my substack. I usually wrote one essay every couple of months as my studies progressed and I learned more about navigating my program. It was for me a way to bridge the online creative (re: writerly) and academic communities. I haven’t posted an essay of that nature in a while because I haven’t studied in a while. In
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