Poet Orion Carloto's Bookshelf Tour: Patti Smith, Ocean Vuong & More | Shelf Portrait | Marie Claire
"Film for Her" author Orion Carloto takes us on a tour of her beautiful bookshelves and shares some of her favorite reads, including cherished poetry collections and a novel so good she read the entire thing in one day.
Transcript
00:00 Do people assume maybe that I'm a little crazy?
00:03 Maybe, who knows?
00:04 It is interesting, and that's all I'll say.
00:07 Hello everyone, my name is Orion Parlato,
00:09 and today I'm going to be giving Marie Claire
00:12 a look into my now extensive home library.
00:15 This is Shelf Portrait, and this is my cat,
00:20 Lolita, who loves attention.
00:26 Now my bookshelf is kind of split up in strange ways.
00:30 It's my own kind of Dewey Decimal System, in a way.
00:34 Right over here in this section, I have,
00:36 obviously I have some art books,
00:37 but I have a little section of some children's books,
00:40 you know, along with all fiction.
00:43 And here we have my art books, as in magazines.
00:48 I love Pinfolk, I love Vogue.
00:51 And, you know, here are more the poetic and prose
00:55 stories that really reminisce in my life,
00:58 you know, not only as an adult,
01:00 but as a young adult growing up and reading as well.
01:03 So as a disclaimer, I must admit
01:09 that I am one of those people
01:10 that frequently gives away their books to their friends.
01:14 That being said, a lot of my favorites
01:16 are not on my shelf right now,
01:17 because they're in the hands of those who I love.
01:20 One of my favorite books that is not on my shelf
01:22 at the moment is one by Alan Watts,
01:25 called "The Wisdom of Insecurity."
01:27 That is one book that I frequently find myself
01:30 coming back to to read.
01:31 It is just kind of a gentle reminder in life
01:34 of, you know, all of your insecurities
01:37 and the things that you kind of deep down already know,
01:40 but kind of gives you some sort of reassurance,
01:42 like a hug you're reading from an old friend
01:44 or a mentor of sorts to kind of get you through life.
01:51 If you didn't already know,
01:52 I'm also a writer and poet myself,
01:54 and actually one of my favorite books right now,
01:57 "No Shame" is my book film for her,
02:00 which is, you know, a collection of my life
02:02 over the past three years,
02:04 instances and moments that were put together
02:07 through poetry, prose, short story, and film photography.
02:12 And it really is about the mundane in life
02:15 and all the in-betweens,
02:16 'cause I think a lot of us tend to focus
02:18 on our highs and our lows,
02:19 that we seldom reminisce on the moments
02:24 that we didn't think to be as special in our lives.
02:29 But this is a book that is a collection of that.
02:32 One of my other favorite books
02:38 that I actually started reading during quarantine
02:40 is one called "My Year of Rest and Relaxation."
02:43 And that, I must admit,
02:46 was probably one of my most interesting reads
02:49 during quarantine,
02:50 simply because it kind of coincide
02:52 with being in quarantine.
02:54 It is about a woman who is, you know,
02:57 dealing with her own set of mental health issues
03:00 and problems and ties hand in hand
03:03 with a not so good psychiatrist,
03:05 and she takes it upon herself to sleep for an entire year.
03:09 It was one of those books where I could not put it down.
03:11 I was certainly, like, stuck to it for an entire day,
03:15 and I finished it an entire day.
03:16 It was very, very, very good.
03:19 So my favorite childhood book
03:21 I think comes as no surprise to anyone.
03:23 It was pretty much anything by Shel Silverstein,
03:26 but I have a copy of "Where the Sidewalk Ends."
03:29 This was, you know,
03:30 obviously your first introduction to poetry as a kid,
03:33 and it's very imaginative,
03:35 and that's what I loved so much about Shel Silverstein
03:37 is it was fun and funny
03:38 and just all sorts of madness that was going on.
03:42 Always have a soft spot in my heart
03:44 for Shel Silverstein through and through.
03:46 [upbeat music]
03:50 Another book I read during quarantine
03:51 is this one by Ocean Vong, "On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous."
03:56 One thing I love about this book
03:58 is how I can relate to it in some way or another.
04:01 Ocean Vong wrote this about his own life.
04:04 He is a writer, a child of immigrants,
04:06 and he is also queer,
04:07 and this is just kind of a letter to his mother
04:11 who cannot read or really understand English,
04:14 so it's almost unsure if she'll ever read it,
04:17 but it's kind of like this personal memoir
04:20 into his life growing up
04:22 and these instances that kind of made him
04:24 into the person he is today,
04:26 and it was not only well-written
04:28 and just extremely put together,
04:31 but you can find parts of yourself in this story
04:35 that I did not expect to find myself in.
04:38 My favorite genre of book,
04:40 which is surprising that I didn't mention any of them,
04:43 is books by French poets.
04:46 I think it is very important as a writer
04:48 to obviously read up on the subject of what I do,
04:52 but really try to understand as to why poetry
04:55 is so important to people,
04:57 and I find that that beauty comes a lot from French poets,
05:02 and I can only hope and wish one day
05:05 that I could amount to that greatness,
05:07 but until then, I will just read them to life
05:09 on my bookshelf and hope for the best.
05:12 Now, the next book is something that I read
05:14 when I was in high school,
05:15 and it kind of reintroduced me to my love for poetry,
05:19 and it is "Bluets" by Maggie Nelson.
05:23 Here she is.
05:24 Maggie Nelson is one of my favorite writers,
05:26 and she is just this profound poet,
05:28 and "Bluets" was my first book that I've ever read by her.
05:32 So there are 240 reasons in this book
05:34 why the color blue is so significant in her life,
05:36 and it is just poetic profoundness
05:38 and something that I also like to reintroduce into my life.
05:43 Every once in a while, a good friend of mine
05:46 introduced her to me, and I haven't looked back since.
05:49 Now, who am I to say that I'm a poet
05:51 if I did not introduce, obviously,
05:55 the love that I have for Patti Smith?
05:58 As we all know, Patti Smith is someone
06:00 who is just so in touch with her own life
06:05 and her own experiences,
06:06 and she has the most interesting life story
06:08 growing up in New York City,
06:09 and we're all familiar with Just Kids and The M Train,
06:12 but one book that stood out to me the most was The Coral Sea.
06:15 I read this, actually, when I was on a trip to Portugal
06:19 with my father, and it is filled with excerpts,
06:23 poetry, prose, her life,
06:26 and it kind of also goes hand-in-hand with Just Kids,
06:30 talking about Robert Mapplethorpe,
06:31 who was her then-boyfriend,
06:34 and also this iconic photographer who we all know and love.
06:37 (upbeat music)
06:39 Thank you guys so much for watching my shelf portrait,
06:43 and if you are interested,
06:45 make sure to check out my new book, Film for Her.
06:47 This is my second book of poetry that I've ever written.
06:50 My first one was one titled Flux,
06:52 and this is very, very special and important to me,
06:55 and I hope maybe one day it'll find a spot
06:58 on your library at home,
06:59 and don't forget to subscribe to Marie Claire down below.