Back to School Bibliotherapy: On Connection, Kae Tempest

Read to inspire, write to breathe. This could be the mantra of Anne-Charlotte Sangam, author and publisher. Convinced of the virtues of bibliotherapy, she invites you to share her readings with you every month.

In this month of September, synonymous with the start of the new school year, new projects, new activities, but where I feel the need to stretch out the summer, to take time before launching myself into a new energy, I felt like offering you a new reading rhythm.

This time, a book came to mind, a book that I started reading a few months ago and that I didn’t finish until August, I enjoyed discovering each page so much. The words resonated with me so much. I’d like to tell you about On Connection by Kae Tempest.

Born in 1995 in London, Kae Tempest is a multidisciplinary artist. You may be familiar with their music, their poems or their first novel The Bricks That Built the Houses (Bloomsbury Circus, 2016). In the spring of 2020, when the crisis we are going through forced us to hunker down and deprived thousands of artists of the stage, Kae Tempest launched into a praise of creativity.

For Kae, creativity – and I am firmly convinced of this – is not the prerogative of artists, but can be found in all of us. The word ‘connection’ could be a synonym for this. Connection to others, to the collective, to the present moment, to the imagination, to inspiration. This connection would be a kind of bridge. A bridge to the other, to other worlds, to music, to words.

At a time when the international situation we have been experiencing for the past year and a half is asking us to review our relationship with others, it seems essential to question this connection. Kae Tempest does so with poetry, intensity and brilliance.

Every line of this book pulsates with life. I wish you to take hold of it and find or rediscover your creative compass.

Happy reading!