an open curtain with a dead body behind it

I pulled another book out of my to-read pile – The Open Curtain, by Brian Evenson - and finished it late last night. Imagine my surprise when there was a comment by George Saunders on the back…coincidences are weird, sometimes.

I have to say that this is a major case where the blurb on the back of the book seemed to have little or no relation to the inside of the book. (Who writes those, anyway?) The plot is a slowly-unraveling type of plot with mystery-like edges, so perhaps they didn’t want to ruin the story for readers. Still, I feel the quote from Bradford Morrow below the blurb summarizes the content much better: “[f]amily, secrecy, truth, anger, history, the desire to belong, the need to discover oneself…”

The protagonist is Rudd, a Mormon teenager in Utah who has problems with every single one of the above. The narrative begins as he finds letters from a mysterious woman to his dead father, who claims she’s had his child. Rudd finds and sort of befriends his half-brother Lael. At school, Rudd starts writing a research paper about how the founder of the Mormon church’s grandson murdered a woman in New York. Lael seems to be extremely violent, then there’s Rudd’s crazy and mean mother, then Rudd nearly gets murdered…for you action lovers, there’s a lot of that.

The plot construction is so careful: Evenson places just the right amount of clues to let you know if you’re looking that there’s something going on with Rudd, and changes the point-of-view to recently orphaned Lyndi at just the right time. The third section features the point of view of Joseph Smith’s confused grandson wandering New York after his murder of Anna Pulitzer. Small details (I don’t want to ruin it for you) and the labeling of three consecutive chapters as chapter one let the reader know that again, your point of view character is misleading you or himself mislead.

I found the author’s note at the end of the book fascinating: I figured the book was fiction, but I didn’t know that the Mormon church did have secret rituals that used to include the miming of violence. The author explains that when he started the book, he was Mormon, but because of the reception of his previous book (which was also about less savory parts of Mormonism, I figure) and other factors he asked to be excommunicated. The repressed violence and rumored early violence in Mormonism, mostly referenced in the book through the shadowy practice of “blood atonement,” clearly disturbs him in his author’s note. I felt, though, that he handled the issue with a lot of sensitivity.

While Mormon theology influenced the book’s violent events, I didn’t read it as a situation where you could directly say “The Mormon religion is directly to blame for this!” Perhaps Evenson still feels some compassion for his old religion, or perhaps he meant to not point fingers, or both. Rudd and Lyndi both have problems they have to face, and their surroundings and family (including Lyndi’s aunt who is not Mormon) don’t help them face those problems in the way they should. Lyndi, in particular, makes bad decisions all by herself. The moral ambiguity makes the book stronger and more like the ambiguity of real life. Obviously there are writers that point fingers and have strong attacks on people or institutions – in satire, for example – but most non-satirical fiction has to keep that ambiguity to be successful. I can’t think of any that haven’t, actually, but you’re welcome to correct me.

In Persuasion Nation

The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, the sun is shining, and the Julias are blogging. I know you are thinking I am crazy for being inside on such a wonderful day, but I just could not resist the urge to get the word out on a new book I just finished reading. The book is In Persuasion Nation, by George Saunders and holy shit it is good. I finished the whole thing in one day and you need to read it! I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a dramatic and hyper school girl, but this book is not only good, it is important.

The book is a collection of his newest short stories and each one is genius without exception. The work is mostly satire? But I’m not sure if the work is angry enough to be considered satirical. Because in every piece there is something inherently good going on in an inherently bad world. It is obvious that Saunders has a major beef with conformity and pop-culture (he exaggerates each to such an extreme it almost feels like sci-fi) but he does it in such an unexpected way. He does it mostly through language itself.

My favorite story in the book is the one that is most language intensive. Jon is about a young man who is a kind of human database/model of commercialism and consumerism. He lives inside a warehouse with other models like him and they have an expansive knowledge of every commercial ever made. All of the models are unusually stupid and naïve and are under the care of bosses who are like family. However, it is because of the language that the stupidity and naivety comes across and what makes the piece so successful and unique. Jon says in the story, “I had a look, and tell the truth it did not look that good, such as the Rustic Village Apartments, out of which every morning these bummed-out-looking guys in the plainest non-designer clothes ever would trudge out and get in their junky cars. And was someone joyfully kissing them goodbye, like saying when you come home tonight you will get a big treat, which is me? No.” The bizarreness of the language instantly grips me from the beginning. I don’t think I would have even needed a plot to love the story.

I have some experience with language based poetry…but very little with language based fiction. Saunders seems to be creating a new kind of language for each story and the needs of that story’s plot…and the result is mesmerizing. The work almost takes on a poetic feel because of the bizarre nature of the language. Are a lot of authors taking this language based approach to fiction now? I guess this work just got me confused over what direction fiction is heading. I wrote an old post about what fiction should be doing…and I said it partly needs to be doing something fresh and new. Well Saunders is certainly doing that and his work is precisely what I hope for when picking up new fiction.

In Persuasion Nation was one of three finalists for the 2006 Story Prize for best short story collection of the year. And I cannot wait to see what kind of work Saunders produces in the future.

Flash Flash Flash

I finally got out of the house and library the other day. One of my old friends knew about a reading at a college that is somewhat local but a little out of the way. The undergraduate literary magazine put on a flash fiction fest. I have to say I was slightly disappointed, the faculty member that was suppose to read happened to be sick and couldn’t make it. It seemed they were in need of more readers, asking other to get up and speak before the three winners read their work. The first two readers (whose names I can not remember) had some very nice work to share. I especially liked the second reader. Her work was descriptive and vivid. It was a piece that I can only sum up about heritage and about looking for that, using language itself as a way to show and find what heritage means.

When we finally saw the fiction winners I was again disappointed. The third place winner had an excellent story however his voice was slightly hard to hear. The second place winner had, in my humble opinion, the best story of the three. His was descriptive and honest. His voice was the most audible and he seemed to have experience speaking in public. The first place winner was of all the readers the worst speaker. I felt that actually reading the story myself would have produced a better outcome, however the speaker was trying to act out the arrogance (at least I hope act out) of the narrator and stumbled over his words. He also seemed uncomfortable at the front of the room. Either way it was nice to see what college students are writing these days, and this reading showed a large array of what college students think and how they write. I guess this reading was just an example that writing is not just about actually sitting down somewhere and creating something but also how one presents this is important as well.

Cross Connect

Once again I have continued my quest to broaden my literary horizons and set out into the wild blue of online literature. Jumping from site to site, I came across this online magazine that claimed to publish not only both poetry and fiction but also pieces of visual art. The e-zine is called Cross Connect (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~xconnect/). I checked out it's about xconnect link and read the following: "With this issue, the ninth Web issue of Xconnect, we conclude our third year of life -- we can't help but pause -- collectively. In reflection, we can almost fall backward toward our founding inspiration -- to create a new outlet for writers. One, which would acknowledge the vast expanse of disciplines, from experimental to works well rooted in our own discoveries." This last little bit I found interesting. Many magazines nowadays, at least from the meager amount that I have read, seem to be adopting the idea of accepting everyone no matter how experimental or conservative your work may be. I've also noticed that many of these magazines don't really live up to their own hype. In this case, I'll let you be the judge.
While reading through the works, I found a couple of different poems that did seem to be radically different, as far as their structure at least. One of the poems was "Nights in a Time of War", by Lyn Hejinian. It definitely plays with lines and spacing, in a way that many of the other works did not. I can't really cut and paste it here and keep the same spacings, so here is a link to it: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/xconnect/i25/g/hejinian.html . I'm really glad that people are attempting to cover a more broad range in work nowadays. At least it gives people like me the opportunity to experience different types works without having to go all over the place.

New Outlook on Poetry!?!

How do we consider what we consider to be poetry? Of course another lonely Friday night that I have been surfing the lonely web. (I really need to find a life!) I just came across another new blogging spot that I have found very intriguing and it caught my eye immediately. Now What blog spot just caught my attention and said "Read Me!" I am not sure if I am just losing my mind or what, but I found some great "poetry" that just mad me say WOW! For the particular part that I thought was great was that of a Reading Review of the Mad Hatter's. They talked about what the organization was about and the actual people that read, then it posted some of the author's work.

That is when I began to ask myself the question, what is poetry, and where is the line drawn when it comes to the extreme? I have been exposed to so many different types of poems, prose and of course the fiction/non-fiction aspects of creative writing in the last year or so, I just think it is absolutely amazing. There are so many communities that exist out in this big world we live in today. But who sits out there and classifies what is actually poetry, or whatever the writing may be? I just think that this catagory is growing and when/if will it ever stop?

Anyway back to the blog. The Mad Hatters' reading seemed so interesting and the blog went on to give a background on the particular authors that are a part of the association. I really enjoyed the work that they posted to the blog site. Of the ones listed, Gunnar Benediktsson's Symbiotic Architectures was my favorite. The picture is of crosses some large and others are smaller, or in the background. I just think this artwork says so much without saying anything at all, at least with words. Many days I feel that our days consist of saying so much that is either irrelavant or just completely ridiculous. In many instances we could go days without saying anything that is of essence. With this poetry that was listed I feel that it is evermore saying to me that we don't need to speak words, we can just get by on actions and seeing things in broader occasions.

For me and many other people it seems that writing is an outlet from the "real world" and with so many different genres of creative writing out in this place we live anyone can seem to fit in. What we consider is poetry someone else may think it is crap, but from my experience, every symbol or word may contain the right message to catch my attention and say exactly what I am feeling. Too extreme may only come if you, personally don't connect with the piece, but someelse may so it obviously isn't too extreme for them. Until someone can pinpoint those limits I will enjoy so an excentric and collective options of poetry that is out in the world around.

Form and function: casual, funny, and fabulous

I know that I work in the library and everything, and that I have direct access to actual books, but I am just so enthralled with online reading! There are so many inventive and enjoyable things out there, and I don’t have to move anything but one finger to read them! No more walking to those shelves a whole twenty steps away.

My latest love is McSweeney’s, http://www.mcsweeneys.net/ . It is absolutely hilarious and wonderfully clever. You, yes, any reader that you may happen to be, should check it out if you never have. The magazine describes itself as follows:

“Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency is an offshoot of Timothy McSeeney’s Quarterly Concern, a journal created by nervous people in relative obscurity, and published four times a year.”

As you may even be able to tell from this description, they have a completely real, witty, and laid-back style—something very refreshing for a literary magazine. I feel too often that literary magazines are dreadfully serious. I suppose there is certainly a place for that, so I won’t bash it, but the comic relief is, hah, a relief (I know, I’m not funny). For example, here is a sample from the page that is about Mcsweeney’s which explaining the frequency of posting on the site. Even the explanations are casual and hilarious, but not at all unprofessional or obnoxious. They write,

“We will put some things "up," so to speak, on some days, and on other days, we will not put things up. Whether or not we put things up will depend largely on whether, on a particular day, we have anything to put up. For example, let's say that on Monday we have something which we want to put up. On that day, we will put that thing up. On Tuesday, though, we might not have anything to put up. We will worry for a moment about not having anything to put up. "Oh no," we might say, "another day has come, and we have nothing to put up. What will happen if someone visits this site and there is nothing new to look at? Will people be angry?" But then we will realize that, chances are, people will not be angry -- that, chances are, people will understand. Most people are pretty understanding.”


I felt like I should quote that in full because it is just that funny, and probably more worth your reading than what I myself am writing right now. Hope you enjoyed.

With those examples laying the groundwork, let me explain a little more about what I encountered when I first went to this site, and why I love it so. First, I noticed the clean style—very post-modern in appearance. There were no cheap gimmicks, or anything flashy—the text presented was going to have to stand on its own as interesting. And it certainly did. The first words I read, other than the title of the page, were, “You are inappropriate, and the Pope is here to help. His book How to Dress for Every Occasion provides vital tips on clothing oneself for the beach, the movies, even air travel. Half price for the next 24 hours!” It appears to be an ad for a book—what I can only hope is either a fake book or the most hilarious joke of a book. You can click on the link to a page of further description and advertisement. As I continued to read through the site, I felt myself becoming more and more at ease myself, and more and more fascinated with what the next clever piece would be. Rarely do I come across such funny work, and so much of it in the same place! I feel like I have found a reliable source, here, for smart humor.

Also, I love that this site is so easy to navigate. There is little frivolous fluff or many distractions on the page. You can basically just click your way through the long archive list of postings. Most pieces are a wonderful length, too—I can read each in about five minutes. This is perfect for when a reader just wants to go and enjoy something for perhaps only a few moments (i.e. when I am working the circulation desk and am left alone for a few minutes with nothing pressing to do). The material and format match each other, neither being too complicated, heavy, or emotional in nature as many literary journals are. Many online journals leave me feeling lost behind or scattered, despite their serious efforts at being…serious. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where to even click next on an online journal. McSweeney’s is clear and approachable, and the content equally pleasing. Whether the writer is writing about JCrew or how to tell Jesus from the Antichrist, this work is casual and fun, and also is presented in a way in line with its demeanor.

I am apparently a huge fan!

Not so Big and Ugly

So I got bored the other day and started searching for online magazines. I found quite a few, but one jumped out at me more than the others. It could be because the website is bright green and pink. It’s ‘The Big Ugly Review’, which seems to have something for just about everyone. The completely online magazine is put out twice a year, every issue having a theme. It’s really easy to go from the current issue to the past ones, plus you aren’t distracted by annoying advertisements.
The Big Ugly Review publishes not only fiction, nonfiction and poetry, but also film and music. Short films can be submitted and viewed on the site, which I thought was pretty cool. The themed idea was nice, as it links all the genres together. I liked how it brought lots of different communities to one site.
I looked at ‘The Contest’ issue of the magazine. I began perusing the fiction section, reading stories by authors I hadn’t heard of before. Since this was the contest issue, the pieces didn’t connect to one another, but they were still well written. One story I liked was ‘Road Trip’ by Nina Schuyler. The story showed the struggle between desires, those of the parents and child while on a road trip. The mom is convinced they don’t have enough water for the trip through the desert, becoming paranoid when they stop to get more, only to find there isn’t any in any gas station they find. The dad is set on attending his 92nd birthday, and the child won’t stop crying. It was an interesting look at how different people deal with 13 hour drives, which I remember from old family vacations. And if you don’t like long fiction, they have some flash fiction you can check out.
Anyway, I didn’t think the name fit the magazine, though it does stick in your head. I liked having lots of options to look at. I even signed up for the mailing list, so when a new issue comes out, I’ll get an e-mail. I’m always looking for new ways to fill up my time. Anyone know some other magazines like this one?

A Million Little Pieces

Typically, I find myself avoiding books that Oprah recommended through her book club. However, I did break down and read A Million Little Pieces by James Frey, primarily because of the controversy surrounding its classification as a memoir. I must admit, initially the book was difficult to get into. It is incredibly graphic; so much so that I found myself cringing as I read and wondering what those around me thought of my silent reaction. Typically, I find reading to be an enjoyable activity and I think I put off reading this book for so long because I’d seen others reading it, making the same cringing reaction. I wonder, do others find themselves turning to reading to provide enjoyment and shying from books that make them hurt or afraid? (I must admit, I’m a pretty big wuss when it comes to horror films too; there might be some kind of a connection here.)

However, I stuck with the book and eventually found myself quite immersed and rooting for James’ recovery. (He is checked into a drug and alcohol rehab center and told that he has abused his body to the point at which if he drinks or does drugs ever again it will kill him. The book focuses on his time in rehab; the friends he makes and their struggles and his dismissal of the AA’s 12 steps program.) As James began to recover the descriptions became less graphic, but the book did keep a very somber tone, in line with the belief that only 15% of the people treated at the center he was at would survive without relapsing. The book focused less on bleeding gashes and root canals without painkillers as it continued, and then discussed implications of betrayal and the effects of alcoholism on spouses, children, parents and friends. Reading the book was a definite eye opener.

Still, I must admit I do feel cheated a bit now that it’s common knowledge that James Frey embellished some of the truth in the writing of A Million Little Pieces. Throughout the book I found myself wondering what was truth and what was fiction. I asked a friend and her belief was that Frey embellished the graphic details of his condition when he was checked into the clinic that made the reader cringe. After some research online, I found that it was his criminal records and run-ins with the law that were embellished. Regardless, it makes me wonder what the intended effect was of stretching the truth. To some extent, I think all writers must do this in their writing, even if there is only a glimmer of truth in the finished piece because I believe we all write about what we know. Why do you think Frey (or authors in general) choose to exaggerate? Does it sell better? Essentially, the problem was that Frey claimed his book to be completely nonfiction when in fact, it was not. Do memoirs sell better than novels? Should there be a degree to which an author can claim artistic licensure?

Romping in the Bookish Dark

Once again while “hard at work” in the Library I came across a new-ish book of poetry that caught my eye, Mark Strand’s Man and Camel (2006). I was drawn to it both because it is a bright orange book (what could make a girl’s day brighter in the gloomy Ohio weather) and because I remembered liking some of Strand’s earlier work that I had been exposed to in high school and college, especially “Eating Poetry” and “The New Poetry Handbook.” Along with Man and Camel I also checked out Darker (1970) for comparison/refreshment and also my general distraction.

While I really liked several of the poems from Darker—especially “The Prediction,” “From a Litany” and “Elegy 1969”—the general tone of the collection seemed really dark and often helpless or at the mercy of fate, with death as a frequent element in the poems. I guess this shouldn’t have been too surprising given the title of the collection.

I spent more time with the new kid on the block, Man and Camel, however. While they are still similar to Strand’s earlier work as I experienced it in Darker, the tone has shifted and I got a very different feeling from reading this recent collection. The book is divided into three sections, and the final section is a single series of seven poems titled “Poem After the Last Seven Words.” This particular piece is interesting in that it takes on Biblical/scriptural elements quite directly, unlike other Strand poems that I have read.

For the most part, Strand’s poetry seemed to be largely narrative, and he often uses small stories in conjunction with reflections in the poems of this collection. Strand also uses a fair amount of repetition in these poems; one in particular struck me, as it repeated the same stanza twice in the format of a series.

“Elevator”
I.
The elevator went to the basement. The doors opened.
A man stepped in and asked if I was going up.
“I’m going down,” I said. “I won’t be going up.”
II.
The elevator went to the basement. The doors opened.
A man stepped in and asked if I was going up.
“I’m going down,” I said. “I won’t be going up.”

This duplication was intriguing to me; it feels as though the speaker has been standing at this elevator for a long time, answering this same question over and over in the same way. Both this repetition and the narrative style were things that I recognized from reading Strand’s earlier work, but there were some other characteristics to this collection that also stood out to me.

In the first section (called “one,” unassumingly enough), many poems, including the first few, “The King” and “Two Horses” among them, have dream-like qualities to them. The poems seem to be affected by age, that is, the speaker/Strand generally feels wise or at times world weary. One place where I noticed this was the appearance of death as a character in some of the poems. Unlike in earlier poems, death does not come from some dreamed up tragic fantasy situation, but it waits quietly for its natural place to intervene, as in “2002.” I also noticed themes relating to memory, regret, and the pull of fate. In part two, I noticed more attention to personal relationships, small portraits of people, a lot of moon imagery, and a feeling of greater distance from some of the subjects of the poems, as well as a greater distance from tragedy. For example, in “People Walking through the Night,” the subject (the people walking like refugees to sleep homeless in a park) are “they” unlike the “we” of earlier poems. Also, in “Marsyas,” “screams could be heard” of a “man tearing open his body,” but “nobody spoke” or took action, including the narrator.

I like this collection quite a bit; I found Strand’s poems to be both accessible and complex. While their narrative quality makes them easy to read, there is clearly something significant going on beyond the words on the page. In some ways, I felt that Strand’s earlier work (or at least the pieces that I read) resonated more with me, but perhaps I just need to spend a little more time with these new pieces.

Good stuff in the middle of hokey stuff

I was at the grocery store the other day picking up a prescription and had to wait about 20 minutes so I was looking at the magazines they had and I picked up Realms of Fantasy Magazine. At first I thought it was just something that was for die hard Harry Potter fans and Eragon nuts but I was surprised to see that there were a few good short stories. And the best thing about it was that they were all varied and not what I was expecting. Half of the stories I read through were actually science fiction stories. I asked Clyde, my guru of all things fantasy, about it and he actually had a few old issues that he let me borrow to look at. I think the thing that I actually like about this magazine is that it offers a way for the common person to get into a writing market. I’m not saying that any person who writes a story is going to be published in the magazine, far from it, most of what I read was very good writing, some of it’s by established writers who get featured in each issue but with my experience so far with literary magazines and journals it does seem a bit stuffy and at times on the artsy side, so I think that its important for more than just literature readers to do the writings, who’s to say that someone brand new and inexperienced can’t have a good idea for a story. Also, we all have to start somewhere, and this magazine seems like as good a place as any. Other than about a dozen short stories, which included tales of deep space, quirky realities where robots run around, tales of biblical fiction and stories about anything you can imagine, there were also good articles on work coming out in all media from print, to film, to video games. There was a lot of hokey stuff too, gothic dresses, places you could buy swords and medieval weapons, and lots of propaganda for Eragon and Harry Potter stuff, but I would still give the magazine some credibility after what I read. Just because it’s common or in the main stream I don’t think it should be count out.

Spanish poetry + English + Music = Delight. Who knew?

I stumbled upon a gem of a reading the other night. It was on Wednesday night, March 7 at Miami University. María Auxiliadora Alvarez, a Spanish professor and old family friend, read a selection of her Spanish poetry. This was a surprisingly stacked show, as her English translator, Dr. Linde M. Brocato, had traveled from the University of Illinois to read with her, as had a world-renowned composer and Professor of Music at St. Mary’s College, Jeffrey Jacob. The lucky audience was privileged to hear María read her work in Spanish, the translator following, and then Jeffrey Jacob, speaking on how he put this poetry to music. The prestigious St. Petersburg philharmonic choir and orchestra preformed his scores, I believe it was, and Mr. Jacob showed video recordings of these shows as part of his presentation. It was fascinating to see how these three artists come together to make this wonderful poetry and music (the work is in progress), each explaining a bit about his or her approach and experience along with the actual performance of the work. I loved the opportunity to explore the intersection of poetry and music, and how the two work together to heighten the other.
Also, speaking both English and Spanish (I traveled to Guatemala once upon a time and spent some time there learning the language), it was enjoyable for me to hear María’s Spanish poetry as compared with the English translations. The translator did a wonderful job of picking very specific words and phrasings that I would not have immediately thought of, but that deal well with the subtleties of the text. For instance, compare these two versions of the same stanza of “We”/”Nosotros”:

“accederíamos con lágrimas
a los labios promisorios
alcanzaríamos con risas
la mudez final”

“we would endorse with tears
the promissory lips
with laughter we would arrive
at the final loss of voice”

In the final line, there is nothing to indicate “voice” specifically in the Spanish, but more literally, just a final silence or muteness. The use of “final loss of voice” in English adds a delicacy, however, that I think Alvarez intended. It is beautiful and poignant work on both of their parts.
I was further amazed by the work of Jeffrey Jacob, and not just because of his extraordinary record of accomplishments, but because of his explanations and the beauty of the music itself. The pieces he composed were intricate and had intentional effects meant to enhance the poetry. He explained that some composers will take the piece of poetry as a whole and compose to that, but that he prefers to take a few lines as his primary inspiration and work to shape the music around them. He tries to give a beautiful sound and color to the text. For example, he explained and played while playing the piano to illustrate, he will use a certain underlying chord for a long period to create a sense of timelessness. In more specific examples, he discussed María’s poem, “The infinite”, or “El infinito”, and how he worked with the text. There is a sense of desperation in the beginning, and so he uses loud and passionate music. Then, as the piece moves towards tranquility in the end, he uses the same tempo and themes, but it is slower and a bit quieter, like a memory. When he showed a performance of this piece, it seemed almost discordant in the beginning, moving toward harmonic in the end. In another example, the music accompanying “The eternal apprentice” seems very improvisatory and has no consistent pulse. The final piece, which I would call the ultimate and most awe-inspiring piece, was very beautiful. Jacob commented that “We”, or “Nosotros”, is very personal and introspective, but also very soaring and romantic (the above quotation is the ending of this poem). So then, he worked on creating both intimacy and a sense of extroverted and glowing horizons in the music. I noticed that the cello and women’s chorus combine in a beautiful harmony to illicit both the personal introspection and the extroverted or passionate angels of the poem.
Maria was always very personal when introducing each of her pieces, telling us a bit about each one. Many of them were written for one of her children. It was fascinating to me that a poem about a shattered heart could be for her son, and I loved that she was that honest—both with him and with us. Also, I loved to imagine what Maria was thinking and feeling as she heard her work in English, a language which she speaks at a fairly elementary level. How is it to trust your poetry with someone else to become something different from the personal work you had poured your own heart into? Such trust! Further, though, what is it like to hear something with so many personal memories, thoughts, and feelings, put to its own music? I think it would be reminiscent of having a personal soundtrack to your life! It would be extremely moving for the writer. I also wonder how great it was for the three of them to see an audience moved by the work—as we all were. It was absolutely beautiful—in English, in Spanish, and in pure music.

look ma, they've got pictures

We don’t get too many graphic novels at my library, and it’s kinda hard to know what’s good to buy or even request off interlibrary loan since: comic book stores scare me a little (they shouldn’t, but they do) and not too many print people are willing to admit there might be something to look at in some of these books. So I go to my old friend The Internet.

Graphic Novel Review is one good blog to look at, though it hasn’t been updated in a while: the blog is set up for reviews, obviously, but there’s often commentary about genre expectation as well. The first post starts off discussing how most people who read comics expect elements of the supernatural, the fantastical, and the just plain weird. Unless one’s reading Japanese comics, of course, but see below for that discussion. GNR also links to what other people are saying about graphic novels they’re reviewed, which is pretty cool: you can see other opinions. La Perdida and De: Tales look pretty interesting to me.

I guess the other downside is that GNR almost excludes what’s virtually eating up the comics market right now: those Japanese comics with the name I don’t know how to pronounce. (I haven’t been paying $10/pop for Yayoi Ogawa’s epic romantic comedy/commentary on gender relations in Japanese society Tramps Like Us or anything. Nope, not at all.) I forget what the actual sales percentage of Japanese versus American comics is right now, but I know it’s in favor of those across the ocean, and many of the people buying in the US are female. A blog that reviews both comics, industry issues and manga - I can type it even if I can’t say it - and is updated quite frequently, is Comics Worth Reading.

And if most of the literary world keeps on thinking that just because it’s got illustrations it’s not worth looking at, well, they’re just losing out.

Maud Newton

Maudnewton.com/blog is a literary blog concerned with book reviews, a touch of politics, and of course Maud Newton. I checked out the “about” link to find out more about the writer. She has a law degree, practiced for a few years and then returned to things she actually enjoys, much to the chagrin of her dotting parents. Her dry wit and humor is scattered all over her blog, making this one specifically enjoyable to read. Maud Newton’s blog has apparent critical praise from snooty tooty newspapers across the globe, and I haven’t decided if this makes her blog better or worse!

One of the reasons I was astonished by her site was the incredibly long list of links she has to other blogs, news sites, presses, and writing sites in general. What I enjoyed most was how she merged the political world with the world of fiction. The link between the two is almost inextricable after reading her blog. The idea that government and people want to control what we read seemed to be an overlaying theme, and something she was obviously concerned about, something this blogger thinks we should all be concerned about.

Maud Newton’s blog got me thinking about how we deal with literature we do not like. Depending on why we do not like it we seem to deal with it in different ways. For example some want to ban books due to vulgar language, others just write scathing reviews. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though. Maud mentions a Kenyan camel book delivery system. It is a library that delivers books to parts of Kenya that do not have the resources due to political turmoil. After reading this, it seems that yes, literature and politics are blurred together forever, but maybe sometimes we try and actually use books to our advantage rather than just ban or burn them.

le cadavre exquis

I took a course on prose poetry back in my undergrad days, and I remember my professor warning us about submitting to an online mag called “Exquisite Corpse.” He said that Exquisite Corpse would accept anything you submitted—so of course our ears perked up (published! hurray!) but would only seriously publish the good submissions and mock the crappy ones. So while I was online at the lib the other day, I decided to check this out.

Apparently taken from the line “The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine” (le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau in French—thanks Wikipedia) which was the first product of a surrealist language game similar to ‘Consequences’, Exquisite Corpse publishes both fiction and poetry, as well as book reviews, letters, essays, and sells back issues and compilations of its selections as well as books by Corpse contributors. With skulls, crossbones, and missiles splashed all over the background, it is a bit intimidating, but I decided to jump into a section with abandon, flinging caution to the wind, drink some (very) new wine, and find out about this whole mockery thing.

I browsed through “Anti-Anthropomorphism or: Animals Redeemed,” and from the looks of it, they will print anything. A recent selection:

Love Hurts

Spare me your roses
But bring forth your thorns and let
Me bleed my way home (feelings)

Can I count the ways
I’ve murdered you in my mind
NO—Far too many

Ouch. Corpse’s take: “Gregory Braquet lets us see the true Lassie [this refers to the first poem] then confesses that ‘love hurts’.” I guess the mockery bit is true.

I decided to browse the “Making and Unmaking of Person” section, which sounded promising, where I stumbled upon “Wednesdays” by Lee Ann Mortensen. It’s a piece of flash fiction (or prose poetry… where to draw the line?) and it’s hilarious. I mean laugh out loud funny. But also sort of painfully honest. A woman narrates what her lover wants, listing them off in strained points. An excerpt:

What my lover wants seventh is for us to talk, to say everything and purge ourselves. She closes her eyes and begins.
"I've always wanted another Porsche like my first husband gave me. It was red and fast and got me lots of fucking. But you'll never make enough money. I hate that," she says.
I cough and try to come up with something good. I say, "I don't particularly like your hair, I mean, it's nice hair, nice to touch." I cough a little. "I guess I don't like it after you've been jogging, or when you've put a little too much product in it. It sort of seems too sticky maybe."
She looks at me tightly because I've said "maybe" and I'm not supposed to say "maybe." I'm not supposed to equivocate.

Corpse says: “Lee Ann Mortensen demonstrates how lovers create one another.” I guess they liked it too.

Would I submit to this online mag? Well, definitely not the angsty co-ed scribbles that fill my old notebooks. But it certainly is entertaining as a spectator sport.

Grace is simple

I shelved a book at the library today whose title caught my eye. It is called The Pure Inconstancy of Grace. It’s a book of poems by Richard St. John. Something about this title wrenched at my heart immediately, as did the title’s coupling with the name of the author—St. John. I felt innately that this author might have some special authority concerning the text of such a book—that he would have something special to say, much like St. John the Baptist. I opened the book and skimmed through the list of poem titles, my excitement growing. Just about all the titles indicated a graceful and spiritual focus—titles such as “Praying in the Dark, Age 50”, “A Baptism”, “The Way the Spheres Must Move”, “The Sainthood of St. Julian”, and “From the Plate”. These titles jumped out at me as truly important. Maybe they were just tapping into my Catholic upbringing, and recent-years’ loneliness and jumbled lifestyle. I don’t know, but I began reading the book as I pushed my cart through the aisles, re-shelving all the other books. I was slow and clumsy, but could not help it because I was glued!

I haven’t read something that was truly this inviting and, well, good in awhile, even considering the extreme volume of written work I’ve been digesting. Here’s the thing that I think made this experience different and so enjoyable: I was reading something that beckoned me and that opened all the doors of communication so that I did not have to trip over anything. Simply, St. John’s work is accessible! And yet, wonderful at the same time. I’ve started to feel like, especially in contemporary literature, that poetry is more appreciated the more it does something new and probably mysterious. A lot of postmodern literature is fragmented and the format, too, can leave the reader a bit mystified as to how he or she is supposed to read it. Really, it just takes a whole lot of thought and work on the part of the reader to engage. To me, this is not necessarily the best literature—literature that demands too much of the reader, rendering the experience possibly frustrating or exhausting. Literature, to me, is very much about communicating something well, and it takes two to communicate-a speaker and a hearer. One who has ears to hear. I mean that so much, I approach a poem and don’t even know where to begin to read it—often literally, and more often in terms of it meaning. St. John’s work was refreshing in this sense.
Now, the danger here in writing in a clearer, sometimes even prose-like style in St. John’ case, is that the work becomes too simple and the art diminished. These two things do not have to go hand-in-hand, however. The images and thoughts presented are illuminated even more to me because I know how to approach them. I don’t feel frustrated by dead-ends, or the fragments of thoughts and images and whims that seem to want to tell me something, but that stop walking towards me half way across the bridge. St. John still gives the reader plenty of walking to do…across the bridge (I suppose that’s the metaphor I’m using for engagement with the text?)…but he thoughtfully and gracefully illuminates the path. He does this just by writing in a code all of us readers understand. It is simple sentences and word structure! So, it is not his form that is so incredibly clever, but the ideas and substance being communicated, so thoughtfully revealed. He makes spiritual references in almost every poem, moving in a graceful way, and weaving through references to art, music, and nature. Allow me to give some examples of his work and perhaps you can see for yourself what I mean that this work is truly graceful—approachable, structured, meaningful, and very beautiful.

--favorite lines from “A Largo”:
“A little like the face of God, we can’t look
at music directly. And so, the woman in the yard
of her apartment block cannot explain
why she is moved so by the largo of the maple seeds
spilling from the high branches, the sun
through the leaves, scattering gold florins
across the rusty wrought iron table.”
…
“Near sixty now, she’s sitting at a table in the sun.
It’s not that everything has come right in the end.
She still awakes at night, looking for lost friend
among a maze of charred foundation stones. And yet,
if God’s withdrawn, he must have left behind
at least the space and form of music. …”

Do you see already how it is not the form that is so artist, but the content?

In some places, the work gets extremely prose-like, but that maintains an intense poetic power and is not in need of any overly-smart poetic dress-up. For instance, in “A Baptism”, he says at the beginning:

“Some accounts say the sky ‘tore open.’ But in Verrocchio’s Baptism
we get only these ridiculous, disembodied hands,
releasing a stylized, downward-pointing dove. It’s said
that Verraccio abandoned painting altogether when he saw
how leonardo’s angel, detailed as apprentice-work
in the foreground, outshone his. Still, it’s Verraccio’s angel
that attracts me…”

He goes on to link this to a scene at a maternity ward, all the babies, even the sickly, like angels. St. John’s material is genuine and so does not need any fancy formatting to be special. In fact, to me it may be even more special because I sense the thoughtful and beautiful intention and experience of the author in much of the work. It is not distant from the author or from the earth, or spirit. This is truly good poetry. No tricks or gimmicks, no clever elusions, just simple and graceful presentation. Thanks, St. John!

The Presentation of Poetry (and where the future will take us)

I just got back from a poetry reading by Justin Katko and Katherine Fronk and I figure I might as well add a little blurb about it here on my blog. I almost didn’t go because it was so wet and miserable out (get me out of Ohio!) but I’m glad I decided to attend. Justin is a grad student at a local university and he really seemed to put together some interesting work. It’s always cool to see what kind of work grad students are doing—it’s kind of like looking into the future. The work presented tonight was part of an ongoing series called Ritten To.

Katherine Fronk, who I believe is an undergraduate student, presented her work first. The poetry she read seemed much more conventional than the poetry Justin would present in a media format later. Katherine’s work seemed very accessible to the average listener or reader. Most of her poetry seemed a little dark, but my favorite one she read was entitled Dreaming in Circles. It was written in three parts, and each part played off the previous one. The sound of it was quite beautiful to listen to.

Starkly contrasted to Katherine’s conventional poetry is the collaborative work she did with Justin. They presented a poem called Scores, a video filmed and edited by the two young poets. To sum it up, they cut up little exam booklets that students use to write essays on during tests. With the little tiny cut up parts, they write one or two words per page. With video editing, they flip through each page rapidly, flashing several words in succession every second. (Think subliminal message style poetry). The words flew by so fast I had no idea what I read. However, in the end, I felt like I got something out of it all. It was extremely interesting work and I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it before.

I wonder about the new digital age that poetry is entering and the new ways poetry is being presented. As far as this reading goes, the video poetry grabbed my attention much more profoundly than the conventional poetry. However, the conventional poetry was much more accessible. Poetry seems to be exploring different modes of presentation that fiction cannot. In a digital age, it would seem the best way to attract an audience’s attention towards a piece of work is through digital presentation. However, this is not always a benefit. If a poem can only be presented digitally, then fewer people will have access to it. I guess until this kind of poetry can be more easily and widely shared, poets will have to share their work through more conventional means if they hope to reach a wider audience.