February 26, 2007
Poem Included in Fare
February 22, 2007
The New Yorker's exposé on the Poetry Foundation
This week The New Yorker has a long article on the Poetry Foundation (which oversees Poetry magazine), and happily the whole thing is available online. I didn't think John Barr, the foundation's chair, came off very well, with his mission to bring poetry to the people. The Foundation helpfully links to all the editorials and articles in dispute.
February 18, 2007
Never mind the bollocks
In a development already inspiring at least a few hundred spontaneous combustions, it's come to light that Newbery Medal-winning children's book "The Higher Power of Lucky," for ages 9 to 12, contains the word "scrotum." Basically, on the opening page, a dog gets bitten by a snake in the junk. Yes. By the end, lessons are learned and so on. The kids get tucked in for the night to lie sleepless and irrevocably altered, thinking whatever dark thoughts you've now unlocked for them, or whatever.
I'm OK with kids ages 9 to 12 reading and learning the scientific term for "junk," as I was saying a lot worse than that a lot younger, and it might've been refreshing to discover the correct nomenclature. But I enjoy this story as another in a long line of examples of how scared, literally frightened, people can be of fiction. Which means that fiction still matters to people. You write something and show it to people, and it gains instant importance. However we got to it, that's a nice thought.
I also find it interesting to see, yet again, how librarians who sit around cluttered shelves of books all day and are presumably well-versed in literature can't be bothered to crack a dictionary to look up the definition of "pornography." I'm not sure a snake biting a fictional dog in the junk qualifies as material designed to make you horny.
The author, Susan Patron (the perfect last name for a librarian), is not helping her case among the censorious in the children's literature trade, though. Explaining why she felt the need to use "scrotum" in a children's book, she told the NYT: "The word is just so delicious." I imagine a reporter sputtering a mouthful of herbal tea onto her tape recorder about then. Another lesson learned, kids: imagine how something is going to sound before you say it.
The only thing about this story that irks me is this sort of clumsy passage quoted in the NYT: “Scrotum sounded to Lucky like something green that comes up when you have the flu and cough too much. It sounded medical and secret, but also important.” Stop dancing around the issue, Patron. It's called "sputum."
The Napkin Project
Esquire sent out 250 cocktail napkins to writers and has published some of the results. It's a pretty cool project, with contributions from Ron Carlson, Daniel Alarcon, Rick Moody, and Aimee Bender. Also, check out former Quickie Interview authors Julianna Baggottt and Benjamin Percy, who even included an illustration with his story. Not to mention all the interesting handwriting samples that could probably be scrutinized for signs of insanity.
February 14, 2007
If You Haven't Read the Classics...
You might want to check out How to Talk About Books that You Haven’t Read by Pierre Baynard.
No longer will I have to suffer the embarrassment of admitting I've never read Anna Karenina!
February 13, 2007
Flarf wars
Don't call it a comeback--bloggers still like to argue about flarf. Silliman yesterday was blogging up an approving storm over Michael Magee's book My Angie Dickinson, deemed by some uncited quotable (Is he block-quoting himself? And then calling his own quote "problematic"??) as a future classic of flarf (I like Future Classics as a name for an album of greatest unhits). Jessica Smith rolled her virtual eyes at the post and the supposed overapplication of the term flarf: "What happened to specificity in language?[!]" Upshot: Silliman as of now has garnered a paltry 13 comments. Smith? 48! Get annoyed for better page views.
What I want to know is ... am I flarf?
Speaking of specificity in language: I learned an awesome linguistic term from Bemsha Swing: snowclone. For example, "X ITN Y" = snowclone. OMG, it's so good.
February 11, 2007
Get Small Spiral Notebook Free!
Small Spiral Notebook has decided to offer their fourth issue as an E-book—a daring move for a publication that is, even though they publish an online edition, perhaps best known for being a print mag. In her editor’s note, Felicia Sullivan cites “economical and ecological” considerations as factors behind the SSN makeover and says future print issues will be available primarily through the SSN store, as opposed to using a distributor. I opened up the E-book this afternoon and found some wonderful work in there. And it makes a cool swishing noise when you “turn” the pages! Reading the issue also made me wonder if E-books and limited print runs will eventually be the way of the future for other lit mags. I have a somewhat romantic attachment to hard copies myself, but it makes for an interesting proposition.
February 8, 2007
Supermodels Love Poetry
No really, they do. Or at least this one does.
I know what you're thinking, but wait. It's not her own poetry. It's classic poems by Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker, and W.H. Auden among others, which she has set to music and sung.
Don't hate her because she's beautiful.
February 6, 2007
Quickie Interview # 15: Tracy K. Smith
Tracy K. Smith was raised in Northern California. She received degrees in English and Creative Writing from Harvard College and Columbia University. Her book, The Body's Question, was awarded the 2002 Cave Canem Poetry Prize by Kevin Young and published in 2003 by Graywolf Press. Her second book, Duende (Graywolf 2007), won the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. She is the recipient of a 2004 Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, a fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and a 2005 Whiting Writers' Award. Her poems have appeared in Boulevard, Callaloo, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, Gulf Coast, Post Road, West Branch, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She teaches in Creative Writing at Princeton University.
First Car?
I currently live in New York, where I find it easier not to drive a car, but I have fond memories of the hand-me-down cars I drove around California when I was still living in the Bay Area. The first was a 1980 Toyota Celica, in a shimmery bronze, that my sister gave me in 1994. In 1997, I got my brother’s red Toyota pickup truck, with standard gears and no power steering, and I loved how rugged—or maybe the word is “butch”—it felt. The next car was a Chevrolet Celebrity, another hanger-on from the 80s, that I drove across the country and gratefully relinquished when I discovered how expensive parking violations are in New York. I think my next vehicle will be 2-wheels and 125cc.
What was your favorite book and band in high school?
I’ll just put it out there: these high school questions are going to be tough. I used to ask my older sister very particular questions about her childhood, and she’d preface her answers with a statement like: “Tracy, that was 30 years ago.” I feel a little like that now. So much has happened since I was at that stage. But okay: I remembered liking Jude the Obscure and Of Human Bondage and Cyrano de Bergerac at some point in high school. I was also very inspired by a book by Brenda Ueland called If You Want to Write, which my drama teacher recommended to me when I was a junior or senior. And the music I listened to varied from Edie Brickell and Madonna to Stevie Wonder and Sly and the Family Stone.
Which crowd did you hang out with in high school?
I was one of the kids in the AP classes. Some of my classmates had been friends since primary school, and I’ve maintained intermittent touch with one or two over the years, but I know very little about who it is that each one became. I’d love to say we were cool nerds, but when I think back to myself, it was always a matter of feeling either extremely cool or extremely nerdy. This is a pendulum that still swings back and forth in my mind.
First job?
I worked as a temp at Apple Computer in Cupertino California in 1990, the summer before leaving for college. I think I was helping to administer an early email program for employees of the company, but what I mostly remember was meeting up with my brother for lunch, or going to a nearby park to read for an hour or so at midday.
What's new on your iPod or CD player?
Amy Winehouse, Bebel Gilberto remixes, ABBA, 2Pac and Snoop Dogg (I’m just now getting into west coast hip hop). I just got Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall (which I’ve always loved) and Madonna’s last few cds (which I’ve always been too much of a snob to listen to) from a friend’s computer. And Frank Zappa and David Bowie are always in heavy rotation.
What's the best DVD you've rented of late?
I just watched Little Miss Sunshine in a hotel in India and completely flipped for Alan Arkin’s character. He reminded me somewhat of Gene Hackman’s character in The Royal Tennenbaums. Where are all of those old men?
What are you working on these days?
I’m just getting into the first new poems after the completion of my second book. I don’t know what will characterize them yet, but they’re pulling me towards different forms and postures. Some of them are even, at times, a little humorous, which feels consistent with my personality, but a trait that rarely surfaces in my work.
Anything coming out soon?
My second book, Duende, will be published by Graywolf in May. I’ve just seen the proofs and it feels exhilaratingly real to me now—like a lover I’ve finally had “the talk” with.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever gotten?
“Wisdom is a butterfly, not a gloomy bird of prey.” That’s Yeats, as quoted by Seamus Heaney, who was my teacher in college.
Is there a piece of writing advice you find yourself frequently repeating to your students at Princeton?
Stop trying to direct the poem and try to listen to where it seems to want to go. What sonic hints can you follow that might lead to exciting thematic shifts? What un-premeditated choices can you allow yourself to make that might teach you something about the role of improvisation in the process of writing?
What are some of your guilty pleasures?
Well, my list of music reveals a thing or two about that. What else? I can’t sing to save my life, but sometimes I’m a fool for karaoke. I love to dance, though who should feel guilty about that?!! Certain friends in my life have been asked to refer to me in the third person, as “Big Guns.”
Favorite recipe?
Homemade whole wheat bread.
Can you describe your workspace? What's on your desk?
I have a floor-through apartment in a Brooklyn brownstone. The middle room serves as my study, with a large oak table where everything that needs attending to in the present moment sits. My computer is front and center.
What’s the most interesting place you’ve ever been?
I’m writing right now from a beach in Goa, India, which is relaxing and joyful and fascinating for the warmth and still-discernible traces of the Portuguese presence. I was in Delhi earlier this month, as well as during the summer, which is wonderfully frenetic and chaotic and cosmopolitan and alive. But how can I say this is the most interesting place when I’ve been changed by so many other landscapes and people? I love the feeling of difference that most places exert, and the longing and curiosity that precedes my arrival there.
Stones or Beatles?
Stones. Period.
February 3, 2007
Rejected Fiction Contest
The Rejected Quarterly is hosting a short story contest. The Catch? All entries must be accompanied by at least five rejection slips. Too bad I burn my rejections upon receipt.....
February 2, 2007
Sawbuck 1.1
Pshares blog commenter sdw's journal Sawbuck is now on-line, featuring work by Dan Beachy-Quick, Ada Limon, kari edwards, Timothy Liu and more (including--full disclosure--Elisa and me).
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