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Category: literature (Page 5 of 7)

Literarily related articles. Book reviews. Poetry. Literary references

Michael Parker reads from Ain’t Gonna Bump No More

Leslee Farish write to alert us that Michael Parker will read from his story Hidden Meanings: Treatment of Time, Supreme Irony, and Life Experiences in the Song “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More Big Fat Woman.” I blogged about being delighted by this story when I read it in the Oxford American back in January.

Who: Michael Parker, UNC alumnus, award-wining novelist and fiction professor in the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s MFA writing program
What: Parker will read from his story Hidden Meanings: Treatment of Time, Supreme Irony, and Life Experiences in the Song “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More Big Fat Woman.” He will also be hosting a discussion focusing on the issues raised in the story: body image, stress, family life, and relationships, in addition to sharing his own thoughts and feelings about the piece.
When: Noon, Friday, December 2
Where: the Mary Turner Lane Reading and Resource Room at the Carolina Women’s Center 134 East Franklin St, Suite 215

Rule of Sevens so far

I’ve six poems written and five of those published for the series I’ve been working on based on the number seven. Since each of the six corresponds in some ways, often obliquely, with each of the seven days in Genesis’ first creation story, I could take the seventh day off for rest.

Here’s how it looks so far:

The Creation of Heaven in NandO

As I posted here on Thursday this week, I sold one more of my Rule of Seven poems, The Creation of Heaven, to the News and Observer Sunday Journal. It’s out now. The online version doesn’t reflect the stanza breaks correction (make that at all) and the small bit of prose info doesn’t show (instead you get “an error occurred while processing this directive]” I hope that gets fixed as the day goes on).
I had wondered if I needed to completely reconceive this poem and had started to several times. I gave myself several odd rules that are different from those that I used in the other Rule poems and I wasn’t sure that it worked. Seeing in printed makes me feel a little better now.
Off to pick up the paper version.

Here’s a net version with the right line and stanza breaks.

Poem Intro for NandO

No one has ever seen a life giant squid begins one article But that turns out not to be exactly true. The tales of the Kracken go a long ways back into prehistory, but those who read those stories thought the creature described was too fantastic to have ever lived. Still sightings of the giants continued to be reported and pieces of the animal continue to be found.

These are not passive or shy creatures. According to marinebio.org and other sources, “In 1965, a Soviet whaler watched a battle between a squid and a 40 ton sperm whale. In the case of this battle, neither was victorious. The strangled whale was found floating in the sea with the squid’s tentacles wrapped around the whale’s throat. The squid’s severed head was found in the whale’s stomach.”

I am still trying to imagine anything choking a whale by the neck.

Just recently Japanese scientists were able to film an Architeuthis in the dark depths of the sea. Visit here to see them for yourself.

Jones on Blooker in NandO

In what appears to be a play to get an article mentioning me in every section of the News and Observer during the months of October and November, I just completed an interview with Roger van der Horst about the Blooker prize.

I talked about Charles Dickens as the most respected English serial novelist and about Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny appartment kitchen by Julia Powell as an example of a good blook. Wil Wheaton’s Just a Geek personal memoir and Chris Anderson’s Long Tail a book on economics and technology that is forthcoming are two others.

However I expect and hope to be surprised by what we will be reading among the finalists. Blooks create an open environment for writing — one that as a poet I would not likely participate in although I have been publishing a potential chapbook project in the News and Observer a poem at a time — that allows interaction with readers as critics as well as enforcing a discipline of regular writing that new writers need. The form also allows for digressive and unusual inclusions which could make for some new styles of writing.

That said I expect to be reading good writing. Good sentences and paragraphs. Well-told tales. The stuff you would expect in any book prize finalist.

I am holding off on several sections of the News and Observer. The Obits for example.

Jones poem in Sunday N and O

While I was in DC, I somehow managed to sell a poem in Raleigh. The Creation of Heaven, which has a giant squid and a whale in it, will be in the Sunday Journal section of the News and Observer. I’ll add a link once Sunday has come. Now I will have published 5 of the 6 Rule of Seven poems in NandO. Each poem has seven stanzas of seven lines each of which have seven syllables. There’s more than that but that the framework.

Blood Done Discussion 2

Now at Tim Tyson’s talk that is a closeout to the Campus Reads a Book program. Tim introduced by director of the Stone African-American Culture Center. “Mercy” says Tim. Tim talks about the number of Methodist and Free Will Baptist preachers in his family. He introduces his parents and also Eddie McCoy who we all know from the book. Much said about Eddie as a local historian and notes that Eddie’s tapes and transcripts are in the Southern Historical Collection. September 8 5 – 7 Tim, his father, Eddie and Jacqueline Dowd Hall will be speaking at the Wilson Library.

3 point sermon to be delivered. MLK was a Southerner. The Black Power Movement was born in the South like King. King and Black Power Movement had much in common. The South is the major arena on which the problems and successes of our country are played out.

Tim’s talk is on MLK (Sally will have more on her blog later I’m sure. She’s writing now.).Tim talks about food. MLK’s fav food was fried pig’s ear sandwiches. Tim is big on food.

[taking time to listen here]

King as a realist not a genial black santa claus as we have made him. Eloquent description of King and is radicalism. Tim now speaks of King’s first speech at age 27. Embrasses the non-violent and Christian part of the movement.

Quotes King’s Chapel Hill speech. (Sally says that she’s read all that could be found on that speech and that she can’t recall that quote tho).

Now about the Black Power Movement. Black independent and Black separatism. Black Power are a revival of a tradition of resistance. James Meredith’s march and shooting changed the chat “Freedom now” to “Black Power” also the scene of Stokley Carmichael and MLK’s debate about the nature of power and how Irish, Italians and Jews had become white and how that might apply to blacks. They did not agree. No one was shouting “Irish Power” in order to get accepted in Boston.

Along Freedom Road: Hyde County, North Carolina and the Fate of Black Schools in the South by David S. Cecelski gets mentioned. As does Governor Aycock’s overthrow of the elected govenment of North Carolina.

Fusion movement turn of the century success of democratic vision. The Wilmington riots are mentioned. More readings on that movement here.

Standing ovation for Tim.

Active question time. Is violence necessary? How did he come to tell that story and how long did it take him (since he was 11)? What about the reappropriation of the word nigger is asked by a young black woman senior from Oxford. Tim talks about reappropriation of Tar Heel, Linthead, Redneck, etc. Now about the Wilmington takeover. Aycock and the next six governors were all involved. The beginning of the Jim Crow South. In response to a recently released soldier’s concern that he had never heard of the Wilmington riots. How can a white man do African-Amercian studies asks a young white man in African-American Studies. Tim talks about talking on Robert Williams to the Republic of New Africa. Funny but tough talk.

What do we do about working on racism? Friendship is fine but what about public policy asks Tim. How to keep the public sphere open?

Mary Williams will be playing and singing songs that are referenced in the book including a take the roof off the church version of “Blood Done Sign My Name”

Blood Done Discussion

At one of the many discussions at UNC of Tim Tyson’s Blood Done Sign My Name. This is not a discussion of undergrads, but one of graduate students and faculty. Since this is not exactly a private discussion but it is not exactly a public discussion either, I’ll be broad in my remarks.

Coordinator Dr. David Carr notes that he and several other folks here have come from leading freshmen discussions today. He tells of wanting to talk alot but that he once got a chinese fortune cookie fortune that said “Today is a good time to shut up” He then acknowledged that he has yet to learn to do that. Now he tells us that the freshmen were born in 1987 parented by parents born in 1962 (if their parents were 25 when they had these freshmen). David contextualized the period by describing the Kent State killings and the Augusta and Jackson State killings — all in the same month as the killing of Henry Marrow. May 1970.

Folks mention other books: “A Lesson Before Dying” and “Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” and Tyson’s “Radio Free Dixie” Personal reflections are brought up along the way. A bit about small town concepts and how the particularlity is more touching to some than the broad national pagents. “Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society” is being read by one man. Another person talks about the portrait of the South. Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” Bebe Moore Campbell’s “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine” High school students are very aware of class notes Carr. I mention Frank Johnson and Sally’s class. I only know a little or do I know a lot?

What is this book about? asks David. One says: Information Access. (Glad he came to the ILS ;->). Special mention of Tim’s having left the paper that had the pages torn out. Tim left it that way so that people would know that it had been damaged. Mid-westerner claims she had no clue of the culture. She was shocked at first by Silent Sam, but then thought that avoiding history is not a good thing. Back to information. Why did it take so long after Brown v Board before segregation ended? How far have we really come? “Wolf Whistle” and James Baldwin’s interview with Martin Luther King are mentioned. David was on faculty at Rutgers with the former president of NC A and T. A little talk of Viet Nam. Viet Nam included black and white soldiers and that effect in noted. In Camp Lejune, racial tension was extremely strong.

“Henry Marrow thought he was going out for a soda” not to change anything. A young black woman talks about “Color Purple” and how racism infected and infects the black community as well. How racial heirarchy infects us all even blacks.

“Founding Brothers” is mentioned by one faculty member and how the founders couldn’t deal with it and left it for us to determine.

David envies Tim as a writer. How Tim uses the work “kenneled” in the phrase how he realized when he refused to drink from a certain water fountain that “racism was kenneled within him.”

Discussion of complexity. Return to the water fountain. And other stories told.

Ending? or Going on after an hour. What would we talk about if we had another hour to meet?
Sex and race (not gender but sex) brought up. The combination that killed Emmett Till and Henry Marrow. How to personally recognize racism within oneself.

David talks about the “Color of Water” which will be read by the Durham community. David is arranging and training the reading group folks there. He’s looking for volunteers to help out.

Carrboro on September will have a community book forum which will begin with “Blood Done Sign My Name.” Tim asks for sweet potato pie to be brought.

On September later, Richard Florida’s “Creative Class.” and in November “Rescuing Patty Hearst”

Powers of Seven chapbook?

I’ve six poems written and four of those published for the series I’ve been working on based on the number seven. Since each of the six corresponds in some ways, often obliquely, with each of the seven days in Genesis’ first creation story, I could take the seventh day off for rest.
Here’s how it looks so far:

Jones-mania – Lesser Light

Today’s News and Observer’s Sunday Journal’s Sunday Reader section features one of my sevens based poems, “Lesser Light.” The online version screws up the stanzas; it leaves out the concept of stanzas completely. Imagine that you are reading seven lines at a time as a stanza and you’ll get the intent (until I hack a version of the html on this server).

I love it that poetry shows up in a section called “Lifestyles.”

UPDATE: Incompletely hacked but poeticly correct version is here.

Potter conjectures

Having finished Harry Potter number 6, I’m ready to make some guesses as to what will happen in the next book. Not exactly what, but at least two questions that must be answered.
1) Who is RAB? I agree with wikipedia posters that RAB must be Regulus Black. I had guessed that when I decided to check wikipedia — and damn if there wasn’t a well argued conjecture there that agreed.
2) Where is the final horcrux of The Dark Lord? In Harry Potter of course. Harry and Voldemort cannot kill each other — and they have tried. Not sure how it got there but I suspect via RAB in some way. Also what does this have to do with all this “power of love” talk by Dumbledore?
3) Speaking of Dumbledore, is he really dead? Possibly not since the organization is called “The Order of the Phoenix” afterall.

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