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Category: literature (Page 7 of 7)

Literarily related articles. Book reviews. Poetry. Literary references

The Sad Lot of Poetry

No, not that poetry is written by or even for depressives, but that the News and Observer’s noble attempt at making poetry writing inclusive and fun was immediately hijacked by trolls.
For poetry month, that is April the month in which we are mid-way through, the News and Observer published a very broad sampler of poetry, 5 or 6 by different authors, in a beautiful layout in their Sunday Journal section. The online version has an even nicer color photo illustrated slide show.
Now the participation kicks in.
The News and Observer has some barely moderated forums populated by trolls who represent the darkest portion of the ids of some spiritually impoverished part of Raleigh. But never mind that. Poetry can bring light — perhaps.
Or perhaps not. The public, which must go through several hoops to join the forum, is encouraged to take a line for NC Poet Laureate Kay Byer’s poem and to create a new poem of their own.
I like the idea — part of it — The participation and the remaking and the building on in a personal and unique way off of the Byer poem.
The problem is the N and O forum. A glance at the postings immediately put you off. The first posters don’t follow that stated rules at all. What one has to go through to register for the privilege of posting with the trolls is just not worth it.
The poetry project is held hostage by a bad interface, an unpoliced community, and unfilled expectations.
In some ways, I’m happy to have this as an example for my virtual communites class upcoming in the fall. But frankly I would rather have seen it work out as designed.

Can this project be saved or salvaged?

Sally in NYC

Sally is off in NYC taking in all the culture including a late preview of the musical, “Light in the Piazza” based on our friend Elizabeth Spencer’s novel, The Saint Lawrence String Quartet at Carnegie Hall (featuring her cousin, Geoff Nuttall), a visit to the new MOMA, a revival of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and more.
Tucker and I went instead to Apple Chill and ate bad food on a stick, then his North Carolina Boys Choir did a concert at the Cedars, plus more delightful local diversions. The weather is beautiful so who could possibly complain about anything?

She Blinked First

Margaret (aka Peggy) Rabb has been editting Blink: a little little magazine of little poems for some time now. The January 2005 issues in vol. 4 no. 3. Her Blink is one 8.5 x 11 page folder twice so that you have a cover, 2 pages of very very short poems — I’ve not noticed one over 8 lines and most or 5 or less — and a back. I have several issues scattered around the house and am always delighted to read the poem anew as I rediscover the issue and the poems. I’m particularly enjoying Mike White’s “O” just now.
Peggy had her Blink before Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell subtitles his Blink “the power of thinking without thinking.” Peggy, whose selections are thoughtful, might call her Blink “the power of thinking and thinking again.”

Some useful Blink info:

Blink is published bimonthly. A single issue costs $1; a year’s subscription is $6. Make checks payable to Margaret Rabb, Editor, CB#3520, Greenlaw Hall, UNC, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3520.
Submit original, previously unpublished poems only; include SASE. First publication rights reserved; all rights revert to author upon publication. ISSN: 1536-1624.

Apocalypse 2075: Robot Rebellion Chances High

The word “robot” was first widely used in the play RUR or Rossum’s Universal Robots [in Czech] by Karel Capek (but some give credit to Karel’s brother Josef for coining the word). The play you may remember is about a robot rebellion — a justified one at that.
The Guardian asks scientists and other experts to evaluate 10 end-of-the-world scenarios as to their likelihood of occuring in the next 70 years. Robot Rebellion was right up on top with a HIGH likelihood and a HIGH impact.

Here’s a very brief summary:

1: Climate Change.
Chance of temperatures rising more than 2C (the level considered to be dangerous by the European Union) in the next 70 years: High
Danger score: 6

2: Telomere erosion.
Chances of a human population crash due to telomere erosion during the next 70 years: Low
Danger score: 8

3.Viral Pandemic
Chance of a viral pandemic in the next 70 years: Very high
Danger score: 3

4. Terroristic Attack.
Chances of a major terrorist attack in the next 70 years: Very high
Danger score: 2

5. Nuclear War
Chance of a global nuclear war in the next 70 years: Low
Danger score: 8

6. Metor or Asteriod Impact
Chance of the Earth being hit by a large asteroid in the next 70 years: Medium
Danger score: 5

7. Robot Rebellion
Chance of super-intelligent robots in the next 70 years: High
Danger score: 8

8. Cosmic ray blast from exploding star
Chance of encountering a supernova in the next 70 years: Low
Danger score: 4

9. Super-volcanos
Chance of a super-volcano in the next 70 years: Very high
Danger score: 7

10. Earth swallowed by a black hole
Chance of Earth being gobbled up by a black hole in the next 70 years: Exceedingly low
Danger score: 10

Patrick Herron and Kent Johnson – Saturday

Carrboro Poet/Gawd Patrick Herron writes to alert us of his reading on Saturday.

Who: Patrick Herron and Kent Johnson
When: Saturday March 26 @ 8 pm
Where: Internationalist Books on Franklin Street, Chapel Hill
What: High-energy Poetry Reading

More from Patrick:

Kent Johnson is the caretaker of perhaps the most controversial work of poetry in American history since Ginsberg’s _Howl_, and he has been my mentor and friend for the last six years. You can read about the Yasusada controversy extensively covered in the Boston Review in 1997 ( and
http://bostonreview.net/BR22.3/BR22.3.html). Or, alternately, you can read about his life that includes working with the Sandinistas.

Read a fine example of his poetry, a play on the children’s book _Goodnight Moon_ which is arguably the most remarkable poem in the famed _Poets Against The War_ collection.

Don’t come for me, come to hear Kent–he is truly phenomenal. Poets this good don’t come around often in a lifetime. This is not to be missed.

Patrick

Robert Hass at UNC

Went over to hear Robert Hass (don’t be an ass; it’s pronounced Hass) read his poetry as part of the Morgan Series. Hass read new poetry which has not yet been collected. Several of note including tributes to Milosz (Hass worked with Milosz on translations for about 20 years) and to influences including Pound (whose politics are the polar opposite of Hass’ own). Hass ended his reading with a prose poem, currently called POEM, (slightly reminicent of “Pascal Lamb”) that included Viet Nam and Iraq and aerial bombardment and the shift over the 20th century from army deaths (90% in the first 20 years of the 20th century according to Hass) to civilian deaths (90% in the last 20 years of the 20th century according to Hass).

Modern Love (the poetry and the music)

Rocking Paul Muldoon
One of my guilty pleasures is reading the “Modern Love” feature in the New York Times Sunday Style section. The pleasure shouldn’t be that guilty; they have very good writers writing very good and interesting takes on varieties of love in the modern age (or at least the contemporary age). Over and over I see articles by writers that I know are good but I am surprised to see in the Times and more surprised to see in the Style section.
Take today’s for instance. Novelist Jean Hanff Korelitz writes of the surprise of watching her husband at age 53 decided to take up rock guitar, to join up with an financial manager, a Renaissance poetry professor and a lawyer to form a band called Rackett, and to end up with a song co-written by Warren Zevon and produced by Bruce Springstein. The unsurprising part is that her husband is the immensely literarily gifted poet Paul Muldoon. The surprising part is that her husband is the rather wrinkled and distracted 50ish Irish intellectual Paul Muldoon. Hanff Korelitz does a wonderful and loving and modern take on mid-life crisis and the odd success of Muldoon’s passion and her sharing of that passion.

Small personal note: I was a reader/reviewer for some of Paul Muldoon’s earlier works when they were being published by Wake Forest University Press and the wonderful Dillon Johnston (who looks much more like an older rock star than Muldoon). I particularly remember the joy of reading his complex Quoof in manuscript. I still believe that Quoof is the most significant book in the Muldoon canon.

A. Miller Alerts Us to Chris Abani appearance in NC

South African friend, Andie Miller reminds us that exiled Nigerian poet/novelist, Chris Abani will be here in NC.

At last report, Abani is scheduled to be speaking in Raleigh at NCSU’s Human Rights Week on Monday March 28 6:30 in Williams Hall.

NCSU’s site says:

First imprisoned by the Nigerian regime at the age of eighteen when his debut novel was labeled a threat to national security, Chris Abani continued, after his release, to challenge injustice as part of a guerrilla theater group that performed plays in front of government buildings. His activism led to more arrests, and, eventually, a death sentence. Released, he chose exile, settling first in the United Kingdom, and then in California, where he currently teaches creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. Chris Abani’s experiences inform and shape his beautiful, evocative and award-winning writing, including the poetry collections Kalakuta Republic, Dog Woman, and Daphne’s Lot, novels GraceLand (shortlisted in the Best Book Category (Africa Region) for The Commonwealth Writer’s Prize) and Master’s of the Board, and his plays. Mr. Abani’s novel, GraceLand, was recognized nationally by being selected for the ‘Today” show ‘Today Book Club’. Graceland tells the story of a teenage Elvis impersonator trying to get out of the ghettos of Nigeria.
In his presentations Mr. Abani opens minds and widens horizons, showing how art can serve a just cause. Come hear from someone who has challenged tyranny with nothing more than his pen, as he fuses the worlds of politics and art while discussing human rights and democracy. A reception with Mr. Abani will follow the presentation.
Sponsored in part by the Caldwell Fellows Programs, the University Honors Program, the University Honors Village, and the University Scholars Program.

The Pleasure Was Mine

Novelist Tommy Hays writes about important human things like growing up — I mean seizing your adult life instead of avoiding it — in Sam’s Crossing, his first novel. Coming of age, as a ten year old in the South when death, race, and religion intermingle and where being a “Waffle House mystic” is an actual career choice in In the Family Way.
His third novel is just out from Saint Martin’s. The Pleasure Was Mine deals with dealing with Alzheimer’s. This time at the late end of life. Tommy will be in Chapel Hill at McIntyre’s Books on April 16 and in Raleigh at Quail Ridge Books on April 14.

Soul Notes – this weekend

Soul Notes w/Creighton
Sally describes Crieghton Irons’ musical “Soul Notes” which will be produced this coming Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday at the Kenan Theater in the Center for Dramatic Arts on the UNC campus.

“Soul Notes” is “the musical result of scores of personal interviews that [Creighton] conducted in Jamaica, South Africa, and the American South. These interviews, most of them with black and white musicians, explore the big issues surrounding race in intimate and vulnerable ways. Backed by a full rock band, a talented cast of 20 from all corners of UNC’s campus brings these interviews to life with the sounds of reggae, blues, rock, gospel, and bluegrass. “

UPDATE: Chapel Hill News did a nice long feature on “Soul Notes” today.

Jones-mania (literary version)

Just got email from Jan Hensley who is doing a photo display of writers from North Carolina saying that he, his camera and my old buddy poet Ann Deagon would be coming here next week so’s he can add my photo to his show. He’ll be putting together a show of photos and first books for the North Carolina Writers Conference in July. My only book, What the Welsh and Chinese Have in Common, has some age on it, but it’s also been sold out since it was published in 1990. You can read it online where it’s been since 1992.
Some more recent poems are “Unapproachable Edens,” “Birds and Fishes,” and “Dividing Waters (1954)”.

Must Have H2G2

I am being programmed to desire all things relating to The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (H2G2) as panicy race to the April 29 release of the movie approaches.
Today, the (err a) trailer was released on the front page of Amazon.com! The movie blog procedes apace.
Unfortunately it will not be as corny as the BBC TV version or the wonderful radio show. I maybe an old codger, but there was something about sitting in the dark imaging the characters as Douglas Adams described them that no special effects can replace.
I do love the BBC sponsored website designed like the legendary Guide that preceded wikipedia by several years and is almost as amusing.

Jones-mania in NandO

So the News and Observer didn’t cover the Triangle Bloggers Conference (that I can see) despite the 150 folks showing up (see conference blogging notes — they are all over now). Great feedback and surprising folks. Who knew that Henry Copeland lived here now (he of blogads) or Blog for America‘s Matthew Gross — just for starters.

But the News and Observer did take about 1/2 a page and dedicate it to my Valentine’s poem, Unapproachable Edens, in the Sunday Reader section.
The online version doesn’t preserve the stanza breaks so I made an improved version (the copyeditor in me insists on it being right).

Chris Abani at NCSU March 27th

South African friend, Andie Miller, writes to say that one of her favorite poets, Nigerian Chris Abani author of “Graceland” (a new novel which has just been shortlisted for the Africa region Best Book Award of The Commonwealth Writer’s Prize) and others, will be the keynote speaker at NCSU’s Human Rights Week on March 27th. Nothing yet on the NCSU website, but it’s listed at Abani’s site.
You can hear Abani on the March 22, 2004 show at the Cat Radio Cafe, which has a number of other really interesting shows with great writers.

Collapse-o-mania in NYTimes Books

There is no end to the reviewing and essaying on Jared Diamond’s new book, “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.”
Today’s New York Times Book Review has a lengthy and thoughtful essay by Gregg Easterbrook. Easterbrook reviews Diamond’s career and touches on his other books including “Guns, Germs and Steel” and “Why is Sex Fun?” The first won Diamond the Pulitzer Prize and the second reflected the serious work that won him the National Medal of Science. Easterbrook is less enthusiastic than say Malcolm Gladwell or Steward Brand and in the end less thoughtful than David Brin.

I’ve written on Collapse and the mania surrounding it here and here and here.

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