// weird. fell asleep reading an ezra pound bio and woke up thinking i’m late for class.
Category: literature
// i didn’t know ezra pound had wisconsin connections… chippewa falls connections at that.
//decisions, decisions… eat lunch at my desk while editing audio recordings? or eat in the breakroom and read barzun’s house of intellect?
Susan Sontag
“To the academic reader, these are provocative, even flashy performances. To the common reader, they’re like shots of intellectual espresso.” read more »
What magazines do you receive?
Deborah of 32 poems magazine wants to know:
I’m getting Cimarron Review, Bloomsbury Review, Ninth Letter, Virginia Quarterly Review, The New Yorker and some others. The New Yorker hardly needs my support, but there you go. I am morally opposed to The Atlantic, because they do not publish enough poetry. The amount of poetry they publish withered to nearly nothing the last time I checked. That’s about the time I decided to subscribe only to magazines that offered a large poetry presence. You could easily tell me how few poems The New Yorker publishes. Well, The New Yorker is The New Yorker. The prose is also good.
Some other magazines that invite my interest include Southwest Review, Barn Owl Review, and Pebble Lake Review to name a few. I’m only including magazines one can subscribe to, so that leaves out many excellent online magazines.
What magazines do you like?
American Poetry Review, Poetry, Poets & Writers and Small Press Review.
Magazines I used to subscriber to, but had to cancel due to lack of funds: Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Main Street Rag, New York Review of Books, Paste, Salamander and Slipstream.
Of course, if you’re reading this on tumblr, you are probably already perverting the language.
Lost in translation
Considering that I just read a few books of French prose (translations), I find this vaguely interesting.
“Did you know that in America we publish less literature in translation by far than any other industrialized democracy (in America 1% while in France 60%)?” Link
Based on my reading habits, I am a minority among most American.
Before audio books…
“Of all the repetitive, mind-numbing jobs in the late 19th century, cigar-rolling was special. “Unlike sewing clothes, mining coal or forging steel, it was blessedly quiet. And thus cigar workers, whether in Chicago or Havana, were the first ones in their time who managed to introduce that vital commodity — distraction — onto the work floor.“Using their own wages, and backed by a powerful union, they paid for a “reader” who sat in an elevated chair and began the morning with the news and political commentary. By the afternoon, he would usually have switched to a popular novel. The 100 or so rollers on the floor were his captive audience, listening as they worked.”
(via NYT — thanks AdPulp) Link
“I thought Europe was a country”
“Ms. Jacoby… said, something different is happening: anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way. Not only are citizens ignorant about essential scientific, civic and cultural knowledge, she said, but they also don’t think it matters.” Link “I thought Europe was a country”
The elegant lie
Sunday, I had the opportunity to sit in the WPVM studios during a broadcast of WordPlay. Katherine Min read from Secondhand World
The secret lives and desires of poets and writers
From The New Yorker:
Part of the reason there were no real biographies is that little was known about Gibran’s life, and the reason for that is that he didn’t want it known.
Link.
And from Slate:
…one of the most troubling dilemmas in contemporary literary culture…. the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed–as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died.
Link.
From 1000 Black Lines:
- Jessica Smith, Burn it. Poetry burns well. And it is a fitting end for poetry, esp. anything from that angsty juvenile period…
- 1000 Black Lines, Thanks for the advice. I’ll burn it along with all the friendship bracelets, florescent T-shirts…. Who needs to worry about the high cost of heating fuel when burning poetry is such an affordable alternative?
Link.
Graphic novels and reader literacy
Will increased interest and consumption of graphic novels increasing reading among America’s youths? From The Kansas City Star:
The school’s Graphic Novels Club more than doubled its members in less than four years.
Link.
I remember when comic books were considered adolescent porn. For all I know they may still be perceived that way. I wonder if the increased interest in graphic novels includes the old Illustrated Classics?
When I was in grade school, my father occasionally bought copies of of the Illustrated Classics. My favorite books were Sherlock Holmes and the case of the hound Of the Baskervilles
Dull-prose hell
So, it looks like I’ll miss tonights Warren Wilson College MFA faculty reading… child care canceled at the last minute. But after reading the following article, maybe MFA’s are horribly overrated. From the Toronto Star:
…when it comes to teaching creative writing, good intentions are nothing but paving material for the route to dull-prose hell. Link.
Warren Wilson College reading — review
Brief review of last night’s Warren Wilson College MFA faculty reading.
Marianne Boruch
Charles D’Ambrosio read a lengthy, intriguing piece that I assume is the opening to a novel. When he finished, I wanted to shout, “What happens next?”
Van Jordan
Michael Martone
Maurice Manning’s poetry lecture summary and thoughts
As promised, some highlights from yesterday’s Maurice Manning
The lecture centered on “Some Thoughts on Sympathy.” Maurice began by defining sympathy. First, it is not the “I feel your pain” emotion that is manipulative, fake and inaccessible — a show of feeling rather than creation of feeling (i.e. the desire that you feel me feeling your pain). Sympathy defined as honest feeling, common understanding — as in “two beasts bound together” like oxen — of suffering.
Maurice cited the Romantic period as the historical place where sympathy in literature is born — where the outward reaching heart surveys the humanity of the world and returns to the mind where it is changed, sympathetic, and reaches outward again. “Isn’t that what we seek in poetry, to be changed?” Maurice asked. From there he presented the two-step machinery of Romanticism — heart and mind cycle — using the physics examples of sympathetic motion in plucked strings and pendulum motion.
This is the part of the lecture where I was deeply engaged. He went deep into physics and linguistics to make the point that sympathy occurs naturally — it is part of our nature. It is the transfer of energy from one property to another, one person to another, from the page to the spirit. This is the kind of lecture that challenges me, resonates with me, makes me want to go deep. I’m starved for it.
Maurice used Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse” and Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” as examples of sympathy in poetry. After an in depth analysis of the linguistic patterns of “To a Mouse,” he concluded his lecture by stating that the poets he referenced found the self in these poems. “We’re always yoked to something…” he said. “The mysterious force of the poem stays with us even after we have closed the book.”
The applause was loud and seemed not to affect him as he paper clipped his lecture notes. As the applause subsided he quietly stated, “I guess it’s lunch now.”
Maurice Manning’s poetry lecture…
…was ARGH-sum!
I arrived at Warren Wilson College’s Fellowship Hall a few minutes early and waited for the earlier session to conclude. First one out the door was none other than Steve Orlen
I’ll provide highlights from Maurice Manning’s
Did any of ya’ll out there make it to Maurice’s lecture?
Strange Familiar Place comic series
It has been awhile since mentioning a comic strip I’ve written and illustrated. The Indie has published the series since December. It is called Strange Familiar Place and features a magazine A & E editor (at least in the first two strips) and the main character Hudson Stillwater, a graphic designer.
Strange Familiar Place also features Heather (Hudson’s wife) and presents a slice-of-life drama of living and working (and losing a job) in a cultural creative urban mountain city (or at least a city that looks a lot like Asheville).
Published in The Indie, March 1, 2007
Published in The Indie, March 16, 2007Beginning in mid to late April, Strange Familiar Place will be illustrated by someone else. I’ll still be the principal writer, but I hired an illustrator that I am confident will present the visual narrative with a higher quality of art.
Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: UPDATE
The Indie features part one of my creative non-fiction comic, Strange Familiar Place, this month. It has been a year of trying to find a place courageous enough to take the risk on a no-name amateur artist.
The Indie is available at: Malaprops, True Blue Arts, Pack Library, Woolworth Walk, Rosetta’s Kitchen, Mellow Mushroom, Hannah Flannagan’s, Fine Arts Theater, Early Girl Eatery, Port City Java, Burgermeisters, Lucky Otter, West End Bakery and many other locations.
Previous thoughts and intimations on creative non-fiction comics: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: UPDATE
inked comic page
The publisher received the first installment of my creative non-fiction comic this week. It has been almost a year since a posted about a creative non-fiction comic I’ve been illustrating and writing. Previous posts on creative non-fiction comics: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
The irony is that Drawn, an illustration and cartooning blog, posted this on Monday:”Goodbye one-page diary comics; everyone’s blogging now.”
It appears the one the inspirations for my work now has a blog (which isn’t bad) but he posted this: “In the old days i’d have made a one-page … but today we squander our narratives in a blog.”
What a pisser.
The first installment is due to hit the streets in December and the medium is horribly dated. Another source of inspiration has a blog as well but hasn’t updated since 2003. However, Vertigo released a five-issue miniseries by him that began in September.
Maybe it’s not as bad as Drawn considered.
Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: part 5
A while back, I mentioned that the first installment of my creative non-fiction comic is complete and pending publication. The first installment is titled “Higgins: Inside the Box.” Last weekend I completed half of the second installment (four strips or roughly 12 panels) which is the conclusion to the story arch, “Higgins: Inside the Box.” Then I began scripting a 5-part comic strip for a third installment which features a story line about this event. There isn’t an official title to this one. However, “Higgins: Outside the Box” seems like a logical progression.
Last Tuesday was the SECNCS meeting and fellow artists encouraged me regarding my inking techniques and suggested some tips on lettering comic strips. One artist, who is regularly featured in the Rapid River magazine, recommended that dialogue text be all caps and narrative text be upper and lower case. The recommendation is already being implemented beginning with the second installment.
This endeavor of combining illustration and creative non-fiction, have inspired me to study the poet William Blake. The illuminated text is not a new media; many ancient manuscripts were illuminated. For example, The Book of Kells is famously known for its illuminated text. Years ago, I studied under a calligrapher who taught me the secret of the Celtic knot work and spirals represented in the Book of Kells. The discipline of the knot-work has served me well, though not in my recent illustrations.
But William Blake illuminated his own poems and printed his own collections with the help of his wife. It helped that he was trained as an engraver and went on to apply his trade for book and magazine publishers. Being an innovator in his own right, he applied his trade to illuminate and print his own literature. Like William Blake, I studied graphic design (the modern day digital engravers if you will) and know how to produce books and magazines for clients. I wonder what William Blake would think of creative non-fiction comics?
Previous posts on creative non-fiction comics: [1] [2] [3] [4]
Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: part 4
The World’s Fastest Readings
Just got back from the world’s “second fastest reading” (according to Peter Turchi) at Malaprop’s. Twelve MFA faculty members from Warren Wilson College read from their published work. Each member was given roughly three and half minutes to read.
Last year I attended the first Warren Wilson MFA faculty reading [read here and here.]. This year they scaled it back a bit; from 18 to 12 readers.
WLOS had a camera crew filming portions of the event. I guess Asheville residents may see it on channel 13 tonight (I don’t own a television so I’ll check AshVegas’ blog to see if it was even aired).
Overall it was a good event. I must confess the first reader, whom I cannot recall, didn’t attract my attention and my adult ADD kicked in and I started writing stream of consciously in my notebook. Adria Bernardi read an excerpt from her novel which brought me back to the event and Justin Grotz delivered a fine reading of fiction as well as Peter Turchi.
Somehow the poets didn’t quite do it for me tonight. Maybe I’m overly critical of poets. Maybe the poets didn’t want to be there tonight. However, the second to the last reader, Steve Orlen, read a single poem that worked; and worked well.
After the event, I chatted with a gentleman who hosts Malaprop’s Blind Date with Poetry. He also happens to be one of the members of Eye For An Iris Press. With all the celebrated and award winning poets and writers gathered at Malaprop’s, I spent the most time conversing with this gentleman.
There’s something that has been preventing me from completing my application for the MFA program at Warren Wilson College. I thought it was simply intimidation, but I think it goes deeper than that. I can’t put my finger on it right now, but I intend to explore it later.
Tags: [poetry, fiction, literary, writing, reading, Warren Wilson College]
Warren Wilson MFA faculty Public Readings
The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College Public Schedule
Readings will begin at 8:15 pm in the Fellowship Hall behind the Chapel unless indicated otherwise.READINGS – 8:15 pm
by MFA faculty and graduating studentsFriday, January 6
Marianne Boruch, Peter Turchi, Mary LeaderSaturday, January 7
No readings on campus, but come to “The World’s Fastest Readings” by MFA faculty at Malaprop’s, 55 Haywood Street. Reception at 5:30 pm; readings start at 6:00 pm.Sunday, January 8
Rick Barot, Wilton Barnhardt, Karen Brennan, Antonya Nelson, Eleanor WilnerMonday, January 9
Brooks Haxton, C.J. Hribal, Martha Rhodes, Kevin Mcllvoy, Ellen Bryant VoigtTuesday, January 10
First night of graduating student readings: Scott Gould, Sandra Nadazdin, Tatjana Soli,
Rosalynde Vas Dias
Tags: [poetry, fiction, literary, writing, reading, Warren Wilson College]
Narrative Non-Fiction Comics: part 3
The first installment is done. I’m a little bit nervous about sending it to the editor.
A couple months ago I began exploring the idea of literary comics; more specifically creative non-fiction comics.
I began sketching a 14-panel demo story and showed the drawings to some other cartoonists at a monthly meeting. The narrative non-fiction comic strip was modestly received and they encouraged me on some drawing techniques.
Casually inspired by Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor, Jessica Abel’s Radio: An Illustrated Guide and Eddie Campbell’s Alec McGarry, I began work on a narrative non-fiction comic strip storyline in five parts. Each strip, four panels, needed to be enough of a story to encourage a reader to come back next week. This would make it ideal for a weekly publication. The long term goal is weekly syndication (hah, stop laughing–everyone has dreams). The short term goal is a self-contained 5-page story.
Bitter Black Coffee, Issue 6, Summer 2005
The editor and publisher of a zine, Bitter Black Coffee, requested I put together this 5-page comic for an upcoming issue. In fact, the 14-panel demo story featured our intial meeting. So, this is a bit of a test run to see if I can complete something I started. We’ve been discussing this for over two months.
My personal goal (not the editor’s) was to have all 20-panels drawn, lettered and inked by Thanksgiving. However, personal crisis, illness and a full time day job prevented me from meeting that deadline. So, I adapted and gave myself three more weeks. The week before Christmas all 20-panels (plus a few bonus ones) were completed and scanned and ready to send. Only one hitch (actually two)–I didn’t have a name for the strip. Then I upgraded my laptop to Tiger and somehow lost the files I needed to email the editor. The naming of the comic strip still didn’t come to me. The muse must be on vacation or holiday or something. Maybe she has the stomach flu like I had last week.
During the Christmas holiday I found myself flipping through a copy of Alec: How To Be An Artist and I thought of a working title. I told myself it was too simple and too silly, but I went with it. I haven’t thought of anything else ingenious so the strip will be submitted with a working title. Maybe that’s the whole Malcolm Gladwell thing about snap judgments and split-second decisions.
Last night I got the files ready to email. Tomorrow I submit the self-contained 5-page story to the editor and publisher of Bitter Black Coffee.
Coffeehouse Junkie 
