We did not get to voting for next years authors today which is a shame because I was looking forward to see how that process would work. However the class was able to present on twenty different authors. With such a mass of names and awards and grants the whole thing becomes a little overwhelming.
I like the pictures. I think we should just invite whoever has the best picture.
Kidding. But I was surprised at how passionate two class members were about the author Claudia Ranklne. I have not read her but I plan too. Her work seems very smart and funny, even the title of the book Don't Let Me Be Lonely is humorous. One of the class members described her as "post-9-11" which I totally understand why, but it makes me uncomfortable to hear. I'm sure it my issue. I understand the beyond tragic profound impacts of 9-11, or the holocaust, or slavery, or patriarchy for that matter, but to classify literature as simply "before" or "after" these events seems to deny both the trauma of the events and work of writing. Sorry I'm off on a Tangent and don't know how to return.
I think I need to relax and let my sub-conscious wander through these authors in its own time. As we were going over them I marked NO or MAYBE or I LIKE so I can start sorting and reading more from the people I liked. Or, if all else fails, I just vote for the most attractive.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
9-15-08 Week Three Next Years VWS Round One
Today we began a sharing our picks for next years authors. I did not know how to go about picking my two author suggestions because I am not particularly familiar with the kind of writers TCNJ would have at the Visiting Writers Series. So I looked over the speaker schedule I received at the Brooklyn Book Festival and found a series of readings called "Brooklyn in the House" that featured local readers. I saw a name I remembered from the anthology Legitimate Dangers that I remember Trisha presenting on, Nick Flynn.
It was the poem we called "Emo" in class. I read his work in the anthology and did some research. He has an interesting bio, including homelessness. Apparently he wrote an acclaimed memoir about being homeless that from the excerpts I read looks artful and well written.
It was the poem we called "Emo" in class. I read his work in the anthology and did some research. He has an interesting bio, including homelessness. Apparently he wrote an acclaimed memoir about being homeless that from the excerpts I read looks artful and well written.
9-14-08 Brooklyn Book Festival
Today my boyfriend and I went to the Brooklyn Book Festival. It was a hot, muggy, and sweaty. We got to the festival at four o’clock and spent an hour or so walking around checking out the different booths and areas where people were reading. It was all outside and there were multiple stages where you could sit down and listen or leave as you pleased. I’m super sensitive to physical sensations and my environment so it was hard for me to experience the readers; too many people, bodies, smells, sounds, people smoking cigarettes, faces…It was overwhelming.
What we did see was the readings by Esmeralda Santiago, Dagoberta Glib and Jessica Hagedorn. They were on the Main stage, which sat people on the steps of Borough hall. I enjoyed all the pieces they read to the extent I could pay attention. After their reading was Chuck Klosterman who I would have liked to see becuase I am ambivalent towards his work. I think some of his pieces are hysterical, like the story about his bizarre experience with Val Kilmer and his essay on Saved by the Bell, but I find some of his other work sexist, arrogant, and ignorant. Unfortunately we had to meet my sister at a restaurant so we did not have time to hear him.
The whole book festival experience was, to be truthful, awful. I know the goal of the assignment was to experience a community of writers, to spark an interest in something new, to possibly find someone for the VWS, and I am sure that for the majority of students it will be just this. But the way I relate to books is in the dark, in the air-conditioning, by myself. Reading is something I do alone like showering or singing in the car. If my anxiety is low I can usually handle a class discussion. But put me outside where I feel hot, and fat, and uncomfortable, and my shirt is clingy, and I’m sweating, and eww that person just touched me, and this stone is too hard to sit on. If Jesus Christ came back to answer some quick questions I don’t think I could listen. I feel like running to a cold dark empty starbucks, snuggling into a plush chair to write an intelligent poem about how superior I am to these frauds of the book show. No REAL writer could handle so many other humans with their faces and sounds and stories congesting ones mind. I, Gabrielle Reed, am obviously the only true artist who appeared at the book festival today. I am kidding. I enjoyed the book festival it was just a little too much stimuli for my fragile self. But still I get it, I get why people go to readings why their good and why someone without social anxiety disorder would have had a wonderful time.
What we did see was the readings by Esmeralda Santiago, Dagoberta Glib and Jessica Hagedorn. They were on the Main stage, which sat people on the steps of Borough hall. I enjoyed all the pieces they read to the extent I could pay attention. After their reading was Chuck Klosterman who I would have liked to see becuase I am ambivalent towards his work. I think some of his pieces are hysterical, like the story about his bizarre experience with Val Kilmer and his essay on Saved by the Bell, but I find some of his other work sexist, arrogant, and ignorant. Unfortunately we had to meet my sister at a restaurant so we did not have time to hear him.
The whole book festival experience was, to be truthful, awful. I know the goal of the assignment was to experience a community of writers, to spark an interest in something new, to possibly find someone for the VWS, and I am sure that for the majority of students it will be just this. But the way I relate to books is in the dark, in the air-conditioning, by myself. Reading is something I do alone like showering or singing in the car. If my anxiety is low I can usually handle a class discussion. But put me outside where I feel hot, and fat, and uncomfortable, and my shirt is clingy, and I’m sweating, and eww that person just touched me, and this stone is too hard to sit on. If Jesus Christ came back to answer some quick questions I don’t think I could listen. I feel like running to a cold dark empty starbucks, snuggling into a plush chair to write an intelligent poem about how superior I am to these frauds of the book show. No REAL writer could handle so many other humans with their faces and sounds and stories congesting ones mind. I, Gabrielle Reed, am obviously the only true artist who appeared at the book festival today. I am kidding. I enjoyed the book festival it was just a little too much stimuli for my fragile self. But still I get it, I get why people go to readings why their good and why someone without social anxiety disorder would have had a wonderful time.
9-05-08 Week Two Issues and Arguments Fiction
We had class today and Prof. Row explained the chronological movements of writers in American from 1900 to now, which I was absolutely delighted to learn. I’m going on five years of undergraduate Literature classes and no Professor has ever explained the movements of fiction in such a comprehendible way, it was an accessible and informative history. I keep thinking about my father, J.D. Reed, in this class, who was a writer in the seventies and eighties; he published a book of poems and some fiction. Although his first book of poetry won a Guggenheim he was never a literary superstar (he taught creative writing at Amherst before moving to SI, Time, and People) but he was friends with some “real” authors. When he and my mother lived in Montana he was in a circle of Alcoholic writers like Jim Harrison and others whose names I forget.
My family has an odd relationship to the writing world, the popular eighties novel The Sports Writer was based on my family. I’ve never read the book and never will because Richard Ford who wrote it used my Dad’s friendship for material and presented my parents in a not too good light. And later my sister Alicia looking down for her cigarette lighter crashed her car into Joyce Carol Oates pulling out of her driveway. My family dislikes Oates because, well, she’s not a very good writer, but more importantly she was very difficult in the trial.
Anyway now that I’ve shared to much personal info I will return to my original question. What I’ve been wondering in this class is where my father, or the more-famous writers in his circle, fit in the movements you discussed. He was born in the forties and came of age in the era during and right after World War Two so maybe he would be considered post-modern. My mother, who also published some (not-too-good) fiction, always says my Dad and his friends all wanted to be Hemingway and all their poems were about food and sex, so who knows.
My family has an odd relationship to the writing world, the popular eighties novel The Sports Writer was based on my family. I’ve never read the book and never will because Richard Ford who wrote it used my Dad’s friendship for material and presented my parents in a not too good light. And later my sister Alicia looking down for her cigarette lighter crashed her car into Joyce Carol Oates pulling out of her driveway. My family dislikes Oates because, well, she’s not a very good writer, but more importantly she was very difficult in the trial.
Anyway now that I’ve shared to much personal info I will return to my original question. What I’ve been wondering in this class is where my father, or the more-famous writers in his circle, fit in the movements you discussed. He was born in the forties and came of age in the era during and right after World War Two so maybe he would be considered post-modern. My mother, who also published some (not-too-good) fiction, always says my Dad and his friends all wanted to be Hemingway and all their poems were about food and sex, so who knows.
9-4-08 (After Class) Week One Orientation
In class we discussed one of the poets I read, and a few that I liked that I had not read. I liked Juliana Sphar's poem (pg358 in Legitimate Dangers), which prof. Row told us was influenced by the Language Poets like Gertrude Stein. Poetry is such an interesting medium of art because it is both cerebral and lyrical, almost music and almost philosophy. I think Spahr’s poem embodies this type of light almost playfulness in language with her “and we…/and we…/and we…” line beginnings, it reminds me of a five year old telling a story. But the content of the poem is dense and a little to abstract for my liking. There is nothing concrete in the poem, which I assume is the point of something titled “localism or t/here”, but I like poetry where the grand concepts are entered through concrete detail.
9-4-08 Week One Orientation
Today we have class and I have been thinking about authors. I have read a few of the poets from Legitimate Dangers, but I want to go to class to see how we discuss their work before I write on them. The two popular fiction authors that I am most interested in are Marya Hornbacher and Stephenie Myer. Stephenie Myer would be impractical and impossible for the visiting writer’s series. She writes teen lit about vampires and, while insanely delicious and addicting, her work would not be termed “literary”. Also I’m sure TCNJ could not afford her rate for a reading, if she even does readings, I don’t know.
I think Marya Hornbacher is a bit more practical, but not much. I discovered her around a year ago when I read her memoir Wasted. Like usual, I was browsing through the Addiction/Recovery section of B&N when I saw the book, which from the first page captured my interest. Wasted tells her story with anorexia and bulimia. The story is captivation but the way she tells it is what makes this book truly beautiful. Her prose is graceful, energized, and completely smooth; it tells her autobiography from childhood to recovery with the delicate ease. Her ideas are solidly profound but never pretentious. She wrote the book at twenty two but it was published after she was much older.
I know recovery stories have a reputation as being formulaic, popular, or voyeuristic, but hers book is truly a remarkable piece of art. She wrote one book of fiction The Center of Winter which I have not read but is on my list. An example of her prose from Wasted:
“You cannot trick your body. You body, strange as it seems to we who are saturated with a doctrine of dualism, is actually attached to your brain. There is a very simple, inevitable think that happens to a person so is dieting: When you are not eating enough, your thinking process changes. You begin to be obsessed with food.” Pg 105
As much as I would love to suggest Hornbacher for the visiting writer’s series, I remain hesitant. First, her work that has received the most acclaim is not technically fiction. Second, like Meyer she is too popular (aka to expensive). But I would recommend her as my most favorite current author.
I think Marya Hornbacher is a bit more practical, but not much. I discovered her around a year ago when I read her memoir Wasted. Like usual, I was browsing through the Addiction/Recovery section of B&N when I saw the book, which from the first page captured my interest. Wasted tells her story with anorexia and bulimia. The story is captivation but the way she tells it is what makes this book truly beautiful. Her prose is graceful, energized, and completely smooth; it tells her autobiography from childhood to recovery with the delicate ease. Her ideas are solidly profound but never pretentious. She wrote the book at twenty two but it was published after she was much older.
I know recovery stories have a reputation as being formulaic, popular, or voyeuristic, but hers book is truly a remarkable piece of art. She wrote one book of fiction The Center of Winter which I have not read but is on my list. An example of her prose from Wasted:
“You cannot trick your body. You body, strange as it seems to we who are saturated with a doctrine of dualism, is actually attached to your brain. There is a very simple, inevitable think that happens to a person so is dieting: When you are not eating enough, your thinking process changes. You begin to be obsessed with food.” Pg 105
As much as I would love to suggest Hornbacher for the visiting writer’s series, I remain hesitant. First, her work that has received the most acclaim is not technically fiction. Second, like Meyer she is too popular (aka to expensive). But I would recommend her as my most favorite current author.
9-3-08 Week One Orientation
This is my first journal entry. I hope it's what it should be.
In our last class we read our erasure poems and discussed whether they qualify as “art” or a “game”. I had performed an erasure on Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and the poem I created was a story of rape. It was interesting to me that the other students who did erasures on Incidents also had poems about sexuality, although in the other poems the speaker had an active role.
The discussion in class centered on whether the poems could be counted as art and it, of course, expanded to the question “what qualities make any poetry/prose art? Originality or skill within in a set of rules?”. The question is difficult and classic and the dialogue in class was a nice philosophical exploration.
In our last class we read our erasure poems and discussed whether they qualify as “art” or a “game”. I had performed an erasure on Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and the poem I created was a story of rape. It was interesting to me that the other students who did erasures on Incidents also had poems about sexuality, although in the other poems the speaker had an active role.
The discussion in class centered on whether the poems could be counted as art and it, of course, expanded to the question “what qualities make any poetry/prose art? Originality or skill within in a set of rules?”. The question is difficult and classic and the dialogue in class was a nice philosophical exploration.
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