On a non-Ebay related Internet foray, my mom (hi mom!) came across this review of Upon Arrival by Erin Lynn Marsh and sent it to me. Erin calls the book "pleasingly anomalous", which thrills me, for I imagine the crew of the Enterprise analyzing it with their long range sensors.
I have been receiving literary RICHES recently, and I'd like to share my good fortune with you.
First off, my latest issue of swerve landed in my mailbox. If you don't subscribe to this beautiful, handcrafted literary magazine, you are missing out. Issue 16 features Kate Hall, Chris Hosea, Juliet Patterson, and Lynn Xu.
Then I received my set of Octopus 8 chapbooks.
Then I was able to have the inimitable Ms. Terri Ford autograph my copy of Hams Beneath the Firmament.
And I have a replacement copy of Stephen Burt's Popular Music PLUS a copy of the awesome Shot Clocks, poems and an essay for the WNBA.
All's I want for anymore is some advice from the narwhal, which problem should be remedied any second now!
With all this amazing work for inspiration, I will be wildly disappointed with myself if I can't crank a poem out today. Life has been large lately, and my regular writing schedule has had to take backseat, but today is mine MINE MIIIIIINE!
Please wish me luck.
p.s. If you recall my embarrassing obsession of a couple weeks back, I should tell you that I have settled down somewhat. However, I did place a widget at the bottom of this blog so I can display my lack of authority with a bit of a cocky swagger.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Friday, June 15, 2007
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Paula: Now with extra oxygen!!!
This is Sweet Basil.
This is Samuel Beckett. I have given up wheat and tobacco for June, just to see what happens. We'll see. Can't really tell any difference due to a lack of the grain yet, but with all the extra fresh air in my brain, I am proud to distinguish the difference between those two things in the photos -- the planting and reading of which comprised some of the nicest parts of my weekend.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
What do you call it? Fick-shun?
I spent last Saturday reading, in its entirety, this book you should buy(or check out from the library like I did). Other than the ones I teach, and the one Russian novel I promise myself each winter, I don't get around to novels much. When would I?
I have my pal Kate to thank for the Hornby suggestion. Clearly, it's a novel I could plow through in a day, but that was at great cost to laundry, yardwork, feeding of self (other family members were elsewhere), and so forth, for I could not put it down. And it was funny. And I feel somewhat changed after reading it. For the better.
Monday, May 07, 2007
Hi.
As I strive to improve my photography skills, I must remember the main thing that makes me a rotten photographer is habitually forgetting my camera on the most important occassions.
But folks more responsible than I am have promised to send photos of my Seattle escapade, from which I am returned by redeye entirely sleep deprived (and have done playing a brief stint as "the loopy professor" this afternoon).
Steph and Jacob's wedding was beautiful. I did my best to fulfill my duties as one of the four best women.
The only job that was a little scary was faking a confident saunter in my strapless gown. I think I did.
My favorite job was giving the bride permission to roll up the car windows and cuss cuss cuss with me if things got stressful, though she really didn't take me up on it. Probably on account of the aforementioned beauty going on. And because she's a lady.
My most important sight-seeing trip was to Open Books. A person really can hardly believe it is possible to stand in an
all poetry bookstore, but one can! And it's magical. I treated myself to the new Mary Ruefle and a Celan collection.
Speaking of magical, being able to read at the Jewel Box Theater with Amy Schrader, Anna Maria Hong, and Kary Wayson made me feel like a ruby brooch. Or a hat pin. Or a candy necklace. Something that belongs in a jewel box amongst the real sparkles. Amber Curtis: many thanks!
Cranky is hot. Do you have your copy?
Ooh! I updated the Imaginary Press site tonight. It's Alex Lemon and Steve Burt this month!
My pillow is singing to me. Nighty nighty.
But folks more responsible than I am have promised to send photos of my Seattle escapade, from which I am returned by redeye entirely sleep deprived (and have done playing a brief stint as "the loopy professor" this afternoon).
Steph and Jacob's wedding was beautiful. I did my best to fulfill my duties as one of the four best women.
The only job that was a little scary was faking a confident saunter in my strapless gown. I think I did.
My favorite job was giving the bride permission to roll up the car windows and cuss cuss cuss with me if things got stressful, though she really didn't take me up on it. Probably on account of the aforementioned beauty going on. And because she's a lady.
My most important sight-seeing trip was to Open Books. A person really can hardly believe it is possible to stand in an
all poetry bookstore, but one can! And it's magical. I treated myself to the new Mary Ruefle and a Celan collection.
Speaking of magical, being able to read at the Jewel Box Theater with Amy Schrader, Anna Maria Hong, and Kary Wayson made me feel like a ruby brooch. Or a hat pin. Or a candy necklace. Something that belongs in a jewel box amongst the real sparkles. Amber Curtis: many thanks!
Cranky is hot. Do you have your copy?
Ooh! I updated the Imaginary Press site tonight. It's Alex Lemon and Steve Burt this month!
My pillow is singing to me. Nighty nighty.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
...and sundry
1. Giant congratulations! The wonderful Allison Titus's chapbook,
Instructions from the Narwhal is imminent! We are so lucky.
2. I have a week off!! I spent much of the last couple days outside spring cleaning my yard. The irises are off to a good start and the cedum is budded! I LOVE plants that don't need me too much. And, though I sometimes dread to find what trash my neighbors have been tossing in my yard all winter is hiding under the snow, this year it was naught but a single beer bottle. And Heineken, no less -- quite schmancy for these parts.
3. To further the idea that I listen to no music from the last two decades, I will share my other spring ritual which is this: the very first day it is possible to open my windows I do so and crank London Calling then the Replacements' Hootenany. That's a happy day.
4. It's been a while since I've given a MEHSBM (Movies Everybody Has Seen But Me) report. Here goes: I like Will Ferrell. Enough to rush off to rent Taladega Nights? No. But I appreciated his sweet comic relief in Winter Passing which I watched this weekend, and which I liked, though you shouldn't trust my taste in films. I also liked him in Stranger than Fiction which Sarah brought on our recent writing trip. (I even liked him in Elf, and guess what? There is a narwhal cameo in Elf.)
P and I also watched Ciao, Professore, which was simple and sweet, and Cecil B. Demented which was simple and sour.
5. Hart Crane Hart Crane Hart Crane
My plan is to glut on movies and books and outdoors this week. Please give me suggestions if you have some.
Instructions from the Narwhal is imminent! We are so lucky.
2. I have a week off!! I spent much of the last couple days outside spring cleaning my yard. The irises are off to a good start and the cedum is budded! I LOVE plants that don't need me too much. And, though I sometimes dread to find what trash my neighbors have been tossing in my yard all winter is hiding under the snow, this year it was naught but a single beer bottle. And Heineken, no less -- quite schmancy for these parts.
3. To further the idea that I listen to no music from the last two decades, I will share my other spring ritual which is this: the very first day it is possible to open my windows I do so and crank London Calling then the Replacements' Hootenany. That's a happy day.
4. It's been a while since I've given a MEHSBM (Movies Everybody Has Seen But Me) report. Here goes: I like Will Ferrell. Enough to rush off to rent Taladega Nights? No. But I appreciated his sweet comic relief in Winter Passing which I watched this weekend, and which I liked, though you shouldn't trust my taste in films. I also liked him in Stranger than Fiction which Sarah brought on our recent writing trip. (I even liked him in Elf, and guess what? There is a narwhal cameo in Elf.)
P and I also watched Ciao, Professore, which was simple and sweet, and Cecil B. Demented which was simple and sour.
5. Hart Crane Hart Crane Hart Crane
My plan is to glut on movies and books and outdoors this week. Please give me suggestions if you have some.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
One, Two, Three
1. Rain Taxi is having an auction right now! You have until Sunday to bid on some extraordinarily sweet bits of lit.
2. Why hadn't I read Dainis Hazners' (some of) the Adventures of Carlyle, My Imaginary Friend yet? Am I the last person on the planet, or can I recommend it to you? And you'll tell two friends?
Last Saturday night I was home in protest of the below zero, but at 11 pm I cracked. My new poem jones was too. And the need to hold the new books in my hands. I scraped the windshield and warmed the engine, and Hazners' book was one of seven I glutted on at Half Price Books (the only shop open at that hour) and I am so glad to have finally found it.
3. That reminds me, while I was protesting the below zero earlier in the week I caught this PBS special on a Napa Valley art collector named Rene di Rosa who, in his gallery, refuses to label the pieces of art. He says he got fed up going to museums and watching people walk right past the art object to read about it and find out what to think. (It was in that spirit that I chose my seven aforementioned poetry collections, refusing to read the bios and blurbs, and I have never made better choices.)
2. Why hadn't I read Dainis Hazners' (some of) the Adventures of Carlyle, My Imaginary Friend yet? Am I the last person on the planet, or can I recommend it to you? And you'll tell two friends?
Last Saturday night I was home in protest of the below zero, but at 11 pm I cracked. My new poem jones was too. And the need to hold the new books in my hands. I scraped the windshield and warmed the engine, and Hazners' book was one of seven I glutted on at Half Price Books (the only shop open at that hour) and I am so glad to have finally found it.
3. That reminds me, while I was protesting the below zero earlier in the week I caught this PBS special on a Napa Valley art collector named Rene di Rosa who, in his gallery, refuses to label the pieces of art. He says he got fed up going to museums and watching people walk right past the art object to read about it and find out what to think. (It was in that spirit that I chose my seven aforementioned poetry collections, refusing to read the bios and blurbs, and I have never made better choices.)
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Blackbirds, I guess...
Very grey and austere this week. I'm all Martha Wainwright and Wallace Stevens. Brown rice and endless rain. I am not too adept at making poems right now, but I feel like a masterful slasher. I've weeded a lot of unforgivable lines from the new drafts. And that's progress.
There's one of those murders of crows that consists of several hundred birds spending time in my periphery. They were blackening the graveyard I pass on my way to grocery shop. They make a slow parade overhead on many of my walks. This probably sounds like a metaphor in conjunction with the proceeding paragraph, but it's not. It's literal. And awe inspiring.
There's one of those murders of crows that consists of several hundred birds spending time in my periphery. They were blackening the graveyard I pass on my way to grocery shop. They make a slow parade overhead on many of my walks. This probably sounds like a metaphor in conjunction with the proceeding paragraph, but it's not. It's literal. And awe inspiring.
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Fun
Tuesday night A and I saw the New York Dolls at First Avenue.
Friday night P and I went to hear Charles Simic read. In a church, no less. We sat in pews and listened to Charles Simic from behind a pulpit. And there were probably over 200 people there which in itself is heartening to see.
What an amazing week for my groupie fanship! Perhaps next week T. Rex and Emily Dickinson could blow through town.
Friday night P and I went to hear Charles Simic read. In a church, no less. We sat in pews and listened to Charles Simic from behind a pulpit. And there were probably over 200 people there which in itself is heartening to see.
What an amazing week for my groupie fanship! Perhaps next week T. Rex and Emily Dickinson could blow through town.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
News Beyond My Great Fear for my Liberty
I've been doing these musical/poetic pairings lately....Rather like pairing wine with a meal. I pick an album from my iPod and find someplace purdy to walk while I listen to it, then I come home and sit with a book of poems.
Successful so far have been Portishead Dummy followed by James Tate's Absences (they share an elsewhere) and Kings of Leon's Youth and Young Manhood followed by Charles Simic's Aunt Lettuce, I Want to Peek Up Your Skirt (they're equally randy). Absolutely harrowing was Gorecki's 3rd Symphony, which P just introduced me to, followed by Celan's Fathomsuns/Benighted.
I would love to hear recommendations if other people do this. Or theoretical recommendations.
Successful so far have been Portishead Dummy followed by James Tate's Absences (they share an elsewhere) and Kings of Leon's Youth and Young Manhood followed by Charles Simic's Aunt Lettuce, I Want to Peek Up Your Skirt (they're equally randy). Absolutely harrowing was Gorecki's 3rd Symphony, which P just introduced me to, followed by Celan's Fathomsuns/Benighted.
I would love to hear recommendations if other people do this. Or theoretical recommendations.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Ignorance on a Stick
My Grandma Stella was a great collector of Polish humor -- from every tasteless Polack joke to novelty items such as her "Polish coffee mug" (the handle was on the inside) to tales of survival that hinge solely upon the ending line "if it weren't for my thick Polish skull, I would be dead and none of you would be here today!"
(My favorite of those stories is from when she was a flapper: once, on a double date, she and her girl friend found their dates to be such desperate bores that they jumped out of the rumble seat of a moving car...At this time, my great grandmother was still pretending not to understand a word of English so that she could eavesdrop on her teenagers, which pissed off my grandmother enough that little Polish was spoken thereafter.)
My family isn't the type to sit around discussing Milosz, Chopin, Szymborska, Herbert, Lem or anybody else. We have kluski dinners and Polka weddings and work...and laugh... a lot... mainly at ourselves and our luck -- with a very respectable dark humor. Or, like many families, we just let the distance between us increase over a series of long winters.
Last week I was called a Polack by someone. Can you imagine? And it didn't really offend me; as I've said, I was raised with the world's largest Polack joke compendium at my disposal. It just made me sad that the little ignoramus had no idea what he was saying. And, in that moment, what I was surprised to feel was no personal offense, but a solidarity with and a violently protective instinct toward my "clan."
So! This evening I am heading to the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand to see the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, and the Magic Numbers, and in honor of my family, (especially my father who brought me to see them for the first time with no explanation but, "oh, Paula, didn't you know there were Polish chickens?" and so I expected he was taking me to see pigs with wings tied on or birds that had been trained to walk backwards or anything else that would end in a punch line) I am going to make a stop in the poultry barn to see these
fine specimins first!
(My favorite of those stories is from when she was a flapper: once, on a double date, she and her girl friend found their dates to be such desperate bores that they jumped out of the rumble seat of a moving car...At this time, my great grandmother was still pretending not to understand a word of English so that she could eavesdrop on her teenagers, which pissed off my grandmother enough that little Polish was spoken thereafter.)
My family isn't the type to sit around discussing Milosz, Chopin, Szymborska, Herbert, Lem or anybody else. We have kluski dinners and Polka weddings and work...and laugh... a lot... mainly at ourselves and our luck -- with a very respectable dark humor. Or, like many families, we just let the distance between us increase over a series of long winters.
Last week I was called a Polack by someone. Can you imagine? And it didn't really offend me; as I've said, I was raised with the world's largest Polack joke compendium at my disposal. It just made me sad that the little ignoramus had no idea what he was saying. And, in that moment, what I was surprised to feel was no personal offense, but a solidarity with and a violently protective instinct toward my "clan."
So! This evening I am heading to the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand to see the Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, and the Magic Numbers, and in honor of my family, (especially my father who brought me to see them for the first time with no explanation but, "oh, Paula, didn't you know there were Polish chickens?" and so I expected he was taking me to see pigs with wings tied on or birds that had been trained to walk backwards or anything else that would end in a punch line) I am going to make a stop in the poultry barn to see these
fine specimins first!
Sunday, May 21, 2006
List Deal
Some time back, my friend Allison asked a group of us to list our all time favorite top 5 books of poetry. Here's my top 10, in no particular order and subject to additions at any moment. (This is a really hard game!)
Four Quartets: T.S. Eliot
The Book of Gods and Devils: Charles Simic
Book of My Nights: Li-Young Lee
View with a Grain of Sand: Wislawa Szymborska
Return to the City of White Donkeys: James Tate
Steal Away: C.D. Wright
Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson
The Four Questions of Melancholy: Tomas Salamun
The Dream Songs: John Berryman
Tristimania: Mary Ruefle
Does anybody have a list of their own or a favorite book I maybe don't know about? I could use a good read.
Four Quartets: T.S. Eliot
The Book of Gods and Devils: Charles Simic
Book of My Nights: Li-Young Lee
View with a Grain of Sand: Wislawa Szymborska
Return to the City of White Donkeys: James Tate
Steal Away: C.D. Wright
Final Harvest: Emily Dickinson
The Four Questions of Melancholy: Tomas Salamun
The Dream Songs: John Berryman
Tristimania: Mary Ruefle
Does anybody have a list of their own or a favorite book I maybe don't know about? I could use a good read.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Most of What I Read
I always keep a list of books I've read in the back of whatever journal I'm filling. Seemed fun (for me) to put the info all in one place. It's a bit skewed; for example, I generally read a Russian novel every winter, but I've been stuck halfway through The Idiot for two winters running now. Also, I forget to add things if my little journal's not handy, and I also reread so very much more than I relist.
June 2005 through October 2006
1. Franz Wright: Walking to Martha's Vineyard
2. Edmund J. Bourne, PhD. The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook
3. James Tate: Return to the City of White Donkeys
4. Charles Simic: Selected Early Poems
5. Ha Jin: Waiting
6. Flannery O'Connor: A Good Man is Hard to Find (millionth reread)
7. Shakespeare: Hamlet (millionth reread)
8. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The Leaf Storm and Other Stories (reread)
9. Bitter Fame: the life of Sylvia Plath
10. Sophie's World
11. Dante: The Inferno
12. Dan Brown: the da Vinci Code
13. Sarah Fox: Because Why
14. Juliet Patterson: The Truant Lover
15. Tomas Salamun: the Four Questions of Melancholy (millionth reread)
16. Carol Bly: Beyond the Writers' Workshop
17. Barbara Ehrenreich: Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America
18. Joshua Poteat: Ornithologies
19. Nick Flynn: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
20: Charles Simic: Aunt Lettuce, I want to peek up your skirt
21. James Tate: Absences
22. DJ Dolack: The Sad Meal
24. Anna Moschovakis: I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone
25. Amanda Nadelberg: Isa the Truck Named Isadore
26. David Sedaris: Dress Your Family in Courduroy and Denim
27. David Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day
November 2006 through June 2007
28. Wicked
29. Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club
30. Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz
31. Augusten Burroughs: Running With Scissors
32. Amy Sedaris: I Like You
33. Dainis Hazners: (Some of) the Adventures of Carlysle, My Imaginary Friend
34. Cynthia Cruz: Ruin
35. Jeffrey McDaniel: The Splinter Factory
36. Joshua Marie Wilkinson: Lug Your Careless Body Out of the Careful Dusk
37. Steve Healey: Earthling
38. Gertrude Stein: Tender Buttons
39: Tenaya Darlington: Madame Deluxe
40: Gretchen Mattox: Buddha Box
41. Ralph Angel: Exceptions and Melancholies
42. Kate Greenstreet: case sensitive
43. Hart Crane: the Bridge
44. Paige Ackerson-Kiely: In No One's Land
45. Matt Hart: Who's Who Vivid
46. Zachary Schomburg: The Man Suit
47. Nick Hornby: How to be Good
48. David Sedaris: Naked
49. David Sedaris: Holidays on Ice
50. Felstiner: Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan
51. Samuel Beckett: Happy Days
52. Mary Ruefle: Indeed I was Pleased with the World
53. Nick Hornby: A Long Way Down
54. Cintra Wilson: Colors Insulting to Nature
**To update: I have given up on this list after discovering goodreads.com.
June 2005 through October 2006
1. Franz Wright: Walking to Martha's Vineyard
2. Edmund J. Bourne, PhD. The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook
3. James Tate: Return to the City of White Donkeys
4. Charles Simic: Selected Early Poems
5. Ha Jin: Waiting
6. Flannery O'Connor: A Good Man is Hard to Find (millionth reread)
7. Shakespeare: Hamlet (millionth reread)
8. Gabriel Garcia Marquez: The Leaf Storm and Other Stories (reread)
9. Bitter Fame: the life of Sylvia Plath
10. Sophie's World
11. Dante: The Inferno
12. Dan Brown: the da Vinci Code
13. Sarah Fox: Because Why
14. Juliet Patterson: The Truant Lover
15. Tomas Salamun: the Four Questions of Melancholy (millionth reread)
16. Carol Bly: Beyond the Writers' Workshop
17. Barbara Ehrenreich: Nickel and Dimed: on (not) getting by in America
18. Joshua Poteat: Ornithologies
19. Nick Flynn: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
20: Charles Simic: Aunt Lettuce, I want to peek up your skirt
21. James Tate: Absences
22. DJ Dolack: The Sad Meal
24. Anna Moschovakis: I Have Not Been Able to Get Through to Everyone
25. Amanda Nadelberg: Isa the Truck Named Isadore
26. David Sedaris: Dress Your Family in Courduroy and Denim
27. David Sedaris: Me Talk Pretty One Day
November 2006 through June 2007
28. Wicked
29. Chuck Palahniuk: Fight Club
30. Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz
31. Augusten Burroughs: Running With Scissors
32. Amy Sedaris: I Like You
33. Dainis Hazners: (Some of) the Adventures of Carlysle, My Imaginary Friend
34. Cynthia Cruz: Ruin
35. Jeffrey McDaniel: The Splinter Factory
36. Joshua Marie Wilkinson: Lug Your Careless Body Out of the Careful Dusk
37. Steve Healey: Earthling
38. Gertrude Stein: Tender Buttons
39: Tenaya Darlington: Madame Deluxe
40: Gretchen Mattox: Buddha Box
41. Ralph Angel: Exceptions and Melancholies
42. Kate Greenstreet: case sensitive
43. Hart Crane: the Bridge
44. Paige Ackerson-Kiely: In No One's Land
45. Matt Hart: Who's Who Vivid
46. Zachary Schomburg: The Man Suit
47. Nick Hornby: How to be Good
48. David Sedaris: Naked
49. David Sedaris: Holidays on Ice
50. Felstiner: Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan
51. Samuel Beckett: Happy Days
52. Mary Ruefle: Indeed I was Pleased with the World
53. Nick Hornby: A Long Way Down
54. Cintra Wilson: Colors Insulting to Nature
**To update: I have given up on this list after discovering goodreads.com.
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