Rauan Klassnik
http://rauanklassnik.blogspot.com
author of three collections: Sky Rat (Spork, 2014), The Moon's Jaw (Black Ocean, 2013) and Holy Land (Black Ocean, 2008) ... ----- @klassnik ------
THE TOP 200 POETRY AVOCADOS
the “definite” list — coming soon
Skinned: An Interview With Antjie Krog
Skinned
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One of South Africa’s foremost contemporary poets, Antjie Krog has been described as the “Pablo Neruda of Afrikaans.” I stumbled on Antjie Krog’s work several years ago and was rewarded with the strange, passionate, tough and well-organized verses of Body Bereft (which contains, among other work, her strange and fiery Menopausal Sonnets). So, I was excited when, earlier this year, a Selected poems of Antjie Krog, Skinned, released from Seven Stories Press.
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And here, then, is the transcript of an email interview I did with South African poet Antjie Krog that touches on those Menopausal Sonnets, South African Politics, Afrikaans, Indigenous Literature Translations, etc, etc:
Antjie Krog
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Rauan: Many of the readers of this blog will be drawn to “Menopausal Sonnets” and other examples of frank, fiery and often crude writings about the changing (and failing) female body. In your Author’s Note you mention that “Skinned” contains “traces” of certain foreign writers, including Sharon Olds and Carolyn Forché. And it seems to me, besides, that you are naturally a fiery, direct and spicy personality. (How right and/or wrong am I?)
And can you elaborate on what, inside and outside, brought you to write such direct and sometimes graphic poems containing bits like
…you grab this death like a runt and plough its nose
right through your fleeced and drybaked cunt.
and
……the waist thickens and
the vagina wall thins and the colon crashes
through its own arse. how dare her toe
nails grow so riotous then…
Antjie: Poetry has taught me how to live. Everything of value I have found there. For me it therefore ought to be able to encompass one’s whole life. I am very aware what male poets have decided the Main Themes of Literature should be: Love, Death, God, Nature and War. This is fine, but it should also say menstruation, menopause and grandmother, READ MORE >
Art & “Sound” Violence (Jhnns Göransson – A.D. Jmsn)
fascinated with “sound” violence”
Ovr at the Potry Fondation (yes, the Poetry Foundation) gust blggr Johannes Göransson begins his first post with a late 19th century qute abut Kren Music by Henry Savage-Landor:
This music is to the average European ear more than diabolical, this being to a large extent due to the differences in the tones, semi-tones, and intervals of the scale, but personally, having got accustomed to their tunes, I rather like its weirdness and originality. When once it is understood it can be appreciated; but I must admit that the first time one hears a Corean concert, an inclination arises to murder the musicians and destroy their instruments.
destroying it all
Jhnnes gos on to tlk about ART as a “zone which both hrts and is hrt” and how, qoting his wife Jylle McSney, “snd is a knd of violence” and, fnally, sying “I am invested in this violent aspect of art: it fascinates and hrrfies me.”
So, nyways, a few hrs fter I read Görssn’s engagng Ptry Fdation pst I found myself thking again abut snd, vlence, snd-vlence, and other thngs as I lay in a rlly hot bth reaing A.D. Jmson’s xcllent “Amazing Adult Fantasy”:
You’ll be the guy who finally knifed up Indian Jones. Some’ll love you and some’ll hate you. Some’ll never believe it and never give in. Some’ll send flowers. Some’ll look for and find the younger Indian Jones.
The casl skm-reader READ MORE >
Seattle Author Spotlight (6) — Shin Yu Pai
Seattle Author Spotlight
This is the 6th Seattle Author Spotlight (previous ones were Richard Chiem, Maged Zaher, Deborah Woodard and Matthew Simmons) and I plan on running quite a few more because AWP’s coming and Seattle has plenty of talented and interesting writers.
Shin Yu Pai:
Shin Yu Pai is an ambitious, bright and engaging poet, photographer and C.O.O. of the National Asian Pacific Center on Aging: “the nation’s leading advocacy and service organization committed to the dignity, well-being, and quality of life of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) as they age.” Shin Yu’s most recent book, Aux Arcs, has just released from La Alameda Press and is rooted, for the most part, in her experience, and situation, of being in a small town near Little Rock, Arkansas.
I thoroughly enjoying chatting with Shin Yu at Elliott Bay books (this is where I’ve met and spoken, thus far, to all featured Seattle Authors). We spoke some about the form and content of Aux Arcs and this branched us off into other chatting about assimilation, the way different people treat each other, etc. There were other things I’d planned on talking about but the time kind of flew by. And that’s always a good sign. Shin Yu has a kind of spark, presence and good sharp energy that just makes you want to be around her.
Aux Arcs — by Shin Yu Pai (Cover Art by Seattle Artist Whiting Tennis)
Brief Bio:
Shin Yu Pai is the author of several poetry collections including Adamantine (White Pine, 2010), Sightings (1913 Press, 2007) and Equivalence (La Alameda, 2003). She has been a writer-in-residence for the Seattle Art Museum and has received grants for her work from 4Culture and the City of Seattle. For more information, visit her website
Brief Interview:
Rauan: you’ve lived as an adult (and a writer) in Seattle, Texas and Arkansas (among other places)– can you tell us a bit about the differences in living in these places and how these cities impacted yr thinking (and therefore yr writing)? READ MORE >
Author Spotlight & Random / Comments Off on Seattle Author Spotlight (6) — Shin Yu Pai
August 2nd, 2013 / 12:30 pm
August 2nd, 2013 / 12:30 pm
Only God Forgives ————– Extreme & Total Sexism
irresistible
Only God Forgives, as A.D. Jameson’s excellent 25-Point Post claims, is a great pleasure to watch and to think and talk about. And in this post (which owes much to A.D’s) I want to talk a bit about how the movie deals and centers in Xenophobia, Racism and, by far most interestingly and vitally, Sexism.
The movie’s extreme Xenophobia and Racism are quite obvious and need little explanation outside of how they reinforce the more interesting and varied Sexism that controls and overwhelms this great movie.
The extreme Sexism that the movie traffics in and wields about quite beautifully and, to some extent, flagrantly, is, indeed, something of a complicated beast. And looking at a large slice of the female side of the coin of this movie one might believe that women are its soul, its dream, its ghostly pleasure-force and feel reassured that such captivating and transfiguring elements are able to maintain a kind of independent and alternative sort of power.
But, this would be wrong, READ MORE >
Dear Rauan,…(4)
Rauan – Ready to Help
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[ helping people sometimes can be painful, yet liberating, but, as usual, I am here to help, in all my subtlety, & potency ]
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and this time we have Ariel from Denver:
dear rauan,
is it a good idea to castrate Patriarchy’s henchmen like Blake Butler, Rauan Klassnik, and Johannes Göransson? Some idiots say they’re exploring the darker side of human nature through an exaggerated male “lens” but I know in my soul that these guys are just straight-up misogynists.
I must confess, though, that one time I dreamed these three “doods” were forcing themselves on me (boot in the face, the Svelte Swede, and all that) and I woke up orgasming as hard as I’ve ever.
but tell me, dear rauan, should we castrate these vermins?
thank you in advance,
Ariel T.
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really (?)
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Seattle Author Spotlight (5) — Matthew Simmons
Seattle Author Spotlight
This is the 5th Seattle Author Spotlight (previous ones were Richard Chiem, Maged Zaher, and Deborah Woodard) and I plan on running new Spotlights every 10-14 days because Seattle has plenty of talented and interesting writers.
Matthew Simmons:
When I first emerged a little from my cave in Kirkland (not far but really far from Seattle) it was to see Matthew Simmons read from “A Jello Horse.” Later on as I started attending more events I ran into Matthew over and over (at a Patricia Lockwood reading, at a CAConrad reading, at APRIL, etc) and enjoyed many little chats with him. Recently I was glad to be part of the big crowd at the Hugo House for the release party and reading of Matthew’s new book “Happy Rock” at which Matthew read with great confidence the story about the exploding mothers–read it, in fact, in front of his mother, his father and, as Matthew said, “all the people (he) loves.”
Introducing Matthew that night Brian McGuigan quoted from Paul Constant’s excellent review that had just come out in The Stranger:
Matthew Simmons has never misused a word in his life, or at least that’s how it feels. His prose manages to be economical and exact, while at the same time suggesting a broader universe that ripples out from every sentence. It’s like handing someone a few Lego bricks, bending down for a second to tie your shoes, and then looking back up to discover they’ve built a palace. READ MORE >
U.K. Author Spotlight (1) – Gary J Shipley
Realizing that they speak and read English in the U.K. and that they write in it too (and because I’m originally from South Africa a kind of diamond and veldt version of the U.K. with much better weather and beaches), I’ve decided to start a new feature that follows kind of in the vein of the Seattle Author Spotlight series. So, periodically, now, I will be featuring a U.K. author.
And the first UK Author Spotlight’s of Gary J Shipley. Gary and I recently became email and Facebook “chums” (see how easy this is?) and then he did a nice write-up on my new book and I blurbed his forthcoming book of poetry. Gary and I swap quite a lot of emails and Facebook “Likes” (these, hint-hint, make me feel really, really great.)
Gary’s smarter than me, much more philosophical and is able to write a Godless sort of language and landscape that I envy tremendously. When I saw the movie Pina I thought about Gary’s poetry. Gary is also an Artist. Kind of like Michaux. But different. I look very much to one day meeting Gary in person.
Also, fyi, this is what Brian Evenson has to say about Gary’s “Dreams of Amputation“:
Dreams of Amputation reads like the nightmares Derek Raymond might have experienced if he’d written cyberpunk. An exceptionally strange work, but a smart and thoughtful one as well. Disturbing, haunting, and inimitably weird, this is a book like no other.
So, anyways, Gary J Shipley’s Author Spotlight consists of a brief interview, Bio photo and Art.
Brief Bio:
Gary J Shipley is the author of eight books of various sizes. His latest is forthcoming from Blue Square Press. He has published in Gargoyle, The Black Herald, Paragraphiti, elimae, >kill author, nthposition, 3:AM, and others. More details can be found at Thek Prosthetics.
Brief Interview:
Rauan: Does the British Bulldog have any teeth left? (ie, can you tell us a bit about the state of British Literature, fiction, poetry, whatever)
Gary J: Yes. It has a single brown stump that bends when it bites you. READ MORE >
The Graphic Canon (3) — Bringing the Word into Different Life
Art/Adaption of Joyce’s Ulysses by Robert Berry w/ Josh Levitas — Here Bloom’s musin’ serious on the beach
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[ The Graphic Canon (3), Seven Stories Press, Edited by Russ Kick ]
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Publishers Weekly says The Graphic Canon 3 is “the most beautiful book of the year.” And I can’t disagree.* The Graphic Canon 3 (Series 1 is from Gilgamesh thru the 1700’s and Series 2 is the 19th century) is a big, colorful and wonderful 576 page collection of graphic versions and adaptations of important (canonical?) 20th century literature accompanied by helpful notes in which the series editor (Russ Kick) tells a bit about the author and his/her work as well as some background info on how the particular artist adapted it.
(* – There might be other great and beautiful ART and Photography coffee-table “books;” popular “books” of awe-inspiring horse photos, or incredibly cute puppies or kittens; but this is ART about and often consisting, for the most part, in great literature. Some of the ART is breathtaking. And also breathtaking, sometimes, is the ways in which the ART engages and interprets the source text.)
So, ok, yeah, it’s a beautiful book that I think also will provoke much thought and discussion– and in this write-up I’m going to sketch out 4 ways in which I personally engaged with it.
Emelie Östergren’s riff off William S. Burrough’s “Naked Lunch”
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However, first I want to bring up a few possible negatives: READ MORE >
12 Comments
July 18th, 2013 / 1:06 am
July 18th, 2013 / 1:06 am