Classic Word Spaces 2: Chekhov’s Desk
I did a search for Chekhov’s desk and the above image was what came up.
There it is, everyone. Chekhov’s desk. As we all know, Chekhov was a physician. Thus, Chekhov cared about the health of his wrists. He wanted to be able to write without pain. This explains his use of a tilt-y desk, I’m guessing.
Remember those kneeling chairs everyone bought during the ’80s? You might not realize this, but in addition to inventing the modern short story, Chekhov also invented those. That’s why so many writers use them. They are good for your back and they also inspire you to write powerfully observed short fiction that limns the human condition in subtle, masterful ways.
Here’s a picture of someone using one. It may or may not be author Cynthia Ozick*:
* Disclaimer: This is probably not Cynthia Ozick.
The History of a Lake Never Drowns
Julia Cohen is a frequent target of admiration on this here blog, and now we’ve got her in our sights again. She has a new chapbook out from Dancing Girl Press, which, as you’ll see when you click through, for a measly $7 includes shipping, so it’s an extra good deal. If you don’t know JC’s work, you can start at her blog and then go from there, but I also cajoled her into giving me a few sample poems from the chappie, which you can find just below the fold.
I like Buddy Wakefield a lot.
My introduction to poetry readings was interesting. A few years ago my life consisted mostly of copious amounts of Oxycontin (among other opiates), extreme alienation and reading poetry. I used poetry to cope with the loneliness and agony when the opiate ration wasn’t enough to distract me.
I wanted to hear live poetry for a reason I cannot remember now. Google showed only one poetry reading in Orange County. It happened to be right down the street from where I lived at an independent cafe named “the Ugly Mug”.
Shampoo Poetry and Anne Babson
Htmlgiant's Mike Young Has A Poem Here
As you may have noted from earlier posts like this one, I sometimes believe in God and it makes me feel sort of crazy. I talked to my shrink about it recently and he reminded me that most people believe in God. That made me feel less crazy. Then I asked him, but do other people see “signs”? I think he said yes. I don’t remember. I am hungover and watching hockey. Years ago, I went to a reading in a bar in the East Village. The poet Anne Babson read a very long poem that dealt with her belief in a Christian God and miracles and basically, getting your prayers answered and I think, angels. I was moved at the time (but also thought she was crazy at the time, but now I don’t know if I think she is crazy) and went and walked up to her and bought her book called Counterterrorist Poems (Pudding House Publications). She also has a poem in Shampoo Poetry as does Mike Young. Here is an excerpt from the rather long poem she read that night:
Nice Hat
profile picture without evidence of flash that you took this yourself
and I saw the best minds of my generation
living in lofts
thinking they were the best minds of their generation
while the world hacked up tax breaks and jet fighters
-Death Lasts
Shake
by Joshua Beckman
Joshua Beckman has a wikipedia page.
Joshua Beckman has a page on poets.org.
Joshua Beckman is a great mind and a great poet. As early as 2004 you could google his name and ‘rock star poet’ would surface as a result.
Over the past ten years he’s published six books of poetry. His seventh, “Take It” is due sometime this year from Wave Books.
The first thing I read by him was his tiny, tiny book (amazon cites it at 6.1 x 4 x 0.5 inches and 3.8 ounces, I would say it is the size of about half a sandwich) “Your Time Has Come” put out by Verse Press.
This holiday season I Secret Santa’d myself and picked up “Shake” and “Something I Expected to Be Different.”
Start your New Year right and pledge to read a poem a day until you’ve mowed down his entire collection of works.
Giant Talks: Joshua Cohen interviewed by Lily Hoang
I first came across Joshua Cohen’s work a couple years ago at AWP. I walked by the Starcherone Books table and asked editor Ted Pelton which book he would recommend. He handed me a bunch, and luckily, among those was Cohen’s A Heaven of Others. What struck me then (and continues to strike me every time I read his work) is what an incredible badass he is. For one, he’s an amazing writer. His words are quite literally delicious. But beyond that, he’s the most prolific writer I know (and I know some crazy prolific writers!). Still shy of thirty, he’s got four books in print, one on the way from Dalkey Archive, and tons more sitting either on a physical or virtual shelf. Cohen is a powerhouse, but don’t take my word for it. Go buy one of his books. You won’t regret it.
— Lily Hoang
LH: Something that really strikes in about your writing is the very distinctive voice your characters have. In A Heaven of Others (from here on out known as Heaven), the narrator has an extremely urgent voice, one that compelled me to read faster & faster, until I was practically skimming. (Then of course, I had go back and read the whole thing over again to really savor the language!) Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto (known as Cadenza), however, has a much more patient narrative voice. Can you tell me more about the development of these narrators in particular? Please feel free to talk about your other works as well.
JC: The voices of both my novels are fictions within fictions, and, as that, they’re opposites: The voice of A Heaven of Others is that of 10-year-old Jonathan Schwarzstein of Tchernichovsky Street, Jerusalem. The voice of Cadenza for the Schneidermann Violin Concerto is that of Laster, an octogenarian, perhaps nonagenarian, concert violinist from eastern Austro-Hungary. Again, both are fictions, meaning both are ultimately Me. I think what I’ve done in all my books so far comes, primarily, from speech rhythm. The rhythm of how I want to speak. How I speak to myself. As for echoes, A Heaven of Others derives from poetry, especially 20th century Hebrew poetry (Dan Pagis), and German-Jewish poetry (Paul Celan), while Cadenza comes from comedy, and despite its typographical trickery owes more to the history of the novel, and much, specifically, to Saul Bellow.
The Behavior of Pidgeons
Another short update. Here is a story by my friend Gabriel Blackwell from Portland. It makes me think about math cranks, those autodidacts who pester tenured professors at our nation’s major universities.
I think this is Gabe’s first published anything, and it is on Conjunctions. Way to go, Gabe.
Jonathan Baumbach at Maud Newton
not USAirways #1549, from which everyone appears to have safely escaped
I just finished reading this post by Jonathan Baumbach over at Maud Newton’s blog. He talks a little about the founding of FC(2) and then mentions his surprise at how long the collective has lasted. Originally, he had meant for the alternative press to be a ‘stopgap action in a period of emergency.’ He writes though that his assessment of the situation back then was maybe too optimistic, which explains, perhaps, why FC2 has continued so long. I hadn’t realized that the original collective was meant only as a temporary fix, to ‘jostle the publishing establishment into taking more chances with work that was out on the edge.’ But as time passed, Baumbach says, the industry turned more conservative in its tastes, and FC2 was needed more than ever.
Here’s a tiny bit more from the post:
Originality tends to generate difficulty in that it breaks faith with expectation, undermines the prevailing verities of last season’s fashion. Originality, by definition, takes us by surprise.
And:
Commercial publishing tends to court literary work that is a thinly disguised variation on the recognizably artful — last year’s award winner tricked out to seem at once new and safely familiar.
Thanks to Maud Newton for posting this.
Ben Greenman’s Holocaust Memoir
Dear Ms. Winfrey:
I am a great admirer of your show, and, while I do not watch every day, when I do watch I am always touched in or near my heart. Recently, I was watching “Best Life Week,” in which your guests discussed the challenges that they have overcome, and it occurred to me that the events of my early life, which are the subject of an upcoming book I have just completed, might be perfect for a future episode. I do not expect you to read the entire book, but I wanted to take a moment to review some of the highlights—though “highlights” is a crass, commercial word for such a wrenching memoir.
I was born in Chicago in 1969. Shortly afterward, in 1941, my entire family was rounded up by the authorities and sent to the Theresienstadt camp, along with tens of thousands of other Jews, who hailed principally from Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Germany. [Keep reading]