Anthony McCann; new book: “I <3 Your Fate”
Matthew Rohrer; new book: “Destroyer and Preserver”
(It got cut off because I was unknowingly holding the flip cam by its power button — forgive me. It’s still pretty tight though.)
Molly Gaudry, Independent Publicist
Yesterday morning, the multi-talented Molly Gaudry announced that she was making herself available for hire as an independent publicist. Within no time, she found herself in business. So much business, in fact, that she had to issue this press release:
Due to a shockingly overwhelming demand, I am at this time only considering authors with books that have been or will be published by the presses listed here. Please know that I am only going to take on 2-4 individual titles for the next six months, and I will have to make a lot of difficult decisions as the queries keep coming. Thank you for considering me, though, and for your support and encouragement as this company continues to grow.
For anyone lucky enough to fit her criteria, I highly recommend inquiring about her services. Molly is awesome. This idea is awesome. Cheers to her, and good luck!
Spicer on Whitman
Forgive me Walt Whitman, you whose fine mouth has sucked the cock of the heart of the country for fifty years. You did not ever understand cruelty. It was that that severed your world from me, fouled your moon and your ocean, threw me out of your bearded paradise. The comrade you are walking with suddenly twists your hand off. The ghost-bird that is singing to you suddenly leaves a large seagull dropping in your eye. You are sucking the cock of a heart that has clap.
from “Some Notes on Whitman for Allen Joyce”
Blank by Davis Schneiderman and Working Toward an Understanding of Experimental Literature
I can openly admit I struggle, at times, with experimental literature, understanding how it works, what a given experimental text means, the significance of the text. I’ve been reading Christopher Higg’s series with great interest in the hopes that his thoughts might help address some of the intense confusion I feel. His posts have indeed helped but I’m still struggling.
At AWP, I had the opportunity to pick up the book Blank, a novel by Davis Schneiderman, published by Jaded Ibis Press. I had received some press materials about the book in the preceding months so the title was familiar and I had also recently met the author so I thought I would buy the book and see what it was about. I didn’t pay close attention to the press materials so nothing could have surprised me more than to realize that Blank is actually blank. I probably should have but that’s a different matter. There is no text in the book save for the copyright page, the Table of Contents, twenty chapter titles, an About the Author page and an About the Artist page. There is also artwork, by Susan White, what appear to be pieces of pictures of water, clouds, snow—it’s difficult to make out what some of the imagery represents.
That night in my hotel room, I opened the book and realized it was blank and felt angry about the $15 or so I paid for the book. I ranted something incoherently at my roommate then angrily shoved the book into my suitcase. I may have used the word, “Seriously,” with a tone.
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February 18th, 2011 / 8:23 pm
February 18th, 2011 / 8:23 pm
Go Right Ahead: It is Friday
I broke my life.
But childhood prolonged. It becomes a hell.
My eyes and hearing are supernormal. I weigh 129 pounds. You can see what a diet of beer and light wine has made of me.
Do you understand the stopgap quality of hatred and rage?
The bridge besides the bridge of sighs.
Listening to the prisoned cricket.
And the hissing hair.
To drink dark beer with Mrs. Grant at four in the afternoon, under an umbrella, is a pleasure and a comfort.
Another entire bottle? I don’t know—let me drink on that.
See, it erases memory, as in grief, but arouses desire. So begins the cycle.
Stella spells ill.
To hell with that poem!
Honeysuckle blows by the granite.
In Defense of the Democratic, Therapeutic Workshop
This is in response to Kyle’s comment on Sean’s post. Or, maybe in reaction. In the comment thread, I responded to part of what Kyle said, but the rest of my response veers pretty far from what Sean was asking, so I’m going to develop it here instead.
I want to take up the ideas of workshop as democracy and workshop as therapy session. What does it mean, really, to say you don’t like those ideas? I should just let Kyle answer that first, but I’m going to say what I make of those terms first.
Workshop as democracy: If I was the one saying that, I would mean that a workshop is a chance to hear from a group of the kind of people who would be your readers. With nobody’s reading being privileged, including the professor’s, who is just one reader. The professor certainly is there to teach how to respond to peer work, how to read and respond sensitively, but hers shouldn’t be the final word. Bruce Covey was telling me last night that he never speaks during the workshops he teaches. Each workshop, a student facilitates. I think this is a wonderful idea. Sure, workshops can work beautifully in other ways, too, but I think this is one good way. This can come down to tiny details. It’s great to know whether 10% or 80% of readers don’t catch a certain reference. To be in control of that, of how obscure the references are. I prefer the perhaps squishy sounding term “focus group” to “democracy” for this function (not the only function, but one function) of a workshop.
Workshop as therapy session: This is thrown around a lot, always negatively. Workshop shouldn’t be therapy. I think there are two problems with this. One, what kind of therapy are we talking about. Substitute “person” in what Kyle says at the end. “…from there, to help a [person] do the thing the [person] really wants to do as powerfully and truly as the [person] can.” That can be (should be?) the goal of therapy, no? When I went to therapy, that’s what I was looking for, and I found it. This happened in many ways and on multiple levels, but I’ll use an example that has to do with writing. Toward the end of my course of therapy, my main problem was that I was behind on my thesis. (After I finished, my therapist said it was time I set new goals or quit therapy. I quit, and we kept in touch.) My therapist said, how about writing five pages a day (I think she said three at first, but I explained I wouldn’t make the deadline that way). I started writing five pages a day. I finished the thesis. I sent the critical component of the thesis–which was never workshopped–to someone I interviewed for it. He wanted me to adapt it for the magazine he edits. Made $1500 for the article. Didn’t pay for my whole course of therapy, but it more than covered the session where she said to just write 5 pages a day. Why shouldn’t a workshop do this?
