Sweet list
I’m usually pretty suspicious of anything bearing the label ‘insider’. They lure you in with the promise of forbidden knowledge and the hope that, one day, you yourself can be one of the select few keepers of the evertindered Promethean Zippo. The other day I came across such a guide put out by some merry band called Fang Duff Kahn. Edited by Mark Strand, this fanny pack-sized volume has suggestions from various book sellers, publishers, poets and authors for off-the-radar books that they think are worth sharing with us. There are some pretty obscure choices in here, and not a few small-press selections. Apparently, proceeds from Books: The Essential Insider’s Guide also go to First Book, a group who buys words for children in low-income families, which is rad. It’s a good, if random, source of new stuff to read (especially if you’re tired of looking on your own backlogged list of books that you’ve been meaning to buy but haven’t got around to buying for a few years).
If you could name-drop just one favorite “forgotten, underappreciated, or little-known work of literature,” what would it be and why?
GIANT Excerpt: from The Dance of No Hard Feelings by Mark Bibbins (#3)
Give Us the Dark That Keeps the Darkness Out
We finally get the terrain–its fever greens
and where’ve-you-been-all-my-life browns–
also cars, bridges, likewise decked out.
Admit we bow to a number of things, among
them October, distance to icecaps, radii
of moons. Neglect arrows through but certain
zeros will not rake us in. Obliterate as you
bloviate, bossman, on your occidental rug.
What spectacular thing could you make out
of all you’ve thrown away, then what would
you devise to make it explode? The proper suit’s
a posture, the wrong not yours but occupy some
semblance of a self. Catapult the propaganda,
dip it in disease and hurl it at the fourth
estate. Give back the hook stuck in skin,
the lake-like cold; follow prongs of fire
across denuded plains until we ghost
and summer underground.
All this week, HTMLGiant will be posting poems from The Dance of No Hard Feelings (Copper Canyon) Mark Bibbins’s eagerly and long-awaited followup collection to 2003’s Sky Lounge. Day #1 is here. Day #2 is here. Check back daily for fresh doses.
Uncategorized / 9 Comments
September 23rd, 2009 / 1:34 pm
September 23rd, 2009 / 1:34 pm
60 Word Short Story Reviews
Baltimore’s City Paper is currently running a series of short story reviews in 60 words or less. It’s insanely difficult to try to capture something that briefly. I’m not thrilled with my encapsulation of Giant contributor Ryan Call’s story “I Pilot My Bed Deep Into the Night,” which appeared in Keyhole 7, but what the heck. It was fun trying. Or maybe it was stressful, because I had to keep throwing away words and I thought I was killing his amazing story. Other reviews include a Breece Pancake story from Justin Sirois (who chose to use the expletive “damn” as one of his words), Barry Hannah’s “Constant Pain in Tuscaloosa” by Tim Kreider, and a couple dozen others. Here’s a writer to know: Dambudzo Marechera, covered by Bret McCabe.
The Bar-Stool Edible Worm
by Dambudzo MarecheraI am against everything
Against war and those against
War.
Against whatever diminishes
Th’individual’s blind impulse.Shake the peaches down from
The summer poem, Rake in ripe
Luminosity; dust; taste. Lunchtime
News – pass the Castor Oil, Alice.
I think the most remarkable review is Jamie Gaughran-Perez’s take on “Hills Like White Elephants,” because he doesn’t shy away from quoting the word “please” for seven of his 60 words. There are 27 reviews in all, which means you can can get mildly familiar with 27 stories and only have to read 1620 words.
Uncategorized / 18 Comments
September 23rd, 2009 / 11:13 am
September 23rd, 2009 / 11:13 am
Three Cheers for Blake!
Hey remember when Blake posted about how major publishing houses have basically stopped taking on challenging, innovative fiction? Well it looks like big publishing has Struck Back. From Our Man’s personal blog, posted last night-
Sign of good times, indeed. Blake joins a team that already includes Dennis Cooper, Tony O’Neill, Kevin Sampsell, uh me, The Great Short Works of Tolstoy, the Six Word Memoir series, and all those amazing philosophy re-issues originally published in the Harper Torch series. Welcome to the family, brother!
Special Butler+Harper Bonus Reminder: “The Copy Family” at Fifty-two Stories. Remember back when this happened? I think it’s when HP’s love affair with Homebutler began. Which incidentally reminds me that it’s been way too long since we touched based with Fifty-two Stories. Cal, if you’re reading this- I’m on it.
Computer Generated Poetry
Poet and OSU comrade, Andrew Brogdon, has created this nifty website The Internet is an English Sonnet, which creates English sonnets using Google search results. Here is the poem I “wrote” this morning. Take your time analyzing it with friends, family, and students. I will be sending this one and a few others out this afternoon, so you editors out there better put on your acceptance mittens!
Complex
Or shift as your insurance company
was not designed so damn big on about
developing on packet voice: chinese
thai, all lay over different, allowed
the commentary. featured a severe
financial hardship. Early days, install
it after shuffling of received, until
june date back! Copy. Open source. Control
my smart security on peak above
what fundamental part to sit, include
in manners, breath in under ground. Remove,
wherever funding. Would occur, into
how complex graphics package to obtain
the toilet, indicating that: diane.
Uncategorized / 4 Comments
September 23rd, 2009 / 8:06 am
September 23rd, 2009 / 8:06 am
In defense of ugly
The Woman in the Dunes
I recently tried to read The Woman in the Dunes by Kōbō Abe and couldn’t get past the sexy talk with the woman. I really loved Abe’s description of sand, a significant metaphor in the book, kinda like Sisyphus’s boulder but smaller. It’s really quite amazing, what Abe has to say about sand. I got really excited about it, until the main character meets a woman, which I immediately became pensive about.
50 Comments
September 22nd, 2009 / 10:23 pm
September 22nd, 2009 / 10:23 pm
Blake Butler—
RT @featherproof: Have you read Amelia Gray’s AM/PM? Cleverest review on Powells.com or Amazon.com in the next 48 hours wins the featherproof novel of your choice! You have 48 hours from now, 9/22, 4pm, to do it. So do it!
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Spaceman Bill Lee has something important to say about jobs that aren’t important.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2EkI2LF2B0
Be inspired, poets and prose writers.
Uh…Power Quote?: Richard Buckner
“I have a degree in creative writing — but trying to get a job with that, well, you might as well be a felon.”
-Richard Buckner, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune
Hey, it’s dark humor time! I’m posting this partly because it’s funny, and partly because Richard Buckner is fucking awesome and you should go buy, or download or whatever it is you kids do these days, Devotion + Doubt, an album which I have taken the liberty of subtitling “How Michael Schaub Survived College Station, Texas, 1997-1998.” I mean really.