I've been meaning to post about a number of things, and haven't gotten around to it because I've been busy, mostly, as an editor. I've been working on Stacey Lynn Brown's book, Cradle Song. Stacey came to C&R Press after an experience at Cider Press Review that is chronicled on Stacey's blog. Stacey and I have been working together to perfect her cover. I've also been dealing with printer problems for the BREATHE anthology. In, let's see, ten years of editorial experience and working with printers I've never not had a problem on the printing end of things. I do wonder what the problem is with these companies. My guess is that, first, they're not writers, so they don't really know anything about books. Also, when it comes to books, writers are perfectionists, and printers are only trying to make a buck, so the editors/presses get charged for bullshit. That's what I've been dealing with lately: bullshit.
I wanted to say thank you to everyone who came out to hear Austin Segrest, Karen Gentry, and I read last Saturday night at Wordsmiths Books in Decatur. It was a great reading. Karen's short short stories and Austin's poetry made me stand on the balls of my feet, because the feeling just at the bottom of my other balls was a burning. That's how good they were.
This Saturday, November 8th, at 6 PM, at The Beep Beep Gallery (696 Charles Allen Drive, in Midtown in Atlanta) novelist Man Martin and poet Mike Dockins will read in the second installment of the solar anus. If you're in Atlanta, come listen to this Georgia Author of the Year and a Best American Poet get down. There will be wine.
Sarah and I have a blog that we set up solely for wedding purposes. It's here.
There is a photo of us. I am drinking a Miller High Life. High Life is exactly what it says it is. When I put High Life and Sarah together in my actual life, every moment of every day becomes a moment of station identification at El Patron, ciento cinco punto tres, la casa de los patrones de la manana, in a deep voice, charged with electricity, more exciting than chocolate death.
I will get around to updating that blog as well. You can wish us well there.
We have a new President-elect. I am ecstatic. I feel urgent. I have to pee.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Reading Sat. Nov. 1st. @ 7:30 PM @ Wordsmith's Books in Decatur, GA
If you're around the Atlanta area at this time, it'd be great if you stop by. I will give you candy.
I'll be reading with Karen Gentry and Austin Segrest. Karen won this year's World's Greatest Short Story Contest, sponsored by Southeast Review. Austin has published poems in many places, including this one in Blackbird. I don't know Karen, but am excited to read with her. I have had numerous beers and sake with Austin on many an occasion. He is a great guy, and I'm excited to read with him, too.
I'm serious about the candy thing.
I'll be reading with Karen Gentry and Austin Segrest. Karen won this year's World's Greatest Short Story Contest, sponsored by Southeast Review. Austin has published poems in many places, including this one in Blackbird. I don't know Karen, but am excited to read with her. I have had numerous beers and sake with Austin on many an occasion. He is a great guy, and I'm excited to read with him, too.
I'm serious about the candy thing.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
An Unanswered Interview with Blake Butler, Regarding His Interview with Me
How many interivews can one get into an actual, a real, interview?
What is the actual, that is, the real?
How many times do you cut your hairs in one half-year?
I wonder: what is it about the turning leaves?
You have given much thought to dogs and their teeth. Why so little about the trimmed claws, dragging the deck behind them?
When I asked you to ask me about the Google questions that "people" ask you, what is it, in the nature of questions that perplexes us?
Favorite evening dish?
Spaghetti is lovely, indeed. But Lasagna? Frozen or fresh?
Your thoughts about the "gn" dipthong in Romance languages?
Your thoughts on dipthongs?
hmmm. hmmmm. hmmmm.
This is what happens during poetry readings, no? hmmmmmm. hmmmmmmmm.
There's a great essay by Tony Hoagland that touches on the topic I brought up in my last post. Read it. It's interesting.
What is the actual, that is, the real?
How many times do you cut your hairs in one half-year?
I wonder: what is it about the turning leaves?
You have given much thought to dogs and their teeth. Why so little about the trimmed claws, dragging the deck behind them?
When I asked you to ask me about the Google questions that "people" ask you, what is it, in the nature of questions that perplexes us?
Favorite evening dish?
Spaghetti is lovely, indeed. But Lasagna? Frozen or fresh?
Your thoughts about the "gn" dipthong in Romance languages?
Your thoughts on dipthongs?
hmmm. hmmmm. hmmmm.
This is what happens during poetry readings, no? hmmmmmm. hmmmmmmmm.
There's a great essay by Tony Hoagland that touches on the topic I brought up in my last post. Read it. It's interesting.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
On the Nature of the Different Schools in Contemporary Literature
That title sounds very academic.
Yesterday I had a long conversation with a friend about literature in general, from which we veered into a discussion of the various schools of contemporary literature publishing today. If I can, I might try to narrow down what I think are the most prevalent of these different schools (forgive me if I give them lame names).
Contemporary Realism
This is perhaps what most "regular" people out there think of when they think of literature. This is what my mom thinks of when she thinks of literature. Obviously, with the Realism tag on there, we can assume that those contemporary writers who "subscribe" to this school are descended from the arbiters of Realism as it developed at the end of the nineteenth century and carried into Modernism and Postmodernism. William Dean Howells and Henry James are a couple early Realist writers who come to mind. I'm not ruling out poetry here, either. I suppose Billy Collins is a fairly realist contemporary poet. Sometimes he has some pretty awesome metaphors that stretch the imagination, but mostly the world of his poems (and the langauge) is familiar. I think if you were to walk into Barnes and Noble and pick anything off the Literature stacks, it would most likely be Contemporary Realism.
What I'm going to call The Language School
We've all heard of language poetry. If you went to the University of Denver, chances are you know exactly what I'm talking about. Language Poetry really came out of the 60s and 70s, taking its influence from Gertrude Stein. Contemporary Language poets might be Ron Silliman and Lyn Hejinian. I would say that there's also Language fiction. Ultimately, I think what matters in defining it, is that there's a sharp contrast between the "Language School" and the Contemporary Realists. Or, as Annie Dillard likes to call the writers I'm talking about, Contemporary Modernists. And that's pretty accurate, I think. They're using many of the same techniques (fracturing of time and narrative--or a complete disregard thereof--and decentering the common associations, or contracts, established between reader and writer in Realism.
I'm sure that some could say that there are more "schools" than these, and they're probably right, but for simplicity's sake, I'm narrowing things. I'd like to add another simplicity for good measure.
The point that I'm getting to, the point that my friend and I reached, was almost a fight between the points of view of these two schools. I wouldn't say that this friend of mine is solely a realist, nor would I say she's part of the "Language School." She seems to fall in between somewhere. I mean this about her own work. But, in the course of our conversation, she vehemently defended "Realism" and excoriated the "Language School." She has the opinion that anytime a reader comes to a piece a contract is established between, and once that contract is broken (always by the writer) the literary artifact falls apart. Her claim is that this is the problem with the "Language School." She claims that there is no contract to speak of, because even if there is, it's broken so many times that no common ground between reader and writer can ever be established.
Furthermore, in this friend's fiction, for example, she doesn't like to get too crazy with her langauge or metaphors. She wants readers to immerse themselves in her writing, enter her world, follow her characters as they go along with their lives. Nothing wrong with that, I don't think. She writes traditional narrative, with few bells and whistles. She can write lovely sentences. Sometimes I get bored, though. Sometimes I have to ask why what she's writing matters. Usually, she's able to tell a story from a point of view I have never considered before, and that certainly has its value. Still, linguistically, musically, I'm bored.
On the other hand, there are people who write beatiful sentences with awesome sound and metaphor, sometimes with lovely crazy images. Sometimes meaning and coherence, and the believability in the art piece as anything other than an art piece is lost (and because of this, so also is an emotional attachment to the work). This isn't always the case, of course.
I guess what gets to me is why are these two schools so disparate from each other, to the point that the writers who represent these schools can barely hang in the same room together? They don't publish in the same magazines or presses, they don't go to the same parties. In the common parlance: WTFF?
I think if you're a writer you ought to be capable, at least, of working in both schools. And why can't writers from either of these schools get together more often, exchange ideas, publish in the same places? Sure, everyone has an aesthetic. Why does it have to be so rigid?
Yesterday I had a long conversation with a friend about literature in general, from which we veered into a discussion of the various schools of contemporary literature publishing today. If I can, I might try to narrow down what I think are the most prevalent of these different schools (forgive me if I give them lame names).
Contemporary Realism
This is perhaps what most "regular" people out there think of when they think of literature. This is what my mom thinks of when she thinks of literature. Obviously, with the Realism tag on there, we can assume that those contemporary writers who "subscribe" to this school are descended from the arbiters of Realism as it developed at the end of the nineteenth century and carried into Modernism and Postmodernism. William Dean Howells and Henry James are a couple early Realist writers who come to mind. I'm not ruling out poetry here, either. I suppose Billy Collins is a fairly realist contemporary poet. Sometimes he has some pretty awesome metaphors that stretch the imagination, but mostly the world of his poems (and the langauge) is familiar. I think if you were to walk into Barnes and Noble and pick anything off the Literature stacks, it would most likely be Contemporary Realism.
What I'm going to call The Language School
We've all heard of language poetry. If you went to the University of Denver, chances are you know exactly what I'm talking about. Language Poetry really came out of the 60s and 70s, taking its influence from Gertrude Stein. Contemporary Language poets might be Ron Silliman and Lyn Hejinian. I would say that there's also Language fiction. Ultimately, I think what matters in defining it, is that there's a sharp contrast between the "Language School" and the Contemporary Realists. Or, as Annie Dillard likes to call the writers I'm talking about, Contemporary Modernists. And that's pretty accurate, I think. They're using many of the same techniques (fracturing of time and narrative--or a complete disregard thereof--and decentering the common associations, or contracts, established between reader and writer in Realism.
I'm sure that some could say that there are more "schools" than these, and they're probably right, but for simplicity's sake, I'm narrowing things. I'd like to add another simplicity for good measure.
The point that I'm getting to, the point that my friend and I reached, was almost a fight between the points of view of these two schools. I wouldn't say that this friend of mine is solely a realist, nor would I say she's part of the "Language School." She seems to fall in between somewhere. I mean this about her own work. But, in the course of our conversation, she vehemently defended "Realism" and excoriated the "Language School." She has the opinion that anytime a reader comes to a piece a contract is established between, and once that contract is broken (always by the writer) the literary artifact falls apart. Her claim is that this is the problem with the "Language School." She claims that there is no contract to speak of, because even if there is, it's broken so many times that no common ground between reader and writer can ever be established.
Furthermore, in this friend's fiction, for example, she doesn't like to get too crazy with her langauge or metaphors. She wants readers to immerse themselves in her writing, enter her world, follow her characters as they go along with their lives. Nothing wrong with that, I don't think. She writes traditional narrative, with few bells and whistles. She can write lovely sentences. Sometimes I get bored, though. Sometimes I have to ask why what she's writing matters. Usually, she's able to tell a story from a point of view I have never considered before, and that certainly has its value. Still, linguistically, musically, I'm bored.
On the other hand, there are people who write beatiful sentences with awesome sound and metaphor, sometimes with lovely crazy images. Sometimes meaning and coherence, and the believability in the art piece as anything other than an art piece is lost (and because of this, so also is an emotional attachment to the work). This isn't always the case, of course.
I guess what gets to me is why are these two schools so disparate from each other, to the point that the writers who represent these schools can barely hang in the same room together? They don't publish in the same magazines or presses, they don't go to the same parties. In the common parlance: WTFF?
I think if you're a writer you ought to be capable, at least, of working in both schools. And why can't writers from either of these schools get together more often, exchange ideas, publish in the same places? Sure, everyone has an aesthetic. Why does it have to be so rigid?
Sunday, October 12, 2008
A moment of shameless self-promotion
Thanks, so much, to everyone who came out to the first installment of the Solar Anus. We had a good crowd--probably almost 30 people or so. I brought 20 chairs and we had folks standing, so I'm quite pleased that all those people came out to support the writers. Thanks to those writers--Chris Bundy (you can read a story of Chris's here) and Johannes Goransson (here is a piece by Johannes)--for their words. Thanks again to the Beep Beep Gallery for hosting us. Thanks to Georgia State University for hooking us up with the chairs. Thanks to Amy McDaniel and Blake Butler, my cohorts in this endeavor. Amy brought some grub, and Blake got Johannes to come read for us, and bought some beer and wine.
A few of my students showed up for extra credit. Good for them. I hear tell that they had an excellent time texting their friends during the reading. Students are funny.
Afterwards we went to Manuel's Tavern for dinner and to Sara Bartlett, Mike Dockins, and Laura Carter's house for drinks, reading poems, playing with dogs, and I took a shit there. Thanks to those guys as well.
We will have more readings! The next is tentatively scheduled for Friday, November 7th, and will feature novelist and Georgia Author of the Year, Man Martin, and poetry from Mike Dockins, who, among other publications and honors has appeared in the Best American Poetry anthology for 2007.
Now, my self-promotion, oh well. The new issue of Oranges and Sardines is out. I have three pieces in it, beginning on p. 150. La la la.
Print copies of this issue will be available from Amazon, and the O&S site. I will buy some copies for myself. I will send one to my mom. She will say, "How much did you get paid for this one, James?" My mother thinks that all writing is like Danielle Steele's and that as a writer my life should be like Danielle Steele's and that I ought to be rolling around in my money. She doesn't really think that. This is Jamie's hyperbolic mother. She is cute.
A few of my students showed up for extra credit. Good for them. I hear tell that they had an excellent time texting their friends during the reading. Students are funny.
Afterwards we went to Manuel's Tavern for dinner and to Sara Bartlett, Mike Dockins, and Laura Carter's house for drinks, reading poems, playing with dogs, and I took a shit there. Thanks to those guys as well.
We will have more readings! The next is tentatively scheduled for Friday, November 7th, and will feature novelist and Georgia Author of the Year, Man Martin, and poetry from Mike Dockins, who, among other publications and honors has appeared in the Best American Poetry anthology for 2007.
Now, my self-promotion, oh well. The new issue of Oranges and Sardines is out. I have three pieces in it, beginning on p. 150. La la la.
Print copies of this issue will be available from Amazon, and the O&S site. I will buy some copies for myself. I will send one to my mom. She will say, "How much did you get paid for this one, James?" My mother thinks that all writing is like Danielle Steele's and that as a writer my life should be like Danielle Steele's and that I ought to be rolling around in my money. She doesn't really think that. This is Jamie's hyperbolic mother. She is cute.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Lamination
I've been meaning to post about the new Lamination Colony. This issue features work by
AMANDA BILLINGS
JOSHUA WARE
PHIL ESTES
MATT KIRKPATRICK
STACY KIDD
JAMIE IREDELL
IAN DAVISSON & RYAN DOWNEY
KRAMMER ABRAHAMS
SHANE JONES
SCOTT GARSON
ANGELA GENUSA
DANIEL BAILEY
BRANDON BARRETT
BRANDON SCOTT GORRELL
GENE MORGAN
CONN TOMAS O'BRIEN
THOMAS COOK
MOLLY GAUDRY
MATT BELL
This issue is muy bien. Among my favorites are this, this, this, and this, although I can't say that there's anything in this issue that I don't like. Josh Ware's graphs are fucking weird. I think of SpongeBob.
Also, today, when I finished jogging and was walking back to my apartment, I passed a well-dressed, but clearly-not-working-today gentleman leaving the convenience store and stuffing twenties into his pocket. I had a sudden and almost irrepressible urge to pretend to mug him. I wouldn't have really done it, just grabbed him by the shirt, shoved up against the brick of Blake's on the Park and scream some kind of cliche, like, "Gimme the fuckin' money!" or something. I didn't do it, and I'm sure if I had I'd have been arrested, since Midtown crawls with cops. I don't need the $. I begin to think. Later, perhaps, I will tell you what I am thinking.
AMANDA BILLINGS
JOSHUA WARE
PHIL ESTES
MATT KIRKPATRICK
STACY KIDD
JAMIE IREDELL
IAN DAVISSON & RYAN DOWNEY
KRAMMER ABRAHAMS
SHANE JONES
SCOTT GARSON
ANGELA GENUSA
DANIEL BAILEY
BRANDON BARRETT
BRANDON SCOTT GORRELL
GENE MORGAN
CONN TOMAS O'BRIEN
THOMAS COOK
MOLLY GAUDRY
MATT BELL
This issue is muy bien. Among my favorites are this, this, this, and this, although I can't say that there's anything in this issue that I don't like. Josh Ware's graphs are fucking weird. I think of SpongeBob.
Also, today, when I finished jogging and was walking back to my apartment, I passed a well-dressed, but clearly-not-working-today gentleman leaving the convenience store and stuffing twenties into his pocket. I had a sudden and almost irrepressible urge to pretend to mug him. I wouldn't have really done it, just grabbed him by the shirt, shoved up against the brick of Blake's on the Park and scream some kind of cliche, like, "Gimme the fuckin' money!" or something. I didn't do it, and I'm sure if I had I'd have been arrested, since Midtown crawls with cops. I don't need the $. I begin to think. Later, perhaps, I will tell you what I am thinking.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
What's funny is
A friend of mine said: "I saw your post on your blog about the reading but there wasn't a date. All it said was 'Johannes Goransson and Chris Bundy read at 6PM @ the Beep Beep Gallery.'"
Never mind the fact that she knows this all now, and she will be there anyway, and "THANK YOU, VALUED FRIEND, FOR COMING," "este sabado" means "this Saturday" --I cannot blame her for this at all. But I should avoid posting important information in languages other than English, and probably not put it in the blog post title, which I know not everyone reads.
So, yes, the reading is this Saturday, Oct. 11th, @ the Beep Beep Gallery in Midtown in Atlanta, which is @ 696 Charles Allen Dr.
Never mind the fact that she knows this all now, and she will be there anyway, and "THANK YOU, VALUED FRIEND, FOR COMING," "este sabado" means "this Saturday" --I cannot blame her for this at all. But I should avoid posting important information in languages other than English, and probably not put it in the blog post title, which I know not everyone reads.
So, yes, the reading is this Saturday, Oct. 11th, @ the Beep Beep Gallery in Midtown in Atlanta, which is @ 696 Charles Allen Dr.
Monday, October 6, 2008
este Sabado, a las seis por la noche, los patrones de la literaria
Johannes Goransson and Chris Bundy read for Solar Anus #1. @ 6PM @ Beep Beep gallery, 696 Charles Allen Dr. in Midtown in Atlanta.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
In this, an unanswered interview,
I pose questions to Mike Dockins, author of Slouching in the Path of Comet (Sage Hill Press, 2007), about his interview with me.
How many whiskys does it take before you dunk on a giraffe?
Why do poets smell like lime peel?
Why does the History Channel not rely on experts?
Who will win the World Series?
Wherefore these questions?
Whyfore thou usest "wherefore"?
An amazing side effect of ovulation is intimidating Civil Rights era photographs of shit-clogged toilets in 1960s Alabama prisons. Comment?
Again, with the onions all over that hot dog?
Definitely. it will definitely be the Dodgers.
How many whiskys does it take before you dunk on a giraffe?
Why do poets smell like lime peel?
Why does the History Channel not rely on experts?
Who will win the World Series?
Wherefore these questions?
Whyfore thou usest "wherefore"?
An amazing side effect of ovulation is intimidating Civil Rights era photographs of shit-clogged toilets in 1960s Alabama prisons. Comment?
Again, with the onions all over that hot dog?
Definitely. it will definitely be the Dodgers.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
the indog gods of poesy here
My buddy, Joe Milford, is a madman. He has a 3 volume tome called Cracked Altimeter here.
It is very insane. It is a total of 739 pages of verse. Many pages have more than one poem on them. There are lines like these, from "Godshrapnel" (that title, by the way, makes my penis smaller):
Big Bang was the bomb (like Corso’s poem) endless erupting codas all
existence is god-shrapnel-star-piss silver quantum comet vomit
and the penultimate result is
HERE WE ARE
all of us the result of a lingering star.
You should read this, or as much of it as you can before you're amazement is overcome by your amazement.
It is very insane. It is a total of 739 pages of verse. Many pages have more than one poem on them. There are lines like these, from "Godshrapnel" (that title, by the way, makes my penis smaller):
Big Bang was the bomb (like Corso’s poem) endless erupting codas all
existence is god-shrapnel-star-piss silver quantum comet vomit
and the penultimate result is
HERE WE ARE
all of us the result of a lingering star.
You should read this, or as much of it as you can before you're amazement is overcome by your amazement.
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