Pop Up But Do Less

I don't always make New Year's resolutions, but this year I decided to live bolder. Kind of vague, I know, but it's something I've thought about a lot lately. I used to have a lot more self-confidence but moving to Minnesota and attempting to make a go of this writing thing has made me question myself a lot. I guess we artists really are a fragile breed. So when my friend, Sara, asked me to go to Costa Rica with her, I hesitated a little. I thought about the money and the time I'd have to take off of work. But then I remembered my resolution and said yes.

Sara found the trip on LivingSocial, and if you get a chance to take an all-inclusive trip to Costa Rica (or even a non-all-inclusive trip), I recommend it. The ease of travel impressed me the most: the trip included all of our accommodations, breakfast, and transportation; most of the people spoke English, we didn't need to exchange money and conversions were a breeze, plus it is only one time zone over (they're on Mountain Time...although I'm guessing they don't call it that...) so no jet lag.  We ended up going during the rainy season, which lived up to its name, but despite the daily downpour we managed to pack a lot in.

Reality Hunger: A Discussion via Homage

This past Wednesday students from Hamline met to discuss David Shields’ newest book, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto under the moderation of professor Barrie Jean Borich.  In the spirit of the book, I am posting quotes from the evening, some of which are verbatim and some of which I edited for clarity, context, or simply because I didn’t catch the full phrase.  I didn’t include everything, and they aren’t necessarily in order, but unlike Shields, I believe attribution is important so I’ve used the students’ first names.  And I apologize if I misquoted someone. 

I think it’s a defensive lyric essay via an attack on narrative fiction.
Loren

I would add that it is a personal manifesto or manifestation of what is a viable genre/nongenre.
Carlee

It seemed to be more personal essaying than cultural manifesto.
Nuria

It was very crass. “I like this; I don’t like that.” It was egotistical or it comes off that way, could be read that way.  At times I thought, Oh please.
Julie

I found it interesting that he left some people, who I consider important and influential, out: Annie Dillard, Katherine Norris, Mary Karr. I tried to read the titles as one long poem but it didn’t quite work.
Chrisanne

I found it interesting that he had a section about persona, but I didn’t feel like I knew his persona or whose mind I was reading. 
Pam

The Equation of Erasure

Erasure poetry is a form of found poetry. Here is how an erasure is created. Take a page from any text. Find words that leap at you, words you want to consider, or words that speak to one another. Then cover up or remove the rest of the words, which usually means covering-up or removing most of the words, leaving only a few.

For example, if you cover your unchosen words with a red Sharpie, what remains is a page with selected & scattered words, plus, some horizontal red stripes. Essentially, the act of erasure is one of creating new relationships via form. If erasure were written as a mathematical equation, it might look like this:

(Text + Visual art) – text = Erasure Poetry

Last month, I attended a program about erasure. It was held at the Walker Art Center, and co-sponsored by Rain Taxi Review. While Eric Lorberer gave a brief introduction to the evening and the artists, Travis McDonald, Janet Holmes, and Matthea Harvey, I perused the program-brochure for background information.

I Swear I'm Not Stalking You, Ira Sukrungruang: My Experience at AWP, Part 2

The side picture is from the Hamline University table at the AWP Bookfair.  (Check out those neat Grout bookmarks.)  For those of you who have never been there, the bookfair is kind of chaotic but a great place to spot some of your favorite writers.  Our table was two tables over from the table run by Sweet, an online literary confection, and often Ira Sukrungruang could be found working there.  I have only read a few pieces by him, but we are reading Talk Thai this semester, I heard him read at Barrie's panel last year, and he is the 2011 Hamline Summer Writing Workshop guest CNF writer, so I was really excited to see him.  Maybe too excited.  I would comment every time he appeared.  "There's Ira again!"  "Or Ira's back, I hope he doesn't notice me looking at him."  But I never had the guts to go introduce myself.

I planned to have Barrie (Barrie Jean Borich, beloved CNF professor at Hamline) introduce me to him after their panel together this year, but I chickened out and she had to dash to a second panel.  The panel they sat on, Bodies Politic, was amazing, though.  And not just because it had such great writers (along with Barrie and Ira it had Judith Barrington, Ann Pancake, Brian Teare, and Kekla Magoon).  Each of the writers said fascinating things about writing about the body and the politics involved sometimes, whether it is because of gender/sexuality issues, disability, geography or regional characters, size concerns, or the intense connection between body and memory.  I could write an entire blog posting just about this panel, but if you ever get a chance to hear these writers speak, or read some of their work, do it.