9 to 5 Poet

I know I’m over thirty and have been frequenting bookstores since I could toddle, but I still need to remind myself of that fact.  I can’t just walk into a library and expect to find every book on my list.  Or in this case, walk in to two libraries in two days and find more than one book on my list.

I was a good kid. I made a little list in pink sharpie marker, based on your suggestions, then visited my work library. I found one suggestion.  I thought that maybe I would find others at the major down city library.  Nothing!  Every single book on my list was checked out, lost, on hold, or never returned.  By the way, if you never return library books, you’re evil and are going to hell. 

Despite this (very) mild frustration, I found a bunch of books that I will be able to take with me on vacation.  Here they are, in no particular order:

• The Scalepl and the Silver Bear by Lori Arviso Alvord — I have to read it for work, because she will be speaking at my school next year.
• You’ll Be Okay:  My Life with Jack Kerouac by Edie Kerouac-Parker — I am Beat poetry nut, and I am obsessed with memoirs and biographies about the Beats. I couldn’t resist.
• The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry:  Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World’s Most Famous Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn — Because I have yet to read enough food writing yet.
• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield — Looks really good.  Thanks, Diana!
• Another Bullshit Night in Suck City and Some Ether both By Nick Flynn – Yesterday, they had this article in my LA Times headlines email and I couldn’t believe that I missed this poet’s memoir.  I’m blaming grad school, since it came out when I was still in.   
• Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs — The one paperback I picked up at the bookstore.  I like mysteries, I like the TV show, so I figured I’d try it.  After all, I can leave it there, since I only paid $6 for it. 

So there’s my list.  I think that  my luggage will be made of mostly books.  (And since they’re library books, I can’t leave them there. Because then I’ll go to hell.)  

I don’t expect to finish them all, not by a long shot.  But I just finished my freelancing gig at 10:45 last night and I need something to occupy my time. I’m already itchy. (I’m slightly nuts.) I know, vacation is for relaxing. But what could be more relaxing than reading on a beach?

In a little over a week, I’m heading on my summer vacation to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  We’re staying at a couple of resorts, so I’m anticipating a lot of time for beachside and poolside reading. 

Last year, when I went to Jamaica, I asked readers to recommend some beachy books to read. Through your suggestions, I discovered the awesome Thursday Next series and read the whole thing on vacation. (Almost). 

Since it was so successful last year, I’m asking for help again.  If you have any good summer reading suggestions, please post them here. I have access to an extensive city library and the excellent library at work, so I’m hoping to load up next week.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

I’ve had an eventful morning, to say the least. While working out, I read my Time Magazine, which contained a short sidebar column about a new book, Not Quite What I Was Planning. In this book, people sum up their life story in 6 words. My favorite that Time excerpted was Joan River’s quote, “Liars, hysterectomy didn’t improve sex life!”

Being the good little blogger I am, I thought: What a great concept! This would make an interesting post. So, I started thinking about what my 6 words would be. Visions of my six word sentences drifted in and out of my head while I finished my push-ups. Even while I was making my breakfast of a cinnamon raisin bagel, I was still pondering the six words.

Until the knife slipped and a flap of skin opened on my left thumb tip. Then, of course, language left me. I went to the bathroom, washed off the cut — still blooming with blood, and called my husband to tell him I was going to the clinic. Luckily, the clinic is two blocks from my house (yay city living), and the doctor stitched me up within an hour.

The nurses and doctor laughed at me/with me when I told them that I had worked at a bagel shop during college. This was also the summer that I had the worst accident record at the bagel shop, and got stitches on my thumb, during my vacation at Winnipeg Folk Festival when cutting an apple. (The cut was so deep I saw what fat looked like when it is inside your body. Kind of like cottage cheese.) It was then, in that moment of giggling, that I came to my six words, which sum up my life:

Some stitches, not too many scars.

So what are your six words? And how has your morning been?

When I was bookless at the beginning of this week, a dire circumstance in my life, my husband strongly urged me to read Carol Muske Dukes’ latest book, Channeling Mark Twain. He had read it for school and we had gone to see her read at his school, and I just didn’t feel like reading it. I liked her reading/interview, but I was resistant, probably because it was a semi-autobiographical novel about her youth as a poet. I was afraid it was going to be self-indulgent and pretentious, and as a younger poet, I was concerned that it would hit too close to home.

I was incredibly mistaken. I mean, there are points when I did want to smack the narrator for her naivete, but it was authentic and accurate. And you don’t really read the book for the narrator, but for her experiences. Muske Dukes centers the story around her experience teaching poetry and Rikers Island penitentiary, during the seventies. She eventually created a successful writing in prison workshop called Writing Without Walls, which extended for several years.

The novel follows several inmates as they learn to express their experiences through poetry. In fact, each chapter is divided by poems from the inmates (although actually written by Muske Dukes herself). Through this conceit, the author creates an argument for writing poetry in order to chronicle and decipher one’s life. The argument is political, as the inmates are in some ways products of their poverty, gender, and race. But it is also personal, as these are women trying to define themselves on their own terms. The narrator herself is able to interpret her life as she slowly composes a poem throughout the course of the book. The book also provides an interesting insight into the art and practice of writing poetry, in all of struggles and moments of clarity.

The book is a fluid and easy read and I would strongly urge anyone interested in the life of poetry to give it a try. I burned through it in less than a week, and now sadly, I’m bookless again.

My husband has decided to start a reading challenge on his blog, The Soulless Machine Review. I think it’s pretty brilliant and I am going to join.

It’s called The Art of Series Challenge. He is challenging people to join him in reading books from “The Art of” Series, published by Graywolf Press. (You may recall that I fell in love with Donald Revell’s Art of Attention a while back.) The series explores issues of craft in poetry and prose, and each book is written by a famous writer, like Revell.

Although most reading challenges take a year, this challenge may take longer, because some books are unpublished as of now. As each book is “due,” a discussion post will go up, so that members can compare notes.

Here is the current reading schedule, as posted on my husband’s blog:

Out Now:
The Art of Attention: A Poet’s Eye by Donald Revell (Read by Feb. 28, 200
The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot by Charles Baxter (Read by April. 30, 200

Out Dec 26, 2007:
The Art of the Poetic Line by James Longenbach (Read by June. 30, 200
The Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again by Sven Birkerts (Read by Aug. 30, 200

Planed but not Published Yet:
The Art of Narrative by Howard Norman
The Art of Time in Fiction by Joan Silber
The Art of Description by Mark Doty
The Art of Endings by Amy Bloom

If any of these books are as good as Revell’s, members are in for a treat.

This week, I just finished reading Kirsten Dierking’s second book, Northern Oracle. The book is lovely, spare, and very Minnesotan, in a good way.

The book is framed in two ways. Most importantly, she is exploring her Sami ancestry, so she uses quotes from the Sami poet Nils-Aslak Valkeapaa as epigraphs for each section. These quotes inform the reading of the entire section. The second framing device is a tacit relationship with nature.

Her four sections move from a deep relationship with nature outward to the material world and back again. The Animist and Fragile Organics, the first two sections, are rooted in natural imagery, weather, animals, plants. The third section, “Unstable,” speaks to the experiences after 9/11 and how the country (and the narrator) have changed. The final section, The Path Homeward, speaks to the narrator’s home life and how she integrates pain, change, tragedy and personal nature.

I like two things about this book. Often there are some poets who seem to stretch for vocabulary, to awe you with their understanding of Really Big Words. Dierking is not from that school of thought. In fact, she uses the common simple words really well, pulling on their physical resonances to craft her images. Secondly, this book feels very Minnesotan. By that, I mean there is a conflicted relationship with nature within an semi-urban environment that seems very appropriate to the subject matter. Sometimes, us Minnesotans like to write about how tough we are in relationship to weather and how lucky we are to have these extreme conditions. Dierking shows the beauty in nature and how integrated it is into our modern lives. This is so hard to do without sounding folksy or fake.

I think this book needs a second reading and after a few months, maybe when winter sets in, I’ll revisit it. However, my first impression is that I love it and that it should be read. So go buy it!

There are so many reasons why I love living in Minneapolis, but one that sticks out this weekend is the Twin Cities Book Festival. My city is incredibly literate — we are often ranked in the top two in the Top Literature Cities in the US. (Stupid Seattle dethroning us this year.) We are also host to several notable independent presses and noteworthy journals. All of those organizations, plus many local writers and book artists converge upon Minneapolis Community and Technical College to showcase their wares this weekend. My husband and I walked down this morning and had an awesome time.

My three highlights were the books I got, of course.

I met Kirsten Dierking, the author of One Red Eye, which I loved when I read it earlier this year. I bought her new book, Northern Oracle, and got it signed. She was totally gracious and chatted with me for a moment while signing it, because we went to the same grad school.

I also bought The Art of Attention: The Poet’s Eye, by Donald Revell, because it looked really good. It’s part of a series, edited by local author Charles Baxter, by “important writers on the craft of writing.” (Quote from the back of the book) The other one that has been produced so far is The Art of Subtext by Baxter.

The last book was a freebie from MNArtists, an organization I belong to, called What Light. It’s an anthology of Minnesota Poets.

I also collected a lot of promotional material from a bunch of cool organizations, presses, and journals. So here’s me passing along the info, to help support my awesome local literary scene. I’ve gotta keep the publication karma positive, if you know what I mean.

Organizations

Professional Editors Network
Laurel Poetry Collective
Minnesota Center for Book Arts
Minnesota Literacy Council
Minnesota Literature

Journals

Midway Journal
Minneapolis Observer Quarterly
Dislocate
Water~Stone

Independent Presses

Blueroad Press
Red Dragonfly Press
Coffee House Press
Spout Press
Scarletta Press

If you are a budding writer who lives in Minneapolis metro area, I would strongly encourage you to visit the book fair this weekend. It’s a great networking opportunity and a good resource for local publication venues.

I have been haunting the bookstores lately, as I am in between books and searching hungrily for the next one. It’s a panicky feeling, having no book to read. I keep scanning my bookshelves, looking for something to catch my eye. I struck out at home, so I ventured to the two big bookstores, looking for something new.

It had been awhile since I had ventured into the big box bookstores. I’ve been hanging at my local independent bookstores, and striking out, so I’ve been to two larger bookstores in my area, to try them on for size. Rather than notice what they had, I was busy noticing what they didn’t have.

My first beef: the lack of poetry sections.

When my husband worked at a big box chain, they had a kick-ass poetry section. It could have been due to the neighborhood, or due to the diligence of their workers. But it rocked — it had old stuff, new stuff, local stuff.

At one of the big-boxers-who-shall-remain-nameless, I wandered for 20 minutes to find the poetry section. When I finally asked an employee, she guided me to a section adjacent to the sex books. It was only 1 eight foot tall book shelf high. That wasn’t even the worst part.

The worst part was the books that it contained — past their prime anthologies in the “Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul” style, aging rock/pop stars’ books, and the “classics.” Oh, and the “how to write poetry” books. This selection (or lack thereof) brought to mind two issues: first, why would anyone want to write poetry with these books as their only examples? Secondly, isn’t the best tool for learning to write poetry reading current poetry? Grrr…

My second beef: remaindered books

While I am all for cheap books (who isn’t?), the variety and depth of both chains’ remainder section was astounding. It felt like the reject wall at a junior high dance. A Mary Cheney memoir sat next to a Hilary Clinton bio, special edition selections of Dostoevsky slumbered with their Jane Austen cousins, bargain priced art books gathered dust in the corner. I felt bad for the books, with their embarrassingly low prices and their precariously over stacked piles. But at the same time, I didn’t want to buy them. I was lured by their prices, but then turned off by their content.

These two beefs lead me to a question: what does the publishing industry value? It seems, with these two highly unscientific case studies, that there is a value of quantity over quality, conformity over diversity. Of course, publishing is a business, and a not very lucrative one at that, but this side of the business is unseemly. Rather than print zillions of “hot for the moment” memoirs that will eventually be remaindered and forgotten, why not publish quality work that people will pay to read?

In the New York Times Book Review, it is Jack Kerouac week, thanks to the 50th Anniversary of the publication of On the Road.

The first article is a review of the published version of the “original scroll” that Kerouac typed back in 1951. It’s interesting because the version we’re used to is a fictional work, while Kerouac wrote it is as a memoir. The reviewer compares the two works as separate works and finds the scrolls, in some ways, are better.

The second article is another review, this time of John Leland’s book The Lessons of On the Road (They’re Not What You Think.) This sounds like an interesting book, since it seems that in the past 50 years reading On the Road is like a rite of passage of American adolescents with brains.

The final article is a rumination of On the Road’s place in our culture, as a touchstone. This is where our co mingling of Kerouac as writer and Kerouac as character and icon becomes apparent, in the ways we elevate and idealize the character, while forgetting about the writer. Surely, Kerouac himself encouraged this “branding” (in modern marketing parlance), but it also caused him much difficulty (and infamy) in his later life.

I am one of those brainy adolescents who discovered On the Road when I was 19, and decided that for me, too,

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’”

It wasn’t until I got older that I realized for myself how scary, seductive, dangerous, and important it was to surround yourself with mad ones. But sometimes, it’s like you need to shrink away from their light.

Before I left for vacation, I asked for help in finding the perfect summer reading material for my vacation. Mary-LUE, from So-So Cal Cinema and Life, the Universe and Everything, suggested that I pick up Jasper Fforde. When I read her comment, I recalled one of my former student’s presentations on his Thursday Next books and decided to read pick up the first two books in his Thursday Next series. I instantly fell in love.

How can I possibly describe Jasper Fforde’s writing? He’s a bit like Douglas Adams, in that quirky and ironic sci-fi style. Like Adams, he follows one main character as she engages in a series of mystery capers that have an element of the fantastic. But unlike Adams, he is able to create an emotionally interesting main character who grows and changes throughout the series.

The Thursday Next books(The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots and Something Rotten) follow the titular main character’s adventures in a slightly futuristic 1985. (In this version of 1985, cloning and time travel are possible.) Thursday Next is a veteran of the endless Crimean War and a member of the SpecOps agency, kind of like the Secret Service. She investigates crimes against fiction. Throughout the series of books, she falls in love, realizes that she can jump inside the BookWorld and change novels for the better, and loses her loved ones to her arch nemeses.

If you are a fan of high and low literature, you should read Jasper Fforde. His books are sly, funny, and engaging. I finished the second book in the series while at the airport in Atlanta and immediately had to purchase the third from the only bookstore. (The book gods were smiling down on me that day.) I’ve just started the fourth book in the series, and I am already counting down the days until the release of the fifth.