tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81383772991744667732024-03-13T12:20:20.224-07:00Cousins Reading SeriesA Semi-Regular Literary Series in Providence, Rhode IslandAbout Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-44692228032123568492012-03-23T04:29:00.003-07:002012-03-23T04:34:32.594-07:00Sunday April 1st @ 7pm<span ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Dear Cousins, </span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br /></span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Please join us</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Sunday, April 1</span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">@ 7:00 </span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><b>186 Carpenter Street arts space </b>on the West Side of Providence </span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br />Come hear Hilary Kaplan, Nick Potter, Yael Shinar and </span> <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Adrian Shirk!</span></span><div><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span ><br /></span></span></div><div><span ><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">There will be snacks and wine- feel free to bring your own as well! </span></span></div><div><span ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="line-height: 14px;">Hope to see you there!</span></span></span></div><div><span ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="line-height: 14px;">John and Amish</span></span></span></div><div><span ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="line-height: 14px;"><br /></span></span><br style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Hilary Kaplan's poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in Litro, PEN America, PEN.org, Rattapallax, TWO LINES, World Literature Today, and the Brazil</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">ian journals Atratores Estranhos, Celuzlose, and Modo de Usar & Co. She writes Commentaries on Brazilian poetry and poetics for Jacket2, and received a 2011 PEN Translation Fund award for Rilke Shake by Angélica Freitas. She holds an MFA from San Francisco State University and is completing a PhD in comparative literature at Brown University. She is just back from Rio de Janeiro.<br /><br />Nick Francis Potter is a multimedia artist and writer from Salt Lake City, Utah. His writing has been published in Caketrain, >kill author, HTML Giant and Untoward Magazine. He founded Paper Noise, a small press specializing in screen-printed chapbooks and zines. He also works on visual art collaboratively with his wife, Erin. Their artwork has been featured in galleries across the country, most recently in the "Curioser" exhibition at the Rhode Island Museum of Natural History and the Black Cloud gallery in Chicago. He is currently pursuing an MFA writing fiction in the Literary Arts program at Brown University.<br /><br />Yael Shinar was born in California and now resides in Cambridge, MA. Her poems have appeared in The Beloit Poetry Journal, Meridian, The Mid-American Review, Third Coast, BOMBlog, The Carolina Quarterly, The Drunken Boat and other publications, have been featured on Poetry Daily and have been nominated for Best New Poets 2011. Her first manuscript, If God Does Not Sit in the Nostrils of the Starling’s Beak, was a semifinalist for the 2010 Kinereth Gensler Award (Alice James Books) and a semifinalist for the 2012 Perugia Press Prize. In addition, she has blogged for Harriet: A Blog from the Poetry Foundation. In 2010, she earned the degree of Master of Divinity at Harvard University, where she studied Buddhism and spiritual care and counseling. She is currently completing pre-medical requirements at Harvard Extension School, while sometimes working as a yoga teacher and hospital chaplain. She reads and writes in English and in Hebrew and has studied Akkadian, Arabic, Sanskrit and French.<br /><br />Adrian Shirk is a founding member of, and fiction editor for, The Corresponding Society. In the past her prose has appeared in Broad, Slouch, Look-Look, and Spork Magazine, as well as previous volumes of Correspondence. Her work is also available as an audiobook, Stories w/Snacks, which she recorded with a Portland, Oregon musician in 2008. She maintains a literary food blog, at What I Ate Where, and is currently enrolled in the Writing Program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.</span></span> </div>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-40169626577872033562011-11-06T10:24:00.000-08:002011-11-06T10:24:34.641-08:00November 13th!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dear Cousins of Cousins, </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Please join us</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sunday, November 13th </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">@ 6:30 </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>186 Carpenter Street arts space </b>on the West Side of Providence </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">for... a lovely night of poetry by Kate Schapira, Peter Richards, and Krystal Languell, and prose by Jonas Moody. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">We will bring some food and wine, and you could bring some wine too, if you'd like, and we could all sit and sip and listen.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><b>Krystal Languell </b>was a semi-finalist for the 2010 University of Akron Press Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2011 National Poetry Series. Her first book,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><em><a href="http://www.blazevox.org/index.php/Shop/Poetry/call-the-catastrophists-by-krystal-languell-252/">Call the Catastrophists</a></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">, has just been published by BlazeVox Books.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><b>Jonas Moody</b> returned to the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span>US</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> in 2009 after an eight-year stint in Iceland as a journalist and translator. His journalistic work has appeared in </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><i><a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,,1874036,00.html">Time</a>, <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/03/reality_check_vanity_fairs_fis.html">New York Magazine</a></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><i>Iceland Review</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span><i>USA</i></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><i> Today</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">. His fiction has appeared in </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><i><a href="http://blipmagazine.net/archive-4/fall-2010/jonas-moody/">BLIP magazine</a></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><i>Credenza</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"> and is forthcoming in a Danish anthology of prose and poetry about Nordic masculinity. He recently finished his MFA and is completing his first story collection. </span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><strong>Peter Richards </strong>was born in 1967 in Urbana, Illinois. He is a recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in Poetry, an Iowa Arts Fellowship, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and the John Logan Award. His poems have appeared in <em>Agni, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Fence, The Yale Review,</em> and other journals. He is the author of <em>Oubliette</em> (Verse Press/Wave Books, 2001), which won the Massachusetts Center for the Book Honors Award; <em>Nude Siren</em> (Verse Press/Wave Books, 2003); and<em> Helsinki</em> (Action Books, 2011). The University of Montana-Missoula’s visiting Hugo Poet Spring Semester 2011, Richards has taught at Harvard University, Tufts University, and Museum School of Fine Arts, Boston.</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>Kate Schapira</b> is the author of <a href="http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9781600010651/town.aspx" target="_blank">TOWN</a> (Heretical Texts, Factory School, 2010), <a href="http://www.noemipress.org/schapira.html" target="_blank">The Bounty: Four Addresses</a> (Noemi Press, 2011), How We Saved the City (<a href="http://www.stockportflats.org/index.htm" target="_blank">Stockport Flats</a>, forthcoming 2012) and The Soft Place (<a href="http://horselesspress.com/" target="_blank">Horseless Press</a>, forthcoming 2012) as well as chapbooks from <a href="http://flyingguillotinepress.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Flying Guillotine</a>, <a href="http://cygistpress.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Cy Gist</a>, Horseless and <a href="http://rope-a-dope-press.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Rope-A-Dope</a> Presses, <a href="http://yoyolabs.com/schapira.html" target="_blank">Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs</a>, and forthcoming from <a href="http://www.dancinggirlpress.com/" target="_blank">dancing girl press</a>. She lives in Providence, RI, where she co-curates the Publicly Complex Reading Series and teaches writing to adults and kids.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Hope to see you all for some or all of the evening,</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Darcie, Amish, John, and, in spirit, Bill</span></span><br />
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</i></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-71306103047429938772011-09-20T17:02:00.000-07:002011-09-20T17:09:05.377-07:00Reading on September 25th!<span class="Apple-style-span" >Hi all- four readers on the 25th!</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span><strong><span><span style="font-style: normal; ">Sarah Goldstein </span></span></strong><span><span style="font-style: normal"><span>was born in Toronto and lives in western Massachusetts. Her artwork has been exhibited in the US and Canada, and her first book, </span></span></span><em><span><span style="font-style: normal"><span>Fables</span></span></span></em><span><span style="font-style: normal"><span>, is out from Tarpaulin Sky Press. </span></span></span></span> </span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span><span style="font-style: normal; "><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Joshua Harmon</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span"> is the author of three books—</span></span></span></span><em><span><i><span>Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie </span></i></span></em><span><span style="font-style: normal"><span>(winner of the 2010 Akron Poetry Prize), </span></span></span><em><span><i><span>Scape </span></i></span></em><span><span style="font-style: normal"><span>(a collection of poems, 2009), and </span></span></span><em><span><i><span>Quinnehtukqut </span></i></span></em><span><span style="font-style: normal"><span>(a novel, 2007). His fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared widely in journals, and he has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. He was educated at Cornell University and Marlboro College.</span></span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span style="font-style: normal; "><span><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Karen Lepri</span> </b><span class="Apple-style-span">holds an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University. Her poems, translations, & reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in </span></span></span><i><span>Beloit Poetry Journal, Boston Review, Best New Poets</span></i><span style="font-style: normal; "><span>, </span></span><i><span>Horse Less Review, Konundrum Engine</span></i><span style="font-style: normal; "><span>, </span></span><i><span>Lana Turner, Mandorla, Memorious, Vanitas</span></i><span style="font-style: normal; "><span>, &</span></span><i><span>Word For/Word,</span></i><span style="font-style: normal; "><span>among others, & online at </span></span><i>Verse Daily. </i><span class="Apple-style-span">Lepri </span><span style="font-style: normal; "><span>was the recipient of the American Academy of Poets, Weston, & Frances Mason Harris Prizes for poetry. She lives in Wellfleet, Cape Cod.</span></span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b><span class="Apple-style-span">Andrew Zawacki</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span"> is the author of the poetry books </span><i>Petals of Zero Petals of One</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> (Talisman House), </span><i>Anabranch</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> (Wesleyan), and </span><i>By Reason of Breakings</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> (Georgia). Coeditor of </span><i>Verse</i><span class="Apple-style-span">, </span><i>The Verse Book of Interviews</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> (Verse), and Gustaf Sobin’s </span><i>Collected Poems</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> (Talisman), he also edited </span><i>Afterwards: Slovenian Writing 1945-1995</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> (White Pine). He edited and co-translated Aleš Debeljak’s </span><i>Without Anesthesia: New and Selected Poems</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> (Persea), and his translation of Sébastien Smirou, </span><i>My Lorenzo</i><span class="Apple-style-span">, is due from Burning Deck. </span><i>Errormirror</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> is forthcoming from Mindmade Books, and </span><i>Arrow’s Shadow</i><span class="Apple-style-span"> from Equipage.</span></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></p> <p align="LEFT" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 150%"><br /></p></div>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-77834973973602924082011-09-18T17:30:00.000-07:002011-09-18T17:30:06.207-07:00Cousins! BYOB Poetry on Sunday Sept 25th!Dear Cousins of Cousins,<br />
<br />
We have a new location:<br />
<a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=186+carpenter+st+providence+ri&gs_upl=1064l3058l0l4175l14l10l0l0l0l2l1379l4144l1.2.3.2.7-2l10l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1281&bih=605&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x89e4457463ade981:0x8268fd316814a92a,186+Carpenter+St,+Providence,+RI+02903&gl=us&ei=Tot2TufoKMnW0QHy5uzoDQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBwQ8gEwAA">186 Carpenter Street</a>, on the West Side of Providence<br />
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It's a lovely space for mingling and listening to readings. It's BYOB... We'll be bringing some wine, and we hope you'll bring some stuff too. Amish might even bake a cake.<br />
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But even if he overflours the cakepan, never fear because look who'll be reading for you...<br />
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<a href="http://joshuaharmon.blogspot.com/">Josh Harmon</a>!<br />
<a href="http://earlymorninghours.blogspot.com/">Sarah Goldstein</a>!<br />
<a href="http://www.andrewzawacki.com/">Andrew Zawacki</a>!<br />
<a href="http://www.memorious.org/?id=344">Karen Lepri</a>!<br />
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All in one night, you ask, how can that be? And it all happens in an hour or so? Yes, people of Providence & beyond, we're just that lucky.<br />
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p.s. This is the "before" picture of the space <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;">(credit: Forgotten Providence)</span>... Come see the "after" in person.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wojXVSBlRcw/TnaM5D6tLFI/AAAAAAAAAW0/78ajjhWzSRo/s1600/186carpenter-700x1045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wojXVSBlRcw/TnaM5D6tLFI/AAAAAAAAAW0/78ajjhWzSRo/s320/186carpenter-700x1045.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-25559928989522356332011-06-03T17:52:00.000-07:002011-06-03T18:04:17.312-07:00Ben Tanzer from You Can Make Him Like You<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Make-Him-Like/dp/1450748392/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307149415&sr=8-1"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 128px; height: 200px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QnoD2PKMo50/TemEBgT3pzI/AAAAAAAAAGE/CkdO8B-wgM0/s200/youcanmake.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614163571882043186" border="0" /></a><br /><br />What should I wear tomorrow, jeans, fine, t-shirt, sure, what color, does it matter, not sure, did we pay the mortgage, yes, maybe, okay, what about the electric bill, not sure, phone bill, yes, definitely, but why is the texting portion so high, is there an unlimited plan, and why do I need to text anyone, couldn’t I call, or e-mail, yes, I could even Twitter, though what is that really, and why would someone do it, does anyone besides Liz care what I’m up to all the time, every second of the day, why is that fun, maybe I am too old to get it, Monica, man she’s smoking, and the locks on the door, did we lock the door, last night, yes, tonight, maybe, but both locks, can’t say, should I check, no, yes, no, no, probably, maybe, is that moaning, yes it is, weird, and shit, is the alarm set, yes, yes, check, checked, check again, cool, and the door, just ignore it, nothing is going to happen anyway.<br /><br />And Obama, could he really win, he should win, it should be easy, the war, McCain’s age, the economy, the president, the maverick bullshit, but the Democrats can still allow this to get fucked-up, he can get swift-boated, or Rezko’d, or maybe people will start listening to John Kass, and Monica, could I fuck her, maybe, no, maybe, the alarm, check, check, it’s cool, and the locks, fuck them, more moaning, where is that coming from, Liz, sleeping, yes, sex, no sex, not now, no way, should I just get up, maybe, and drink less coffee before bed, yes, yes, for sure, no more Intelligentsia after 10:00pm, so wired, so fucking wired, go running.<br /><br />I could definitely go running, out to the lake, yeah, that would be cool, refreshing, breezy, or jerk-off, could jerk-off, Monica, no Liz, could stroke Liz’s ass, lightly, yeah, no she’s moving, later, the moaning, what’s up with the moaning, music, maybe listen to the new Terrodactyls joint, maybe EL-P, The Hold Steady, yeah The fucking Hold Steady, or I could watch High School Musical, it must be on, fucking Vanessa Hudgens, and those internet photos, Christ, sweet, obsessing, did we TiVo Mad Men, what did we do before TiVo, should I jerk off, where did Liz go.<br /><br />“Keith, what’s going on, can’t sleep?” Liz asks me groggily.<br /><br />“No, I’m totally obsessing.” <br /><br />“About what?”<br /><br />“Do you really want to know?”<br /><br />“Sure?”<br /><br />“Uh, TiVo, Rezko, Mad Men, EL-P, The Hold Steady, Vanessa Hudgens, and…”<br /><br />“Vanessa Hudgins? C’mon that’s just embarrassing, for you, me and her. You’re old enough to be her dad.”<br /><br />“Thanks, I feel so much better, but I can’t help it. I’m spinning.”<br /><br />“We could have sex. Would that help?”<br /><br />“Uh...”<br /><br />I pause. I’ve never paused, but things are different now.<br /><br />“Did you just pause?”<br /><br />“Maybe?”<br /><br />“You? What’s up?”<br /><br />“Nothing.”<br /><br />“Oh my God,” Liz says, this odd look of recognition crossing her face, “is this because of the baby? Please don’t tell me this about the baby.”<br /><br />“Okay, I won’t.”<br /><br />“You’re on your own buddy.”<br /><br />I pause again. Not wanting to have sex with your pregnant wife is ridiculous. But that doesn’t mean I plan to.<br /><br />I hear more moaning. And for a moment we both pause, lost in whatever is going on next door.<br /><br />“Hey, do you hear…moaning?” I ask.<br /><br />“Yeah, it’s the new neighbor. He actually seemed pretty quiet when I met him the other day.”<br /><br />“Maybe he is when he’s not having sex.”<br /><br />“Right, well, maybe you can talk to him. This went on for like an hour before dinner. I think he would want to know how loud she is and how thin the walls are.”<br /><br />“I just want to be clear about something. You want me to talk to a dude about having loud sex. You’re joking right?”<br /><br />“I don’t know, are you joking about not having sex?”<br /><br />“No.”<br /><br />“Payback is a bitch.”<br /><br />“Touche.”<br /><br />“Goodnight.”<br /><br />I walk out to the kitchen and get a beer. I sit down on the couch. I put on The Hold Steady and “Stuck Between Stations” starts up.<br /><br />My head is still spinning, my thoughts and compulsions on the kind of endless loop that even The Hold Steady can’t derail. This baby thing is not good and there will be no sleep tonight. I finish my beer. I look for my running shoes. I lace them up. I head out the door.<br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Make-Him-Like/dp/1450748392/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1307149415&sr=8-1"><br />BEN TANZER</a> reads with Cousins Laura Cherry, Susan Scarlata, and Michael Stewart on June 5th at Abe's Bar, Wickenden Street, Providence.About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-20850726925633912172011-05-24T18:27:00.000-07:002011-05-24T18:52:33.417-07:00More on Our June 5th Cousins...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mnmhpjI1EFc/TdxczXo5HGI/AAAAAAAAAFo/KK0q189w-qA/s1600/0605bookpics.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifcursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 145px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mnmhpjI1EFc/TdxczXo5HGI/AAAAAAAAAFo/KK0q189w-qA/s400/0605bookpics.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5610461273385409634" /></a><br />We wanted to learn a little more about our June 5th Cousins. And we want you to know what we learned. Here's what we learned about Laura Cherry, Susan Scarlata, Michael Stewart, and Ben Tanzer:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">> Tell us about your new book...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Laura Cherry:</span> <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Haunts-Laura-Cherry/dp/0984192832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1306285973&sr=1-1">HAUNTS </a></span>is a journey from California to New England with some back-country stops along the way. It's about the places we haunt and the people who haunt us, the strangeness of the suburbs, and the appalling call of the hometown. Like me, it relies heavily on coffee, flowering trees, unrequited desires, public transportation, and the word "vermillion."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Susan Scarlata</span> (<span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Might-Turn-Out-Are-Real/dp/098298961X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1306285930&sr=1-2">It Might Turn Out We Are Real</a></span>): These poems show their cracks, accept their ruin, and get on with it. They are strung, one to the other, linked with no intent of presenting any sum total. They are the interplay and intercourse of ancient principals and contemporary technologies. Old like the lyre and new like the iPad. Old like fire and language thought of as technology, and new like the ever-quickening development of gadghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifets today. Old like form and newer like the field’s beyonds.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Michael Stewart</span>: My latest book, <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hieroglyphics-Michael-Stewart/dp/0983026319/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1297784984&sr=1-1">The Hieroglyphics</a></span>, is a mess. It is made up of seventy fragments which build into something larger—a creation myth? a re-imagined history? These fragments are all based on chapters from <span style="font-style:italic;">The Hieroglyphics</span> of Horapollo, a 14th century symbolic reading of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. I tried to play with Horapollo's lines and mix them with mine, see how far away from the original intention I could take them while still keeping the sound and movement. The result? One fragment is about birds in the south who do not eat, but live off the heat of the sun. At night these birds are so still they appear dead, but the heat from even a small fire is enough to make them stir and to blink their eyes, ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflthough it is not enough to allow them to fly. The other fragments are like that too. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ben Tanzer</span>: Many have described <span style="font-style:italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Can-Make-Him-Like/dp/1450748392/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306285831&sr=1-1">You Can Make Him Like You</a></span> as a cross between <span style="font-style:italic;">Twilight </span>and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Hunger Games</span>, with a touch of Harry Potter. Which I really appreciate, but I see it as more of an homage to the characters who populate the songs of The Hold Steady, if those characters were a little older, heavier and less likely to end up in medical tents at concerts all tweaky and freaked out. That said, If you are a producer looking to option the book, it is also helpful to think of it as the story of a guy trying not to sleep with his intern, kill his neighbors or be freaked out by becoming a dad.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">> Can you name one person—living or dead, famous or unknown—who is unassailable? If so, who and why?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Laura Cherry</span>: I don't think anyone is unassailable, really, but nonetheless I'll pick Leonard Cohen for his humility and passion and kickass lyrics.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Susan Scarlata</span>: My Italian grandfather, my father’s father, comes to mind. He largely raised himself on the streets of Pittsburgh, where I am from, and worked many odd, liminally-legal “jobs,” which I am sure were as often about being scammed as doing the scamming himself. But in my own memory of him, when he was in his late seventies and eighties, when approached with anything he would rather not engage with he feigned bad hearing. His ability to hear lessened when he was attacked or even questioned, but this was clearly not due to infirmity or a weakened mind. Instead, he was sternly refusing to hear –looking up at the ceiling as if nothing had been said. Watching my grandfather as a ten-year old it was not that he, like a politician, would give you the answer he thought you wanted to hear, if he did not like it he just didn’t entertain that a question or comment had appeared at all. Re-reading this, I realize that on a macro level I could be describing China’s Communist party, which living in Hong Kong, I have had glimpses of so far, but seems to be also, largely unassailable.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Michael Stewart</span>: The only unassailable people, I imagine, are the imagined ones. Holmes' deductive magic in Doyle's clockwork London; Daisy dressed in Fitzgerald's svelte, flattering sentences, money in her voice; Colette's Claudine; etc.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ben Tanzer</span>: I am very tempted to say William Walsh, though not entirely because of the potential brownie points and book sales, okay, mostly because of that, and I feel fairly obligated to say Nelson Mandela, because I suppose there isn't a better candidate, anywhere, but the first name that came to mind when I read this was Luke Skywalker, who didn't cross over to the dark side despite every opportunity to do so, which is pretty cool I think, and then maybe Johnny Cash, who sort of did cross over, but arguably made it work for him, which was also pretty cool.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">> Who are some of your literary cousins?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Laura Cherry</span>: Sylvia Plath. Dorothy Parker. Cynthia Macdonald. Marie Howe. And granddaddies Stevens, Keats, and Eliot.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Susan Scarlata</span>: Writers attune to the sound-sense of words. Harryette Mullen is a cousin in generations above me (I have twenty-nine first cousins, so I understand how this can work); she is one of the inspired practioners of sound-sense type poetics. Writers who like a mouth full of language. In years closer to me, Arda Collins for her depth down to the deepest downs and because she recently talked of poem-land. Sandra Doller for her idiosyncratic break-up and re-positioning of language. Eric Baus for his tuned ear and solemnity; and Andrea Rexilius for her fabric and continuousness. And so so many more –too many to name.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Michael Stewart</span>: At my literary family reunion Joanna Ruocco and Brian Conn would be talking with Lily Hoang over potato salad. Molly Gaudry and Joanna Howard would be playing horseshoes against J. A. Taylor and Matt Bell. The nieces and nephews would be gathered around Brian Evenson, who would be trying not to look bored. Rikki Ducornet would be looking beautiful. Shya Scallion and Caroline Whitbeck, the cool cousins, would be smoking by the car, a little whiskey secreted into their drinks. And off somewhere would be Gary Lutz and Peter Marcus dong something creepy.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Ben Tanzer</span>: I suppose if we understand this to mean that like my real life cousins, my literary cousins have every right to reject any association with me, and probably would if given the choice, I would say Barry Graham, Mel Bosworth, Mary Miller, Tom Williams, Caleb J. Ross, Lindsay Hunter, Spencer Dew, Victor David Giron, Ken Wohlrob, Lauryn Allison, Ryan Bradley, Jason Fisk, Mark Brand, Pete Anderson, Brandon Teitz, Lavinia Ludlow, Michael FitzGerald, Scott McClanahan, Dave Housley, Brandon Will, Nik Korpon, Tim Hall and David Masciotra. And yes, I believe in big families. Just not nuclear families. Mine anyway.<br /><br />Join us on June 5th at Abe's Bar for the next Cousins Reading Event!About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-68097198517325846182011-05-21T19:04:00.000-07:002011-05-21T19:14:24.884-07:00THE ASSOCIATIVE METHOD<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> 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mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p style="line-height: 110%;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 110%;">An excerpt from Michael Stewart’s upcoming novel, THE ASSOCIATIVE METHOD:</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 110%;"></span></p> <p style="line-height: 110%;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 110%;">At University I roomed with Andrew Lowdosky and while our peers were making names for themselves in sports or the classroom, Andrew had found a different niche. He had it turns out a certain magnetism that the local girls could not ignore. This coupled with his generous nature—he would no more turn out an older woman with a threadbare dress than he would a young actress with perfectly painted lips—made him a bit of a legend. Half of my nights I was sent from the dorm room by a tie looped over the doorknob.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 110%;"></span></p> <p style="line-height: 110%;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 110%;">After a successful conquest Andrew would, like a perfect gentleman, let her lounge in the bed while he went about, stubble and oily hair, and collected her things. Once he had them in a bundle, he would, with a subtle but quick jerk, remove one of the buttons from her blouse or jacket. He kept these trophies in a cigar box beneath his bed. Once he took them out for us; we sat like children over pirate's treasure, they were more beautiful than gold doubloons for what they represented: a little brown button, from a serving girl's skirt, a horn button from a wealthy girl's Barbour jacket, a navy button from some girl with a man in the service. We tried not to count them.</span></p> <p style="line-height: 110%;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 110%;">One day, when he was out, I took a button from my sports jacket and traded it for one of those in his cigar box. I threaded it quickly and a little imperfectly, it was always a little loose when I buttoned up. Nonetheless, it was my prized possession, like a schoolboy's rabbit foot. And although it was not <i>my</i> trophy—I had no trophies from school: I was an unremarkable student and not much of an athlete; I did not have Andrew's way with woman and my family did not make enough money to give me any pedigree—it was <i>a</i> trophy, a physical sign of a great achievement, an object that had meaning. By wearing the button I became like one of those American Indians who eats the heart of his opponent to gain his power. The button gave me a small part of Andrew's prowess: it made it easier for me to talk with girls, to talk back to my professors, to assume an adult air at the bar. I still have it somewhere—in my cufflinks box, I think—a black, plastic button with a thick lip, shiny despite years of use.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 110%;">___________<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 110%;"><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> <w:lidthemeother>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther> <w:lidthemeasian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian> <w:lidthemecomplexscript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript> <w:compatibility> <w:breakwrappedtables/> <w:snaptogridincell/> <w:wraptextwithpunct/> <w:useasianbreakrules/> <w:dontgrowautofit/> <w:splitpgbreakandparamark/> <w:dontvertaligncellwithsp/> <w:dontbreakconstrainedforcedtables/> 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mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> </p><p style="line-height: 110%;"><a href="http://www.strangesympathies.com/about.php"><b><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 110%;">Michael Stewart</span></b></a><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 110%;"> is currently the Rhode Island Council for the Arts Fellow in both fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including <i style="">Conjunctions, DENVER QUARTERLY, </i>and<i style=""> American Letters & Commentary.</i> He is the author of <i style="">A Brief Encyclopedia of Modern Magic</i> (The Cupboard), <i style="">Almost Perfect Forms</i> (Ugly Duckling Presse), <i style="">THE HIEROGLYPHICS</i> (Mud Luscious Press), and <i style="">Sebastian</i>, an illustrated book for adults (Hello Martha Press). He lectures at Brown University. And he will be reading with Cousins on June 5th at ABE's BAR, Wickenden Street, Providence.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 110%;"> </p>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-59757687785414246852011-05-07T14:32:00.000-07:002011-05-07T14:43:50.289-07:00June 5th Cousins<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-26uTa0RCcAo/TcW6pnblR7I/AAAAAAAAAFQ/ChEI8Dt3kB4/s1600/june5.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 400px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 129px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5604090535454525362" border="0" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-26uTa0RCcAo/TcW6pnblR7I/AAAAAAAAAFQ/ChEI8Dt3kB4/s400/june5.jpg" /></a>Cousins returns on June 5th with two poets and two guys.<br /><br />Show starts around 6:30 at Abe's Bar. It's the last Cousins Reading until September. So please come and bring a few of your cousins.<br /><br /><strong>Laura Cherry's</strong> first full-length collection of poetry, <em>Haunts</em>, is now available from Cooper Dillon Books. Her chapbook, <em>What We Planted</em>, was awarded the 2002 Philbrick Poetry Award by the Providence Athenaeum. She is co-editor of the anthology <em>Poem, Revised</em> (Marion Street Press). Her work has been published in journals, including <em>Forklift: Ohio, H_NGM_N, The Vocabula Review, Newport Review, LA Review, </em>and <em>Naugatuck River Review</em>. It has also appeared in the anthologies <em>Present Tense</em> (Calyx Press) and <em>Vocabula Bound</em> (Vocabula Books). She received an MFA from Warren Wilson College. She lives near Boston, where she works as a technical writer.<br /><br /><strong>Susan Scarlata's</strong> essays, poetry, and reviews have appeared in <em>Conduit, DENVER QUARTERLY, FENCE, The Horse Less Review, Typo,</em> and are forthcoming in <em>1913</em>. Scarlata is the author of <em>It Might Turn Out We Are Real</em> (Horseless Press) and <em>Lit Instant</em> (Parcel Press). She has designed and taught courses at universities, held residencies, and led writing workshops for students of all ages as well as teachers. Scarlata received her PhD from the University of Denver, where she also taught and developed writing courses that integrated service into the writing curriculum. She taught at and holds an MFA from Brown University. She is the Executive Editor of Lost Roads Publishers, an independent literary press, and is currently an Associate Professor of English at the Savannah College of Art and Design's newest campus in Hong Kong.<br /><br /><strong>Michael Stewart</strong> is currently the Rhode Island Council for the Arts Fellow in both fiction and poetry. His work has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including <em>Conjunctions, DENVER QUARTERLY, </em>and <em>American Letters & Commentary</em>. He is the author of <em>A Brief Encyclopedia of Modern Magic</em> (The Cupboard), <em>Almost Perfect Forms</em> (Ugly Duckling Presse, <em>THE HIEROGLYPHICS</em> (Mud Luscious Press), and Sebastian, an illustrated book for adults (Hello Martha Press). He lectures at Brown University.<br /><br /><strong>Ben Tanzer</strong> is the author of <em>You Can Make Him Like You</em> (Artistically Declined), Lucky Man (Manx Media), <em>Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine</em> (Orange Alert Press), <em>Repetition</em> <em>Patterns</em>, and <em>99 Problems</em> (both from CCLaP). He also oversees day-to-day operations of This Zine Will Change Your Life and blogs at This Blog Will Change Your Life the centerpiece of hisvast, albeit faux media empire. He is currently watching Sports Center, but upon his deathbed, he will receive total consciousness, so, he has that going for him, which is nice.About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-4308574951969832622011-04-18T08:18:00.000-07:002011-04-18T08:31:49.762-07:00Steve Himmer and The Bee-Loud Glade<span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Bee-Loud-Glade-Steve-Himmer/dp/0984510583"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 198px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uzSIE7ZaNyg/TaxWn9UUTyI/AAAAAAAAAFA/PZ5qHpSFN0w/s320/bee_loud_cvr.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5596943681389350690" border="0" /></a><br />STEVE HIMMER’S stories have appeared in a number of journals and anthologies. He edits the web journal </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >Necessary Fiction</span><span style="font-size:100%;">, and teaches at Emerson College in Boston. His novel </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >The Bee-Loud Glade </span><span style="font-size:100%;">is just out from <a href="http://atticusbooksonline.com/books/the-bee-loud-glade/">Atticus Books</a>.<b><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" > </span></b></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" ><br /><br />Q: You're getting some good early reviews on the novel, The Bee-Loud Glade, and you're appearing as a featured reader, it seems, everywhere. What has the promotional life of the novel been like for you? Any surprises on the road?</span></b></span><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:100%;" ><br /></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:100%;" >A: It’s been a lot of fun so far, and I’ve been surprised and moved by how supportive people have been. Not in terms of positive reviews (though those have been nice), but because folks have been so willing to think about the book and to share it with their readers and friends. My biggest worry was that no one would notice one way or the other. So the surprises have all been good ones. Well, except that I was on event lineup with Chris Bohjalian recently and he gave me a whole new list of reasons to be nervous about flying at a time when I’ve got lots of travel ahead.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" >Q: The narrator of <span style="font-style: italic;">The</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Bee-Loud Glade</span> is Finch (a passerine) and his billionaire benefactor is Crane (a gruiform). And birds figure throughout the novel. What's up with that, and are there other codes embedded in Bee-Loud that readers should mark?</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:100%;" >A: I tried not to overtax the suggestive qualities of the characters’ names or to reduce the presence of birds and animals in the story to shallow metaphors, but yes, they are often deliberate. I can’t think of finches without thinking of Darwin and his research in the Galapagos Islands, and his discovery that finches adapted to all the environmental niches available to be filled — they fit themselves into their landscape instead of dominating it, just as their nests are tucked into crooks between branches or between rocks or in other small spaces seemingly ready-made for the purpose. And cranes have always struck me as elegant but awkward birds, impressive for the vast, unlikely distances they’re able to travel in their restless migration. Not to mention the double-meaning of “crane,” an equally elegant but awkward machine that dominates a skyline as it both builds and destroys the landscape around it. And Crane is also a suggestion of a particular family history through which the character’s wealth may have accrued, but I think I’ll leave that for someone else to work out along with some of the other references I worked into the story mostly to amuse myself.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" >Q: As the editor of <i style="">Necessary Fiction</i>, you're presenting a ton of great fiction every month. How does this editorial work inform your writing? Also, how does your work as a writing teacher at Emerson College impact your creative writing? </span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:100%;" >A: Editing <i>Necessary Fiction</i> has made me a much, much better editor of my own work, and it has also given me a stronger sense of what I’m doing as a writer—or trying to do—in comparison with what other people are doing. It’s rare that I read a story and wish I’d written it, and I love finding incredible stories in our submissions that it would never even <i>occur</i> to me to write. I’ve also become more sensitive to cliché, because there are stories and subjects I read over and over and over without any real variation. Often competent, well-crafted stories but all of a type to the point that once we’ve published one of them there’s no reason to publish another. Which I guess means I have a longer list of things I am unlikely to ever write about myself. Or write about <i>again</i>, if I’m honest, because I must sheepishly admit to having written about most of those clichés at some point. Some of them multiple times. And I think spending so much time reading and editing other people’s short stories has shown me that other people are writing much better stories than I am, and that focusing on novels (which was my intention as a writer all along) is probably a better use of my time and energy.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:100%;" >As for teaching, I teach composition rather than creative writing (though I hope to be teaching both eventually) so it’s not such a direct impact. But both my approaches to teaching writing and to writing fiction are embedded in a liberal arts tradition. I tend to think of writing in any genre as a mode of inquiry about the world, so the questions I might ask my students about their academic writing or advocacy writing (questions like, “What am I asking?” and “What is at stake?” and “Why should my reader care?”) overlap with the questions I ask myself when I’m writing. Actually, I probably ask those questions more often when I’m revising and deciding what’s worth pursuing in a first draft.<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" >Q: Can you name some of your literary cousins?</span></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:100%;" >A: Definitely Amber Sparks, because we share so many proud nerdy interests in exploring folklore and history through fiction. Grant Bailie, because I think we’re equally enthralled by stories of the “offbeat everyman,” and I’d like to think of Jim Krusoe as a distant cousin of ours for the same reason. And maybe Tom McCarthy is the admired, successful, far away cousin you hear the family talk about but don’t really know, like the opera singer in Halldor Laxness’ novel <i>The Fish Can Sing</i>.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";font-size:100%;" >Steve Himmer will be featured at the Cousins Reading Series on May 1st.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><b><span style="line-height: 115%;font-family:";" ><br /></span></b></span></p>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-89930376523671563362011-04-07T16:56:00.000-07:002011-05-01T12:43:37.077-07:00National Poetry Month Extended to May 1<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y7E9_rVoz2Y/TZ5QWTwM4UI/AAAAAAAAAE4/qM-HT3AkThY/s1600/MAY_1C.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 320px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-y7E9_rVoz2Y/TZ5QWTwM4UI/AAAAAAAAAE4/qM-HT3AkThY/s320/MAY_1C.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5592996131430523202" border="0" /></a><br />While the rest of the country will be suffering a <a href="http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/41">National-Poetry-Month</a>-hangover on May 1, Cousins Reading Series will still be partying like it's April!<br /><br />Look at this lineup of poets (plus one novelist) who will be reading with Cousins on May 1st:<span style=""><br /><br /><a href="http://www.maireadbyrne.blogspot.com/">Mairéad Byrne</a> is an Irish poet whose books include </span><i style="">Nelson & The Huruburu Bird, An Educated Heart, Talk Poetry, </i>and<i style=""> The Best of (What's Left of) Heaven.</i> <span style="">She is associate professor of poetry and poetics at Rhode Island School of Design.</span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""><a href="http://www.lsu.edu/lsupress/bookPages/9780807138793.html">Ryan Flaherty</a>, author of <i style="">What’s This, Bombadier? </i>(LSU Press), is</span> the recipient of the 2010 PEN /New England Discovery Award for <span style="">Poetry</span>. He has published two chapbooks, <i style="">Novas</i> and <i style="">Live, from the Delay</i>. His poems have appeared in <i>Boston Review, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review, Columbia, </i><span style=""> </span>and elsewhere. He lives and teaches in New Hampshire.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""><a href="http://www.stevehimmer.com/beeloud">Steve Himmer</a> </span><span style="color:black;">stories have appeared in various journals and anthologies. He edits the web journal <i>Necessary Fiction</i>, and teaches at Emerson College in Boston. His novel <i>The Bee-Loud Glade </i>is just out from Atticus Books.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""><a href="http://www.actionbooks.org/">Daniel Tiffany</a> is the author of three books of poetry: </span><i style="">Privado</i> (Action Books),<i style="">The Dandelion Clock</i> (Tinfish Press),and <span style=""> </span><i style="">Puppet Wardrobe</i><span style="">. His work has appeared in Boston Review, Paris Review, jubilat, and other journals. He is professor of English and comparative literature at University of Southern California.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">Cousins Reading Series is held </span> at Abe's Bar, 302 Wickenden Street, Providence. 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</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">...featuring:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: black;">Robert Coover’s</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: black;"> most recent books are <i>Noir</i>, <i>The Adventures of Lucky Pierre</i>, <i>Stepmother</i>, and <i>A Child Again</i>. He is the recipient of many awards and honors, including American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Endowment of the Arts, Rea Lifetime Short Story, Rhode Island Governor’s Arts, Pell, and Clifton Fadiman Awards, as well as Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Lannan Foundation, and DAAD fellowships.</span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: black;">Janalyn Guo</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: black;"> lives in Providence and received her MFA from Brown University. Her writing has appeared in <i>The New Yinzer</i>, and is forthcoming in <i>Tarpaulin Sky. </i>She is currently hard at work on a novel. </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><b><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: black;">William Walsh</span></b><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; color: black;"> is the author of <i>Without Wax, Pathologies,</i> and <i>Questionstruck</i>. His work has appeared in <i>Quick Fiction, New York Tyrant, Caketrain, Annalemma, LIT, No Colony, Quarterly West, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency,</i> and other journals. </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";">April 3rd at Abe's Bar (302 Wickenden Street, Providence). Starts around 6:30PM.<br /><br /> <br /> </span><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif";"> </span></p>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-5357309070181763452011-03-17T11:34:00.000-07:002011-03-31T09:37:03.029-07:00Evelyn Hampton is Balding<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;font-family:arial,sans-serif;" ><span style="color:black;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">...an interview</span></span></b></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;font-family:arial,sans-serif;" ><span style="color:black;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><br /></span> </span></b></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;font-family:arial,sans-serif;" ><span style="color:black;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: normal;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:13px;" ><span style="color:blue;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:black;">COUSINS emailed</span> <a href="http://www.lispservice.com/blog/" style="color: rgb(204, 102, 0); text-decoration: underline;">Evelyn Hampton</a></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"> and asked her semi-feeble questions because time is short and because "Your work is awesome I love you" is not a question. </span></span></span></b></span></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;font-family:arial,sans-serif;" ><span style="color:black;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: normal;font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:13px;" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">Evelyn is the author of the chapbooks </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">We Were Eternal and Gigantic</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"> (Magic Helicopter Press) and </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">The Lost Body Projected</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"> (Mud Luscious Press). Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in many journals, including </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">New York Tyrant, elimae, MAKE, Unsaid,</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"> and</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">Action, Yes</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">. She edits </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">Dewclaw</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">.</span></span></span></b></span></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;font-family:arial,sans-serif;" ><span style="color:black;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">LONGWINDEDCOUSINS:</span></span></b></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;font-family:arial,sans-serif;" ><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">One of the funniest and humble footnotes ever put in a book is in </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">We Were Eternal and Gigantic</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">: </span></span></span></span><br /><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">"The notion of absolute greatness is not inhibited with ideas of limitations" is from Kant's Critique of Judgment via the Wikipedia article about the Sublime. </span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;font-family:arial,sans-serif;" ><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><span style="color:black;"></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;font-family:arial,sans-serif;" ><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">Reading those footnotes, I saw that the book title was taken from a sentence by Clarice Lispector. And altogether, your work seems to not really fit in any one um genre-- just like I feel that Clarice Lispector's newspaper columns did not at all (luckily!) fit the idea of a newspaper column. And I was wondering around the same time whether you considered the pieces you write (in the book) poems or prose or what. I would like to claim them for poetry, but I guess you could make a millions more dollars if you called them prose, and I wouldn't begrudge you that money. Also, I really like your pieces on </span></span><a href="http://htmlgiant.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">html giant</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">, but I wouldn't necessarily call them blog entries... because they are too good, too formed/digested, and also not... daily-opinion-ish. Do you have some kind of secret/private/etc word for what you write? (That was not a great question-- I know-- but we do need new content for the site.)</span></span></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"> </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=";font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;" ><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">Evelyn Hampton</span></span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">: This is a good question--I mean, people want to know what to call things. I don't have a private word for what I write. The writing itself feels like the best description of what I write, but I think most people, when they ask "What sort of thing do you write?", are not ready for me to read them everything I have written. So I have been trying out one or two-word descriptions--lyrical fiction? That seems to include some of each of prose and poetry, though it maybe sounds pretentious. I sometimes resort to describing something I've written as a "thing". When I say "piece", I picture a codpiece and then have the confusing feeling that I am trying to protect genitalia that I do not possess.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><br /></span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">I don't think anyone's paying a lot for "lyrical fiction" these days. I think what people are paying for is "content".</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><br /></span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">COUSINS: </span></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"> So now you're in Providence. I don't know whether to offer condolences or welcome. I know a writer who recently moved here who refers to the fact of living here as a "situation." But some people say that Providence is really nice... for a mid-sized city. They always add that last part. So here you are, in a mid-sized city, in the smallest state in the union... And we have no mountains. So what do you use for scale here? <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><br /></span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">EH: There's this scene in the movie </span></span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">Julien Donkey-Boy</span></span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"> where Werner Herzog is standing at a window in his underwear, drinking cough syrup out of his slipper. He says, "Where are you, Mount Everest? Give me some Everest." When I was living in Seattle and I could look at mountains in the distance, I still felt like, Where are you? I think I will feel like that no matter where I am. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><br /></span> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">I have been finding many tufts of synthetic hair on my street in Providence--it tangles in the broken glass and trash that collects along the curb. It seems that people who wear wigs are often losing pieces of their hair. Providence feels like the oldest place I have ever lived. It is falling apart in many places, and there's something comforting about this--about being able to see outside of me something that I feel is happening inside of me. Am I losing my hair? I guess I must be. I guess what I'm saying is that there's a mid-sized city falling apart in me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><br /></span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">COUSINS: is the standard question, which you're welcome to interpret any way you'd like: Who are your literary cousins?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);"><br /></span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:purple;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(243, 243, 243);">EH: You know how if you stay long enough in a bakery, you start to smell really good--I think this is how I've tried to be with the writers I admire. I spend a lot of time inside their books and hope that what's good about them will sort of molecularly bond with my clothing, so that I can smell it when I go back to my own writing. I do this with Virginia Woolf, W.G. Sebald, Robert Walser, and recently, Rilke. Plus there are so many other writers I admire--can you smell me from other there, on the other side of this screen? My mother worked for a while in her grandfather's bakery. Every morning, up at 4am to mix and knead. She said that she became nauseated by the odor of sweet, rising dough much sooner than she expected to. So I try to keep that in mind.</span></span></span><o:p></o:p></div></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-85288580388264850402011-03-01T19:00:00.000-08:002011-03-03T04:52:20.649-08:00Cousins Returns March 20th<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F_ABbkaTDnI/TW8LCnJegtI/AAAAAAAAAEY/dlWg-6gsBQY/s1600/Cousins0320.png"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F_ABbkaTDnI/TW8LCnJegtI/AAAAAAAAAEY/dlWg-6gsBQY/s400/Cousins0320.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5579690602831708882" border="0" /></a><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> 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mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kate-colby"><span style="color:blue;">Kate Colby</span></a> is the author of <i>Beauport</i> (Litmus Press), <i>The Return of the Native, Unbecoming Behavior</i> (both from Ugly Duckling Presse), and <i>Fruitlands</i> (Litmus Press), which won the Norma Farber First Book Award.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""><a href="http://www.lispservice.com/blog/"><span style="color:blue;">Evelyn Hampton</span></a> is the author of the chapbooks <i>We Were Eternal and Gigantic</i> (Magic Helicopter Press) and <i>The Lost Body Projected</i> (Mud Luscious Press). Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming in many journals, including <i>New York Tyrant, elimae, MAKE, Unsaid,</i> and <i>Action, Yes</i>. She edits <i>Dewclaw</i>.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""><a href="https://www.boaeditions.org/bookstore/catalog/product/view/id/891/category/catalogsearch/result/?q=Joanna%20Howard"><span style="color:blue;">Joanna Howard</span></a> is the author of the story collection <i>On the Winding Stair</i> (BOA Editions) and a chapbook from Noemi Press called <i>In the Colorless Round</i>, with illustrations from Rikki Ducornet. Her stories have appeared in <i>Conjunctions, Unsaid, Chicago Review, Quarterly West, </i>and elsewhere. She is a visiting lecturer in the Literary Arts Program at Brown University.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""><a href="http://josephriippi.wordpress.com/"><span style="color:blue;">Joseph </span></a><a href="http://josephriippi.wordpress.com/"><span style="color:blue;">Riippi</span></a> is the author of the novel <i>Do Something! Do Something! Do Something!</i> and the story collection <i>The Orange Suitcase</i>, both from Ampersand Books. His 24-part poem <i>Treesisters </i>is forthcoming from Greying Ghost Press. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">Show starts around 6:30 PM at Abe's Bar, Wickenden Street, Providence.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""> </span></p>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-15088052348246752802010-10-28T08:10:00.000-07:002010-10-28T08:19:15.289-07:00Matthew Salesses Q & A<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/pankblog/?p=6250"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 291px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/TMmTWDmA22I/AAAAAAAAAD4/cPgkaYz2uYQ/s320/ms_epid.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5533115624332516194" border="0" /></a><b style=""><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" >What inspired this story, <a href="http://www.pankmagazine.com/pankblog/?p=6250"><i>Our Island of Epidemics</i></a>? I guess I'm curious about its setting and theme. </span></b> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" >I'd wanted to write a number of linked short shorts for a while, and at the time, I was interested in the kind of magical realism of the epidemics. I was working on a novel and was growing tired of the length, and I wrote the first drafts of these stories one a day in the afternoons. I think that lurking somewhere in my subconscious was a Korean movie I'd seen about a year earlier about an epidemic of memory loss. I was also interested in writing something in collective first-person, and I think from these things, and from the idea of a community versus the other, came the island.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" ><b style="">You maintain a first person plural point of view for the majority of the story. A single narrator reveals himself about halfway through book, in a very short story called "On Telling This Story," and returns again at the end of the story. Why not maintain the group voice entirely? </b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" >The stories' larger arc is about communality and communal denial. The islanders are caught up in the spell of the epidemics, caught up in being a part of something bigger than themselves. But they ignore the reality of these illnesses. Then one man becomes immune, and different, and by the end, they split up and are forced to make choices—which is about individualism. The arc is mirrored in the POV. The narrator keeps saying we, we, we, but once he is able to realize that the epidemics are not all great, and he starts to write about them, he becomes aware of his individual place in the world and in the world of story.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" ><b style="">The illustrations by Luca Di Pierro made me visualize the story as cartoon. That seemed natural to me, esp with some of your descriptions (like the epidemic of unstoppably growing hearts, when everyone's chest swelled them into the shapes of peanuts and then pears). How did Luca come to draw these pictures for your story? What was the collaboration like?</b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" >I think PANK asked Luca to do the pictures--I had peskily requested more white space between stories. I'm so glad they asked him, though. I always wanted the stories to be illustrated. The original plan was to have a friend in Chile do illustrations, but then she was in Chile. Luca is amazing; the people he draws are so full of longing. His sketches were perfect for the book. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" ><b style="">You have another book, <i>The Last Repatriate</i>, coming out soon from Flatmancrooked. Can you tell us a little bit about it?</b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" >I took an archive class while at Emerson and ended up researching this Korean War POW who, at the end of the war, refused to go back to America. He was one of several POWs who did this. After a short while, he asked to return (or perhaps escaped) to the US, and was treated as a hero--he received three months off and backpay, and he got married and had a honeymoon. Then, at the end of the period given to convince the other non-repatriated POWs to return, the Army arrested him. The book is based loosely on the research, which was so interesting I got a short story and a screenplay out of it as well. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" ><b style="">Can you name some of your literary cousins and explain how you're cousins?</b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" >Literary cousins? I tend to write a lot of different types of stories. 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mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]-->About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-31422244200535175762010-10-26T18:35:00.001-07:002010-10-28T09:24:19.429-07:00Dream Lineup: November 7<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/TMeCEcZ65eI/AAAAAAAAADw/L_gleVuP1xo/s1600/ct_dr1.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 216px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/TMeCEcZ65eI/AAAAAAAAADw/L_gleVuP1xo/s320/ct_dr1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5532533680103941602" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Cousins returns on November 7th. A power-pop mix of poetry and fiction:<br /><br /><a href="http://darrenangle.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Darren Angle</span></a> is a poet teaching at Brown University and writing a book.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.americanpoetry.biz/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Jim Behrle</span></a> lives in Brooklyn. His latest chapbook, <span style="font-style: italic;">Succubus Blues</span>, was released in late 2009 by Editions Louis Wain.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.walkswithmoose.com"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Drew Johnson</span></a> was raised in Mississippi, lives in Carlisle, Mass. with his wife, four cats, and many books. His stories have appeared in <span style="font-style: italic;">Harper's, Virginia Quarterly Review, New England Review, Swink,</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">StoryQuarterly</span>.<br /><br /><a href="http://matthewsalesses.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Matthew Salesses</span></a> is the author of Our Island of Epidemics (just out from PANK) and <span style="font-style: italic;">The Last Repatriate</span> (forthcoming from Flatmancrooked), as well as a nonfiction chapbook, <span style="font-style: italic;">We Will Take What We Can Get</span> (Publishing Genius). He writes a column for The Good Men Project.<br /><br />We start around 6:30 PM at Abe's Bar on Wickenden Street in Providence, Rhode Island.About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-91347656289539674502010-10-07T17:00:00.000-07:002010-10-14T16:40:20.899-07:00Fantastic Lineup: October 17th<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/TK5tVprazGI/AAAAAAAAADo/5RYMt58M9uY/s1600/fantastic4.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 400px; float: left; height: 258px; cursor: pointer;" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5525474011562822754" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/TK5tVprazGI/AAAAAAAAADo/5RYMt58M9uY/s400/fantastic4.png" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >October 17 Cousins Reading is almost here. It's going to be fantastic.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.mdbell.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Matt Bell</span></a> is the author of <a href="http://www.mdbell.com/howtheywerefound/"><em>How They Were Found</em></a>, forthcoming from <a href="http://www.keyholepress.com/" target="_blank">Keyhole Press</a> in October 2010, as well as three chapbooks, <a href="http://www.mdbell.com/wolfparts/"><em>Wolf Parts</em></a> (Keyhole Press), <a href="http://www.mdbell.com/thecollectors/"><em>The Collectors</em></a> (Caketrain Press), and <a href="http://www.mdbell.com/howthebrokenleadtheblind/"><em>How the Broken Lead the Blind</em></a><em>Conjunctions, </em><em>Hayden's Ferry Review, </em><em>Willow Springs, </em><em>Unsaid,</em> and<em> American Short Fiction, </em>and has been selected for inclusion in anthologies such as <em>Best American Mystery Stories 2010 </em>and <em>Best American Fantasy 2. </em>His book reviews and critical essays have appeared in <em>The Los Angeles Times, American Book Review, </em>and <em>The Quarterly Conversation.</em><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span>He is also the editor of <a href="http://www.thecollagist.com/thecollagist/" target="_blank"><em>The Collagist</em></a> and of <a href="http://dzancbooks.org/BestOfTheWeb/" target="_blank">Dzanc's <em>Best of the Web </em>anthology series.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://johncotter.net/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">John Cotter’s</span></a> first novel <em>Under the Small Lights</em> appeared in 2010 from <a title="Miami University Press" href="http://www.orgs.muohio.edu/mupress/details/cotter_under_small_lights.htm" target="_blank">Miami University Press</a>. Previously, his short fiction and poetry had appeared in <em>Volt</em>, <em>The Lifted Brow</em>, <a href="http://www.lostmag.com/issue31/scarecar.php" target="_blank"><em>Lost</em></a>, and (forthcoming) <em>New Genre</em>, among other spots.</span><span style="font-family: verdana;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > (Willows Wept Press). His fiction has appeared i</span><span style="font-family: verdana;font-size:85%;" >n <em>Volt</em>, <em>The Lifted Brow</em>, <a href="http://www.lostmag.com/issue31/scarecar.php" target="_blank"><em>Lost</em></a>, and (forthcoming) <em>New Genre</em>, among other spots.</span><span style="font-family: verdana;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" > A founding editor at the review site <a href="http://openlettersmonthly.com/issue/" target="_blank">Open Letters Monthly</a>, John’s published critical work on contemporary <a href="http://openlettersmonthly.com/issue/november-voices-in-the-woods/" target="_blank">novelists</a>, <a href="http://openlettersmonthly.com/issue/may08-kleinzahleresque/" target="_blank">poets</a>, and <a href="http://openlettersmonthly.com/issue/one-mans-vallejo/" target="_blank">translators</a>. </span><span style="font-family: verdana;font-family:verdana;font-size:85%;" >He graduated Emerson’s Creative Writing program on a Performing Arts scholarship and Harvard’s Extension School with a master’s degree in English & American lit.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;font-size:85%;" ><a href="http://www.adamgolaski.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;" class="style2_bold">Adam Golaski</span></a> is the author of <a href="http://www.rosemetalpress.com/Catalog/colorplates_more.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Color Plates</span></a> (Rose Metal Press) and <a href="http://www.rawdogscreaming.com/worse.htm"><em>Worse Than Myself</em></a> (Raw Dog Screaming Press). He is a founder of <a href="http://flimforum.blogspot.com/">Flim Forum</a>, a press publishing books of contemporary experimental poetry, and is the editor of <a href="http://www.new-genre.com/"><em>New Genre</em></a>, a literary journal for new and experimental horror and science fiction. His poetry, fiction (horror and otherwise), and non-fiction has appeared in journals such as: <strong style="font-style: italic; font-weight: normal;">word for/word, Supernatural Tales, McSweeney's, Sleepingfish, Conjunctions</strong><span style="font-style: italic;">,</span> and </span><span style="font-size:85%;"><strong style="font-weight: normal; font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-style: italic;">All Hallows</span>.<br /><br /><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/">Carol Novack</a><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></strong></span><span style="font-family: verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color:#888888;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">is the former recipient of a writer’s award from the Australian government, the author of a poetry chapbook, an erstwhile criminal defense and constitutional lawyer in NYC, and the publisher of</span> <a style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 0, 153);" href="http://www.madhattersreview.com/" target="_blank">Mad Hatters’ Review</a>.<span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Hugh Fox has called her new collection <span style="font-style: italic;">Giraffes in Hiding</span> (</span><a href="http://www.spuytenduyvil.net/novackannounce.html" target="_blank">Spuyten Duyvil</a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">):</span> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">“THE most seductive, original, impacting work I have seen for years. A fascinating combination of Kerouacian street-talk plus a trip through the museum of Modern Art in Chicago, plus a nod-off to Kosty's furthest out experimentalism." Works may or will be found in numerous journals, including </span><i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Action Yes</i><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, </span><i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">American Letters & Commentary, Caketrain, Diagram, Drunken Boat, Exquisite Corpse, Fiction International, Journal of Experimental Literature, </i><i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">LIT</i><i style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">, </i><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">and <i>Notre Dame Review, </i>and<i> </i>in many anthologies, including “The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets" and "The &Now Awards: The Best Innovative Writing."</span></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;font-size:85%;" ><span style="color:#888888;"></span></span><p style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Show starts at 6:30 or so. Abe's Bar can be found on Wickenden Street in Providence.</span></p><br /><strong style="font-weight: normal;"><br /><br /></strong><strong style="font-weight: normal;"></strong>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-77902192853949140992010-09-09T10:21:00.001-07:002010-09-09T10:27:05.904-07:00Our Expanding CousineryA new cousin has been identified: <a href="http://www.amishtrivedi.com/">Amish Trivedi</a>. He has quickly become the hardest working cousin in Providence. He is doing big and good things that will be announced here soon. Welcome to Cousin Amish.About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-19130034813170390022010-09-01T11:30:00.000-07:002010-09-01T11:30:27.944-07:00Mystical Ceremonies This Sunday at 6:30...access to goddesses and the unconscious, for free, alcohol possibly not necessary<br />
Mini-interview with Janaka Stucky<br />
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COUSINS: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Something really cool about this book is how, for all its sensuousness and fire, the poems seem overall an act (acts) of ceremonial speech...rituals. It does sort of feel as if what enslaves the poems--speaking their death and desire--is also what redeems them... In the context of these thoughts, I found your title particularly fantastic. I wonder if you could talk about why you chose that title?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">Janaka: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">It’s interesting that you picked up on the “ceremonial” act. I wrote these poems back in April of 2009, as part of an exercise for National Poetry Month. So I set out to write a poem a day, but normally I’m not a very prolific writer. Following some advice from a very prolific novelist friend of mine, I created a ritualistic space for myself to write in every night. Now, I think he was talking “ritual” in a very broad sense when he gave me the advice, but I created a complete ritual for myself. I turned off all the lights and lit candles and incense; I poured myself a small glass of chilled vodka, and I just sat in the semi-dark listening to this really ambient, droning doom metal. I also only read one book: a collection of the Nag Hammadi scriptures—or Gnostic “Dead Sea” scrolls. At the same time I was meditating on the Hindu goddess, Kali. So out of all that personal ritual and focus came this very deliberate (and almost transdimensional) act of speech. I’ve considered writing poetry a form of meditation for years, but this was the most overt acknowledgement of that. The title of the book is a direct address to both Kali and the lover that appears as a “you” in many of the poems. There is an annihilation of the Self through love for the Other, whether that’s a spiritual love or a romantic love. That self-death is also totally liberating—so in the Other, in the mantra and the name of the Other, there is freedom from the Self.</span></span><br />
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</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">COUSINS: Who are your literary cousins, dead and alive?</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: purple;">Janaka: Among my literary cousins I would include Frank Stanford, Bill Knott, kissing cousins Mina Loy & Arthur Cravan, Paul Celan, and S.A. Stepanek (for her trance-written book “Three, Breathing”). Also, Dorothea Lasky and I are developing a school of poetry that we refer to as “psychedelic goth,” but we need a catchy name for it—possibly “gothadelic?” I also like posi-goth, or psygoth…</span></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-1398123512398214322010-08-26T13:41:00.000-07:002010-08-26T13:41:14.274-07:00Can't wait can't wait can't waitI was looking at Brown's Literary Arts calendar today and saw that <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Literary_Arts/events.htm">Lydia Davis is coming to Providence!</a> That goddess may be walking among us in October.<br />
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Then I saw that, of course, all the Brown readings are on Tuesdays or Thursdays in the middle of the day. Which is great, if you're a student. And which sucks if you are even mildly pretending to have a real life.<br />
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Which is why (back to propaganda--this is site is nothing but propaganda, as you know), it is so great to have these readings at Abe's, on a Sunday, at 6:30. Anyone can amble in (or drive down from Boston) and listen to great stuff. The first reading of the fall is one I've been looking forward to all freaking summer because it's four poets, and NONE OF THEM WILL BE BORING. Really. Or I'll buy you a drink. These are poets, who, in ten years, Brown Literary Arts will probably be inviting to their series, and by then, their formidable talents will be known to all and none of us will have the courage to approach them. But now, they're young and brilliant, and you could come see them read and maybe buy them a drink and so be able to say in 2020 that you heard them when... Janaka Stucky, Dorothea Lasky, Brian Foley, Emily Pettit.<br />
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I've also sort of (translation: very much) been looking forward to buying one of those Manhattans that they make at Abe's, to kind of kick off the autumn. And so, building on a loose connection between the name of a drink and the name of a hallowed magazine that occasionally has great poetry, here is a poem by one of September's readers, Dorothea Lasky, originally published in The New Yorker.<br />
<div id="articleheads" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; clear: both; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; height: 92px; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; min-height: 83px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; position: relative; text-decoration: none;"><h1 id="articlehed" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 28px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 7px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 7px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;"><br />
</h1><h1 id="articlehed" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 28px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1em; margin-bottom: 7px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 7px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase;">TORNADO</h1><h4 id="articleauthor" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; width: 345px;"><span class="c cs" style="display: block; font-size: 15px; font-weight: normal; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 4px; padding-bottom: 8px; text-transform: none;"><span>by </span><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/dorothea_lasky/search?contributorName=dorothea%20lasky" style="color: black; text-decoration: none;">Dorothea Lasky</a></span><span class="dd dds" style="bottom: 0px; color: #9f9f9f; display: block; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Arial; left: 0px; line-height: 1em; padding-bottom: 0px; position: relative; text-transform: uppercase;">FEBRUARY 15, 2010</span></h4><div class="utils" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Arial; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-transform: uppercase; visibility: visible;"><div style="text-align: right;"><br />
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</div></div></div><div id="articlebody" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 15px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 15px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div id="articletext" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 5px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 10px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">I remember he was bent down</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">Like a whirlpool</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">I was yelling at him</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">He looked scared and backed away</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">Another time, I squinted my eyes to see</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">And he said I looked ugly</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">The funny part was when</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">My sister asked me where he went to</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">And I just didn’t know</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">He just disappeared one day into nothing</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">I am rotting and rancid</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">Each day, rotting, but I am water, too</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">I am a watery nymph that is hot and wet</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">Like a wetted beast</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">I saw the man walking, hunched over</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">And thought it was him</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">“Father!” I yelled after the man</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">Who was hunched, he was going somewhere</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">He turned but the face was green</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">It is a black life, but I don’t want to die</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">I don’t want to die, I don’t ever want to die</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">God damn you, don’t you shoot me in my sleep</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">Let me rot on this earth forever</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">Like a carrot I will be everything God can’t see</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">Oh, what do I mean</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">God can see everything</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">I mean the angels, I mean the half-gods</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">I mean the flowers, don’t ever let them see me live forever</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">Don’t you ever let them see</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px;">That I am all root here in the ground</div></div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 15px;"><br />
</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 15px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 15px;"><span>source: <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2010/02/15/100215po_poem_lasky#ixzz0xkI9VDOI" style="color: #003399; text-decoration: none;">http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2010/02/15/100215po_poem_lasky#ixzz0xkI9VDOI</a></span></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-19285269663266719372010-07-16T06:44:00.000-07:002010-08-10T13:33:50.835-07:00More Cousins<p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Cousins Reading Series at Abe's Bar resumes in the fall with these great nights of poetry and fiction:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b></b></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">SEPTEMBER 5:</span></b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><a href="http://eunuchsblues.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Brian Foley</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><a href="http://dorothealasky.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dorothea Lasky</span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><a href="http://eunuchsblues.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Emily Pettit</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/494717.Janaka_Stucky"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Janaka Stucky</span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">OCTOBER 17:</span></b></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><a href="http://www.mdbell.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Matt Bell</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><a href="http://johncotter.net/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">John Cotter</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Worse-Than-Myself-Adam-Golaski/dp/1933293675"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Adam Golaski</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><a href="http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Carol Novack</span></a></span></p></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'Times New Roman', serif;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span style="font-family:"Georgia","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";mso-bidi-Times New Roman";font-family:";color:black;"><a href="http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">More details to follow.</span></span></p></span><p></p>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-43165788644046593832010-05-16T13:06:00.000-07:002010-05-16T13:23:18.415-07:00Cousins Reading 4: May 23rd<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/S_BSWNaBWpI/AAAAAAAAADQ/9JT-AKckWWU/s1600/cousins_4logo4.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5471964088764553874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 191px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/S_BSWNaBWpI/AAAAAAAAADQ/9JT-AKckWWU/s200/cousins_4logo4.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/S_BRUJhvyGI/AAAAAAAAADI/-mYUXu06YTs/s1600/cousins_4logo3.jpg"></a><div><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rage-Achilles-Terence-Hawkins/dp/1934081205/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274041199&sr=1-1" name="OLE_LINK2"></a><strong>Terence Hawkins</strong>, the author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rage-Achilles-Terence-Hawkins/dp/1934081205/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274041199&sr=1-1"><em>Rage of Achilles</em></a>, was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Yale. His work has been featured in <em>Poor Mojo's Almanac(k), Pindeldyboz, Ape Culture, Eclectica, The Binnacle, The New Haven Register</em>, and on Connecticut Public Radio. He is a trial lawyer in Connecticut. </div><div><br /><strong>Matt Jasper</strong> is the author of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Moth-Moon-Matt-Jasper/dp/1935402544/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274040992&sr=1-1">Moth Moon</a></em>, a poetry collection published by BlazeVOX in 2009. He was <a name="OLE_LINK8">born in Manhattan in 1966. A frequent contributor to <em>Rollerderby</em> and <em>Grand Street</em> in the 90s, he went on to have many children and start a poorly-posed-taxidermy-and-bad-yard-sale-art-themed restaurant called the Friendly Toast. He collects schizophrenic autobiographies and makes lists of poet enemies in Farmington, New Hampshire. He is currently working on a book-length poem entitled <em>Obolus</em>.</a><br /><br /><strong>Gordon Massman</strong> divides his time between Medford, Massachusetts, and the island of Frenchboro, Maine. Poems from his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Numbers-1991-2008/dp/0977901998/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274041060&sr=1-1"><em>The Essential Numbers, 1991-2008</em> </a>(Tarpaulin Sky Press) have appeared in The Numbers (Pavement Saw Press) as well as in <em>Exquisite Corpse</em>, <em>The Harvard Review</em>, <em>The New York Quarterly, Pleiades,</em> and elsewhere.</div><div><br /><strong>Kathleen Rooney</strong> is a poet and a writer. With Abby Beckel, she is a founding editor of <a href="http://www.rosemetalpress.com/">Rose Metal Press</a>. With Elisa Gabbert, she is the author of <em>That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness</em> (Otoliths). With Counterpoint Press, her prose collection <a href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Am-Trilling-These-Songs/dp/1582435456/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274041374&sr=1-1"><em>For You, For You I Am Trilling These Songs</em> </a>is now available. With her husband, the writer Martin Seay, she lives in Chicago, Illinois.<br /></div><div></div>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-31066010758735723812010-05-05T17:26:00.000-07:002010-05-06T07:16:59.855-07:00The Best-Smelling Cousin We've Got. Elisa Gabbert explains what's wrong with "woman writer," and answers other questions, and I hope it's not some kind of latent anti-feminism that made me highlight the fact that she wears perfume in the title when I could also have highlighted what a freakin good poet she is.<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/S-LLXeq0zHI/AAAAAAAAADA/1rZ6SszCUSg/s1600/IMG_8273.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5468156501811317874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 156px" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/S-LLXeq0zHI/AAAAAAAAADA/1rZ6SszCUSg/s200/IMG_8273.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">COUSINS: I've followed a bit of the discussion on <a href="http://thefrenchexit.blogspot.com/">your blog</a> recently about sexism. Do you identify yourself as a female writer first? Or simply a writer first and last? Or a female writer out of necessity? Were you to be asked to submit poems for an anthology of women writers, would you? Why or why not? Did you ever read that Candor discussion between <a href="http://candormagazine.tumblr.com/#211502843">Rachel Zucker and Sarah Manguso</a>? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Does what either says resonate with you? Would you be more Zucker or Manguso? Or someone/something else?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><?xml:namespace prefix = o /><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><br /><blockquote>EG: Here’s how I feel about the phrase “woman writer.” I’m a woman, and I’m a writer; insofar as English syntax allows nouns to be used as modifiers, I’m a woman writer, by definition. I don’t know what else that phrase could mean. When someone denies that they’re a woman writer (while conceding that they are both a woman and a writer), it sounds like they are saying that a “woman writer” is inferior to a writer, which makes about as much sense to me as saying that a black dress is inferior to a dress, or an 18th century painting is inferior to a painting. “Woman,” like “black” or “18th century,” is just a factual description. I don’t see why adding a modifier to a noun, in this case, automatically creates an inferior category. When someone asks me if I’m a “woman writer” in a challenging way, as though it’s a category I could choose to be in or not, I find it very odd. What exactly does “woman writer” mean to everyone else? Why is it less than the sum of its parts?</blockquote><blockquote>So to answer the question of what I identify as first: It depends on the question. If someone asks what I do for a living, I say I’m a writer. If a form asks me to check M or F, I check F. I find this statement of Manguso’s a little hard to swallow: “In my mind my identity begins with Writer and Teacher; Woman is much further down the list.” So, if she woke up tomorrow and had lost her job(s), she would feel more alienated and stripped of her identity than if she woke up and discovered she was a man? I’ve been female longer than I’ve been a writer. I may say “I’m a writer” more often than I say “I’m a woman,” but that’s because the latter is generally so obvious.</blockquote><blockquote>I do identify with some of Manguso’s statements; like Manguso I am not a mother and don’t feel like an “egg-box.” I identify with this: “I am genuinely interested in the lives of mothers inasmuch as I am interested in the lives of people in general, but I’m separately fascinated by some mothers’ apparent conviction that nonmothers are shallow, that mothers suffer and feel more deeply than nonmothers.” However, I identify with Zucker in that I feel the fact of my body is inescapable. Whenever I leave my house, and often when I don’t, it is obvious that people are noticing my appearance: my gender, my race, my age, my build, how I’m dressed (a strong indicator of my economic status). I see no reason to pretend they don’t notice or that it doesn’t matter.</blockquote><blockquote>I wouldn’t object to being included in an anthology of women writers. For the most part, I think projects of that sort address an imbalance. More men are published than women in general poetry anthologies; more white writers are published than writers of color. I think anthologies of women writers or Hispanic writers or what have you are intended in the spirit of inclusion, not exclusion. I’d be suspicious of an anthology of men writers, or white writers, because the publishing market does not appear to disadvantage whites or men.</blockquote><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">COUSINS: Something I love in your poems is how your lines undo themselves: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">When the boredom hits, I hit the boredom like a glass door.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">The man who pushed me pulls me up.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">In "Ego of the Distance" (which is totally awesome</span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">): Sometimes the distance looks at me.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">It reminds me of that John Ashbery line: So that meaning can begin and in doing so be undone. How important for you is meaning in poems? In your poems? In poems that you love by other writers? Do you love any poems because of what they mean? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote>EG: Primary importance. Complete importance. It seems to me that everything you can talk about in a poem (the language, the lines, the syntax, the “music,” etc.) adds up to its meaning.</blockquote></div><blockquote>I’m most interested in poems that foreground ideas, versus sound or meter or image or _____. (There are a lot of ways for poems to do that, without just dropping ideas in overtly, though I’m not against that as a rule.) Maybe to me the meaning in idea-based poetry is more … meaning-y? Has more meaningness?</blockquote><blockquote>That said, there are poems I love although, or because, I don’t understand them. I think I believe that trite cliché that you can’t paraphrase poetry. I was talking about this with some writers on Twitter recently. I think translation is necessary, but there is something in every text that can’t be translated. The poetry I’m most attracted to seems challenging to translate (see Cesar Vallejo). The meaning is so tied up in the specificity of the language and its arrangement; you can’t extract the meaning completely and port it over to another language and another syntax; those elements are part of the meaning.</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">COUSINS: Would you talk a little bit about why you called the series "Blog"? Do those poems follow a poetics of blogging? Or did you have something else in mind?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal">EG: I wrote the blogpoems one April for NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). I think initially I was sort of mocking the idea of speed-writing a poem to then post on your blog, but from the first day, the exercise of speed-writing a poem for a blog became very fertile and interesting territory. I liked working under those limitations. I wanted the poems to feel free and immediate, as you said, and I wanted them to fit neatly in the space of a blog post, to be sort of easily digestible, since people read blogs differently than they read poems on paper. And, since I had to write one every day, I considered anything and everything as fair game for material. I couldn’t only write about the big stuff or the beautiful stuff; there was no way I’d write 30 big, “important” poems in one month. So I often started with an insignificant or silly idea and tried to push it until it became an interesting poem. It was like an intellectual challenge, to make a poem out of anything, without it all feeling like an empty gimmick.</div></blockquote></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">COUSINS: Tennis. It's the sport of poets, right? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal">EG: Do you think so? I don’t know why I have an affinity for racket sports. I like racquetball and ping pong too. I think I like how much of the skill is in the return. I could never beat my brother at ping pong; he just has a stronger shot. But I have a really good return. It’s rare that I can force him to make an error, but I can win points by consistently hanging in until he screws up of his own accord.</div></blockquote></div><blockquote>If the writer-reader dynamic is anything like a game of tennis, I hope I’m my brother in this analogy.</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">COUSINS: In the AWP magazine this month, there's an interview with Marie Howe, and she's talking about jobs for writers... "How do you find a job that doesn't drain the essential energies that you bring to participate in the creative act? ... How do you nourish those energies and live in life?" Could I pass these questions on to you?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><blockquote>EG: It’s a difficult balance to achieve … I work as a writer, so in some sense, my job does drain those energies. After reading and writing all day, I don’t always want to deal with more words when I get home, or sit in front of a computer. At the same time, it’s kind of amazing to get paid for something I actually like doing, and it’s surprising how endlessly renewing the need/desire to write is.</blockquote><blockquote>I admire writers that don’t work as writers or teachers of writing. I think it’s good to leave the insulated bubble of the writing world from time to time. It enriches your writing and, you know, your life. I often think back fondly to college when my social group was a lot more diverse in almost every way. Sometimes, hanging around writers all the time, I feel like we’re not learning anything from each other. (Assignment!: Talk to a physicist or an architect or a doctor this week. They’ve read just as much as you, but totally different words.)</blockquote><blockquote>Wow, that wasn’t what you asked at all, was it? I guess my point is, one can be a writer and not focus on writing all the time. I used to work as a copyeditor, and while the job wasn’t wildly fulfilling, it did free up my creative energy to direct completely toward writing. There are rare individuals with boundless energy, but for others, it often comes down to a choice between dream job and dream writing-life. I think I’ve settled on a compromise between the dreams.</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0px"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">COUSINS: Would you name 2-3 of your literary cousins, dead and alive?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0px"><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0px">EG: My first cousins are my alive-and-well “community,” poets I feel really close to on both a personal and artistic level. I’ve got a bunch of these. Chris Tonelli, Kathleen Rooney, Sam Starkweather, and Heather Green, to name just a few. Second and third living cousins would be poets I don’t know personally, or only know a little, but feel some kinship with artistically. I wrote a blog post once about the Netflix algorithm and said I thought people who liked Heather Christle’s poetry would like mine too. Who else would I put in that category? Maybe Matthew Rohrer.</div></blockquote>Among the dead, I feel an especial kinship with Wallace Stevens, John Berryman, and Frank O’Hara. </div><blockquote>Anne Carson and Mary Jo Bang would be a cool as honorary aunts.</blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0px"><b><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">COUSINS: And, to complicate that question, since you are <a href="http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/on-the-scent-five-from-sonoma-scent-studio/">a perfume aficionado</a>, if these idols were perfumes, which scents would they be?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0px"><blockquote><div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0px">EG: That is a tough question. I’ll just do a few. Anne Carson would be something very intellectual, classical, and androgynous, like Mitsouko or Cuir de Lancome … John Berryman would need a reckless scent, dangerous but with a sense of humor. Kouros, perhaps? My friend Kathy would be a smart, snappy feminine like Lolita Lempicka.</div></blockquote></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-14129471905060093272010-04-26T11:32:00.000-07:002010-04-29T12:21:00.713-07:00ROB STEPHENSON Q&A<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/S9XdgCbguII/AAAAAAAAAC4/-y9EEgYdbuw/s1600/passesthrough.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5464517265361778818" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 129px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/S9XdgCbguII/AAAAAAAAAC4/-y9EEgYdbuw/s200/passesthrough.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><em>Rob Stephenson's new book</em> Passes Through <em>(FC2) is truly a book like no other. It's poetic and plainspoken. It's wildly transgressive and it is also, at times, kind of homey, especially once his voice is in your head. Rob passed through Providence a few weeks ago and he was kind enough to read for the cousins assembled at Abe's. And he submitted to this Q&A:</em></div><div><br /><em>Can you describe the composition process of</em> Passes Through<em>? How did that process dictate its structure? <br /><br /></em>The text was made by passing four times through a journal I kept for over ten years. The journal started out as description of daily events and morphed over the years into detailed thoughts on all sorts of subjects. Eventually, I tired of keeping the journal. I never intended it to be published. A few years later I considered the time I’d spent writing it and decided it should be transformed into a fiction. Prior experience with writing memoir and autobiographical essays left me dissatisfied and questioning the value of expressing truth about the past by using traditional storytelling. I decided to move in another direction. Using innumerable constraints, I deleted most of the journal and combined the remaining pieces with all sorts of material external to the journal. The form (and formlessness) of the text grew into its shape as I moved along. Without going into all of the specifics, the architecture of <em>Passes Through</em> comes from an improvisatory linear accumulation over time within a semi-rigid overall scheme designed to create non-linear movement.<br /><em><br /><br />The book makes me think of David Markson's description of his work: "nonlinear, discontinuous, collage-like, an assemblage." Those terms apply to</em> Passes Through<em>, but in addition, there is a genuine narrative and a strong sense of the narrating character. What were some of the benefits to this lyrical, collage-like approach? Were there specific challenges that emerged that would not have been a factor if you had taken a more conventional approach? <br /><br /></em>I’ve been making art of various sorts with found material for over 30 years. At 19, inspired by punk rock concert posters (whose creators were sometimes inspired by Dada poets, Burroughs, or the Situationists), I cut up the pink entertainment section of the San Francisco Chronicle and taped words to paper. I only remember one phrase: “Your hero moves to a boring age.” Soon I was cutting up abandoned grammar school science textbooks and remaking them into my own stories. I still have some of these. I felt comfortable with non-linear approaches very early on. For years I made short or small pieces using various systems of organizing material: films, texts, music, drawings, photo collages, videos. I have always based a certain amount of my work on bringing disparate elements together to see how they suggest something that is not there when they remain separate. I’ve made many shorter precursors to this book. Paris Over Paris possesses some of the qualities that became more elaborated in Passes Through. I am now more interested in making extended pieces that take on other qualities altogether. One challenge for me in making <em>Passes Through</em> was to invent good methods and then trust and finesse them enough to carry them out for longer than I usually do. <br /><br />And WOW. This is the third time in recent weeks that David Markson has come up in conversation about <em>Passes Through</em>. I finally read a book of his, <em>The Last Novel</em>, about a year after finishing my book. I loved it. Really loved it. It moved me in ways that I did not expect to be moved. It’s such a beautiful book. I was completely unprepared for the way the last fifteen pages left me dewy-eyed. The only other long list that has affected me in an emotional way is on Maya Lin’s powerful Viet Nam war memorial. While it’s true that Markson and I both use short bits of text that accumulate over time into something unexpected, I think our intentions and modes of composition are quite different. And from what I surmise, I often built things up from much shorter elements in <em>Passes Through</em>, than he did in <em>The Last Novel</em>. <br /><em><br />Stylistically, there are many incomplete sentences in this book. Which I love. I always tell students that incomplete sentences are OK as long as meaning is not sacrificed. You somehow make more significant meaning with your incomplete sentences. Can you say how this style developed for the book?<br /><br /></em>I often work with much less than sentence lengths of text. <em>Passes Through</em> especially points up one-, two-, three-, and four-word combinations. If you have ever kept a rambling journal, you know that a lot of mistakes creep in and a home-grown shorthand emerges. Sloppiness gets the upper hand late at night. I kept, even embellished, aspects of that in Passes Through. My rhythmic flow became a finely tuned word-by-word, sound-by-sound jaggedness. I was interested in creating a version of English that mirrors the way thoughts bounce around in a mind over time with all sort of collisions and interruptions between inner modes of being and external distractions. I pushed hard against the way most people tell stories by progressing linearly through argumentation or by using uninterrupted chains that build towards specific inevitable goals. All sorts of voices coalesce and compete to infiltrate the narrator as he speaks. He becomes all of the voices that are speaking. My hope is that the reader, by the end of the text, has adjusted to this Hydra of selves and feels in spite of it all that they do perceive a narrator. You, in fact, did feel “a strong sense of the narrative character.”<br /><em><br />You are a composer as well. How does writing music inform your prose writing? And vice-versa? <br /><br /></em>Music influences everything I make in a number of ways. I think of my writing as music. Passes Through is as much a musical composition as it is a novel or a long poem. The text is tuned to my speaking voice and inflections. I consider the sound and rhythm of words as much as the meaning of words.<br /><br />Compositional methods from medieval to contemporary times directly influenced <em>Passes Through</em>. Specifically, the constantly shifting and momentum-driven multi-layered music of J. S. Bach permeates the work as much as the Moment Forming and Integration theories of Karlheinz Stockhausen, the asymmetrical pattern distribution techniques of Morton Feldman, and John Cage’s thoughtful forty years of chance operation deployment. Composers create wonderful abstract languages, how can contemporary writers not look to them for inspiration? <em><br /><br /></em>Passes Through <em>was published by (the great) FC2. What was it like working with them? <br /><br /></em>Absolutely terrific! I am amazed and grateful to have such a beautiful book object with my name on it. I know, I know. The author is supposed to be dead, but I’m secretly glad I’ve lived long enough to become one.<br /><em><br />You read from</em> Passes Through <em>at AWP recently and you're touring to promote the book. Can you describe this life on the road? And can you describe audience response to your readings?<br /><br /></em>Though this is my first published novel, I have been reading for years in public and I enjoy it very much. I get strong responses from audiences, mostly positive ones, but sometimes my subject matter causes some negative reaction. That’s fine with me. I feel it is important for writers to know how to read and perform their work. (This is the composer in me speaking.) I have been to many readings by authors who mumble their way through a passage as if it’s a bother or who have no idea how to relate to a microphone or a sound system and have never considered how the sound of their voice changes in every public situation according to the acoustics of the environment in which they find themselves. Reading out loud is as much about communicating something as is writing the book. By reading your text, you are asking an audience to absorb and contemplate something (usually a small piece of something longer) that they could probably more easily understand by taking it off the page at the rate they are comfortable with and that allows them to reread at will. I think readings in general would be more compelling if authors thought more about what is special about these events and how best to make their words have a life off of the page. I’ll save the part about using video projections, pre-recorded animal sounds, and having someone peel and chop onions during the performance for another time. <br /><em><br />(our standard closing question) Can you name some of your literary cousins (contemporaries or precursors)? That is, what writers inspire you to the point that you feel a kinship?</em></div><div><br />Among my favorite fiction writers are Michael Snow, Brian Ferneyhough, Charles Darwin, Robert Altman, Alice Aycock, Daniel Liebeskind, and Robert Ashley. I can’t come up with a short list without feeling that I’m leaving out so many I ought to mention. I’ve loved so many writers long and hard that you will find tiny bits of them sprinkled liberally throughout <em>Passes Through</em>. Even Marguerite Duras’ cookbook makes an appearance. </div>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-31869304536220378902010-04-23T17:06:00.000-07:002010-04-23T17:14:29.772-07:00Cousins Reading 3: May 2nd<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/S9I2PKuFQOI/AAAAAAAAACw/e0qmk2Jax_M/s1600/cousins_3a.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5463488932157407458" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Js6XTFygZok/S9I2PKuFQOI/AAAAAAAAACw/e0qmk2Jax_M/s200/cousins_3a.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><a href="http://boxingthecompass.blogspot.com/">Sandy Florian </a>is the author of <em>Telescope</em> (Action Books), <em>32 Pedals & 47 Stops</em> (Tarpaulin Sky), <em>The Tree of No</em> (Action Books), <em>Prelude to Air From Water</em> (Elixir Press), and <em>On Wonderland & Waste</em> (Sidebrow Press). She lives in San Francisco where she is an affiliate artist at Headlands Center for the Arts and works as one of the “other” editors for <em>Tarpaulin Sky Journal</em>. </div><div><br /><a href="http://thefrenchexit.blogspot.com/">Elisa Gabbert </a>is the author of <em>The French Exit</em> (Birds, LLC) and the chapbooks <em>Thanks for Sending the Engine</em> (Kitchen Press) and, with Kathleen Rooney, <em>That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness</em> (Otoliths). She is the poetry editor of <em>Absent</em>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.laraglenum.com/">Lara Glenum </a>is the author of two books of poetry: <em>The Hounds of No</em> (Action Books) and <em>Maximum Gaga</em> (Action Books). Her chapbook, <em>The Hotling Chronicles</em>, is due out from Tarpaulin Sky later this year. With Arielle Greenberg, she is the co-editor of <em>Gurlesque (Saturnalia Books)</em>, an anthology of contemporary women’s poetry and visual art. She teaches in the MFA program in Creative Writing at LSU.<br /><br /><a href="http://readcousins.blogspot.com/">Leslie Patron </a>lives in Providence, RI where she is an MFA candidate inPoetry at Brown University. Her poems and stories have recentlyappeared or are forthcoming in <em>Dewclaw</em>, <em>OCHO</em>, and <em>Parthenon West Review</em>. Her hometown is San Jose, CA.</div>About Cousinshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03135239155309358968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8138377299174466773.post-48715919908488721052010-04-03T17:44:00.000-07:002010-04-26T11:56:49.663-07:00Friday Night Email Chat with Amish Trivedi<div class="im" style="COLOR: #500050">Amish Trivedi, amanuensis of the <a href="http://www.amishtrivedi.com/">Trivedi Chronicles</a> and curator of the <a href="http://flesheatingpoems.blogspot.com/2009/12/museum-of-vandals-by-amish-trivedi.html">Museum of Vandals</a>, will be reading for Cousins on April 18th. I promise not to ask him any stupid questions that night. It will be purely, purely his poetry.<br /><br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">COUSINS: Have you by chance read Museum of Accidents by Rachel Zucker? I ask because that book title seems to me to be a blaring statement of Zucker's poetics... And I wonder if you see Museum of Vandals working in that way?</blockquote><br /><br /></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"><span style="color:red;">AMISH: I haven't read it to be honest and I only became aware of the title after Vandals was set to come out. For titles, I usually think up something and Google it. If it asks me to try without the quotes, I take it as a good sign. </span></blockquote><br /><div class="im" style="COLOR: #500050"><br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">Or I could phrase the same question differently maybe: Do you have a method of, or allegiance to, wreckage or breakage in your poems? And I guess I mean wreckage/breakage in a sort of playful sense... "Vandals" makes me think of kids destroying things for the fun of it. Your poem "Rowboat Over the Atlantic" seems to work like that.</blockquote><br />(We interrupt this question to bring you <span class="Apple-style-span" style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; LINE-HEIGHT: 17pxfont-size:12;color:#555555;" >'Rowboat Over the Atlantic')</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="LINE-HEIGHT: 17px;font-size:12;color:#555555;" ><br />I have become<br />my own airbags, admitting<br />I'm more willing to break<br />than be broken. These words are<br />not mine<br />anymore, but they are a revenge<br />lay. And I used to sit<br />outside, slumped over feeling<br />boxed or stigmata over the<br />soil. Steps line a side, which is<br />a jar. Rain and saliva become<br />the next tabloids.</span><br /><br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid">And if I'm completely<br />wrong, set me straight?</blockquote><br /><br /></div><span style="color:red;">AMISH: I hadn't really thought about it, but yeah, I am very interested in the destruction of language. There's no method, I guess, but whatever we build, we can take down. I grew up with parents that had moved from India, so I came to understand language as being built however you choose to build it. (That sounds really frumpy.)</span><br /><div class="im" style="COLOR: #500050"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"><br />COUSINS: The way your poem "Letters and Soda" works makes me jealous. How do you do that! And by "that" I mean---hmmm---make a kind of non-linear sense that seems playful and irreverent but also not random, not meaningless...</blockquote><br /><b>Letters and Soda</b><br /><br />My craw-daddy penis<br />has so many claws!<br /><br />I thought you'd written<br />that psalm: one is drunk and<br /><br />the other drunken. About<br />the rain? I was the<br /><br />one that buried<br />it in a wall.<br /><br /><br /></div><span style="color:red;">AMISH: The first line came from my friend Mark Mattes in Iowa City. Mark's a great guy and he is incredibly playful. He just screamed that line out one night and I told him I was going to steal it, and if it ever got published, I'd get him a case of beer. I have yet to pay up. But I think in a lot of ways, I think in random thoughts (you can ask my wife) and so, with a poem like this one, it's about giving in to the randomness. But there are patterns in everything, I think, even if you are trying to avoid them. Sense, like language, can be created from what you want to put into it.</span><br /><div class="im" style="COLOR: #500050"><br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"><br />COUSINS: Also, would you be able to list here a simple recipe--an idiot's guide perhaps--to writing good short poems? I would give you Bill's fifth-born child for the knowledge.</blockquote><br /><br /></div><span style="color:red;">AMISH: I have rewritten my answer to this question several times now! I think the only tip I can really give for a short poem is to cut the fat, so to speak. You have to want to keep it short and the thing kind of is, you can't let the poem settle at any one point. It's like making a custard: if it settles, you're screwed.</span><br /><div class="im" style="COLOR: #500050"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"><br />COUSINS: In <a href="http://www.octopusmagazine.com/issue09/trivedi.htm">your piece in Octopus on Ceravolo</a>, you wrote that after reading Transmigration Solo, "I probably didn’t even put pen to paper for a bit, thinking that everything I could do wouldn’t be what Ceravolo had already done." I know that feeling of deep admiration inspiring a kind of hopeless paralysis... Do you actively try to imitate him in your work? Or work against him? Is there a poem by him that you have sort of set for yourself as a goal?</blockquote><br /><br /></div><span style="color:red;">AMISH: I think maybe there was some desire to imitate Ceravolo in some poems, but I don't think I ever really tried it because I realized it was impossible. I figured eventually it was better to write my own crappy poems than attempt to ruin Ceravolo's. In terms of poems of his, it's hard to pinpoint. Chunks of Transmigration are so fantastic- I remember sitting in two different Special Collections rooms at libraries just pouring over it.</span><br /><div class="im" style="COLOR: #500050"><br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"><br />COUSINS: Has there been a writer or book since more recently who has struck you dumb? (a/k/a Who are your literary cousins?)</blockquote><br /><br /></div><span style="color:red;">AMISH: I have no idea! Graham Foust comes to mind right away, especially because I am obsessed with his first two books that came out in '03 or so. I almost don't want to name anyone else because I don't want to drag them down! BUT if I had to name my largest influence, it's my old TA from UGA, Johannes Goransson. I didn't even know I could get an MFA or do anything with poetry until I met him. He always pushed me (and still does really) and that's been the great influence. "A New Quarantine Will Take My Place" is probably one of my favorite books because there's so much that appeals to me: the threads, the language, the thematics- it really is something nearly perfect for me and each reading reveals something more to me. Beyond books, I'd say I have always drawn a lot of inspiration from films: Lynch, Bunuel, Godard, Svankmejer, Varda, and Bergman especially. In Lynch and Bunuel, I think I'm drawn to something that you mentioned earlier: at first glance, things can seem random, but the pieces fit in a way.</span><br /><div class="im" style="COLOR: #500050"><br /><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"><br />COUSINS <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">WHO ARE LOOKING FOR ANSWERS THEMSELVES</span>: Once you finish your MFA, how will you make your way in the world? Will you continue to write? If so, how are you imagining that you will<br />set up your life so that you can do that? What else are you besides a writer? What could you do or accomplish or be in your life that you would consider worthwhile?</blockquote><br /><br /></div><span style="color:red;">AMISH: You should never ask such questions! I have no idea- part of me wants to keep going with school- maybe a PhD in literature/English, but I would say I ultimately want to teach. I know it's a lot of work, but I'm drawn to the classroom with the goal of creating a good experience for the students. I'd love to do little more than teach workshops, but I'm guessing I'm 2-3 books/10 years from that right now. I don't think I can really quit writing, to be honest. It's nearly a compulsion. I'm addicted to it, in a way: I'll wake up, and say I'll never do it again, and within 20 minutes, I'm deeply embroiled in a poem. In terms of accomplishment, I've decided I just want to be comfortable. I want to write and publish, course, but I don't really want anything out of that. Does that make sense? I'm not looking for poetic achievements/milestones, and don't really expect them to come any time soon. I'd just like a nice little life of poems and teaching and maybe a Ferrari at some point. Nothing major.</span><br /><div class="im" style="COLOR: #500050"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(204,204,204) 1px solid"><br />Finally, if I gave you one of my poems, would you vandalize it for me?</blockquote><br /><br /></div><span style="color:red;">I could try, sure!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com