If you are the bookish sort and feeling inundated by the basketball frenzy elicited by the NCAA tournament, there is still a way for you to get your game on, thanks to The Morning News. Check out the 6th Annual Tournament of Books. No doubt there will be some memorable moments, and given the unusual pairings in the brackets, there are no literary slam dunks. Check out this year’s competition, and browse the results from prior years. May the best book win!
We are thrilled to announce that Spout Press poet Kirsten Dierking (Northern Oracle, 2007), is the winner of a 2010 McKnight Artist Fellowship. Kirsten was one of four poets selected by judge Marilyn Nelson among 125 applicants. An award of $25,000 is presented to each of the winners. This provides writers with an opportunity to focus on their craft for the course of the fellowship year. More information on the winners can be found here. You can learn more about Northern Oracle and Kirsten, and read her 2009 What Light Award winning poem “Half Asleep” here. Congratulations,Kirsten!!
The optimism of March is palpable. The snow starts to melt, and the mind wanders toward summer. March is also Small Press Month, a time to celebrate the diversity and richness of the flourishing literary culture of small presses. We encourage you to think about the importance of independents – independent publishers like Spout, independent bookstores (we recommend you visit our friends at Micawbers, where Hans and company can set you up with a lot of wonderful, independent literature), independent record stores, coffee shops – any place that is local. To learn more about Small Press Month, you can visit the official site here. The tagline for this year’s commemoration is “Small presses take chances. Chances are at the heart of all the literature we later know as great.” We hope that you will take a chance on Spout and other small and independent presses like us.
Minnesota has been in a rainy moment, melting all the snow away and leaving everything looking really really dirty. There was a red football in our yard that we discovered had been hidden under all those feet of snow. There was also a dead bird. Spring is almost here (hopefully) and so I am offering a few lists of my favorite summer-related things to get you in the spirit for warm weather and to maybe somehow encourage it along a little more.
Toodle pip,
Libby
Five thing I enjoy in the summertime
Flip Flops
Long daylight hours
Grilling
Sidewalk chalk art
Driving with the windows down
Five of my favorite summertime athletic activities
Frisbee golf
Strolling
Mini golf
Swimming at the lake(s)
Rollerblading (yes, people still do this)
Five of my favorite summertime themed movies
The Long, Hot Summer: Paul Newman rocking the socks off Joanne Woodward with lines like, “Life’s very long and full of salesmanship, Miss Clara. You might buy something yet.” Even the hardest of girl is going to let her guard down for that kind of talk.
Shag: I may be one of the only people who have seen this film but I can’t help enjoy this look into summer in the South. Its kinda like American Graffiti except not as classic.
The Sandlot: Even little girls loved this mostly-boy-cast baseball movie. It was probably the real reason I started wearing Converse All-Stars.
American Graffiti: Oh Richard Dreyfuss I will never forgive you for getting on that plane!
The Fast and the Furious series (only the ones with Vin Diesel): I am not sure if these films take place in the summer time…The weather always appears warm…The actors are always in very tight short sleeve shirts… Now I know what you are thinking, but everyone has their own guilty pleasure and Vin Diesel is mine.
No one is going to accuse Governor Pawlenty of being overly supportive of the arts. This is, after all, the man who made disparaging comments that appointing a state poet laureate at no cost would lead to requests for a state mime, a state potter, and a state interpretive dancer – as if that is a bad thing (okay, maybe the mime would be a bit much but you get the point). Pawlenty has since plugged his nose and given us our poet laureate in Robert Bly, but this does not signal a more favorable view of the arts. As recently reported on MinnPost, his proposed budget is extremely hostile to the arts, and includes drastic cuts that would eliminate all general fund support and the State Arts Board by 2013. (More information can be found on the Mn Citizens for the Arts website.) Aside from the obvious concern about a lack of funding for artists and arts organizations, I am worried about the devisiveness of the current budget debate, and the tendency to pit constituencies against each other. The debate needs to be a bit more nuanced. Yes, police and fire departments are important and potholes suck. We also need theatre, libraries, museums, and, yes, even poetry. I’m just saying.
Every issue of Spout Magazine used to include a favorite quote by the Spanish poet Juan Ramon Jimenez, “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.” It turns out that maybe, rules aren’t always a bad thing. A lot of this blog has been devoted to poetry, but Spout publishes fiction as well. Here is a little shout out to the fiction writers out there: The Guardian recently solicited advice from established authors about do’s and don’ts in the form of top ten lists. Who doesn’t love a good top ten list, especially when the list includes writers like Elmore Leonard, Diana Athill, Margaret Atwood, Roddy Doyle, Helen Dunmore, Geoff Dyer, Anne Enright, Richard Ford, Jonathan Franzen, Esther Freud, Neil Gaiman, David Hare, PD James, and AL Kennedy. Here is the article. Be sure to check out part two as well.
If you prefer your writerly advice in the form of what not to do, your friends at San Jose State have your back. The Bulwer-lytton Fiction Contest is a gift that keeps giving. Enjoy.
Sometimes a line from a poem floats into my consciousness and prompts me to go back to the original work. This happened recently with a line from Frost’s famous poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” The line in question is “miles to go before I sleep.” After going online, I found that I am not the only person who finds this line evocative. None other than Celine Dion (?!?) has recorded a song called “Miles to Go (Before I Sleep),” which claims to be based/inspired by the poem. To make the situation even better or worse depending upon your perspective, the lyricist of said song is the 80′s juggernaut of wearin’ sunglasses at night Corey Hart. I don’t want to make any broad generalizations about Canadians based upon this dubious teaming, particularly when Canada has given us Leonard Cohen, the New Pornographers and Sloan, but this song does seem like a classic case of poetry abuse. I post the song here for you to listen to at your own risk. This particular youtube clip includes the added features of the lyrics, which have nothing to do with the original poem, and a montage of new age images that need to be seen to be believed. It is time to stop the denial and bring poetry abuse into the light. If you know of similar poetic misadventures, or even an artful inclusion of poetry in song, please let us know.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that a majority of readers, if polled, would say that writers in the United States are less political than their peers of the prior generation. No less than the Nobel committee has called American writers too “insular and ignorant” to compete with European authors. One need only look at the low numbers of works in translation published in the United States as one reason for the charge of insularity. There are, of course, notable exceptions. Take Nick Flynn. This poet and memoirist has published a new book titled “The Ticking is the Bomb,” a book that interweaves stories from his own life as well as a discussion of the use and acceptance of torture. He was recently interviewed on NPR’s “The Story” discussing a trip that he made where he was a firsthand witness to the testimony of Abu Ghraib prisoners.
Today is the 2nd Annual Read Across America Day, celebrated on March 2 to commemorate the birthday of Dr. Seuss. To quote from the Seussville site, “You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child.”
I suspect that many poetry lovers first developed an ear for language listening to Dr. Seuss. So, for all of the wild and wacky out there, Dr. Seuss is waiting…
