Avant-Women Writers: A Conversation

Interview with Selah Saterstrom

2008-04-21T20:34:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the weird spacing on the first post...hopefully this one works!

April 21, 2008

Hi there –

Thank you so much for reading and engaging with my work – and for these wonderful, thoughtful questions! I will do my best to answer them…

1. What does the color pink signify in this work?

I often find that the logic for a work arrives embedded within the work…so I often also look to the work for clues about its becoming - the ways the narrative should be sequenced, formal considerations, thematic considerations, and so on.

At some point while writing TPI, I wrote a poem. It didn’t work with the book and couldn’t be included, but for some reason it held a dynamic – a kind of energy – that I knew was essential to the book I was trying to make. So it taped it above my desk.

In that poem there was a line: the pink institution wrap-it round spell. As I was completing the book, I realized that the reason I had the poem above my desk was because the title was embedded within that line. “The Pink Institution” is a kind of metaphorical umbrella which cast a ring around multiple ideas about institutions: the institution of “history,” the institution of marriage, the institution of the Law, the institution of familial relationships, and so on.

The color pink – for me – is associated with Crepe Myrtle trees. In Mississippi, during spring, these trees release small, detailed pink petals in huge abundance. So much so that as a child I used to consider these petals a kind of snow – and it does look like that, as if it is snowing pink petals. I kept thinking of that image while writing, and also the color pink represents a feminine space for me.

One of my concerns was to give visibility to stories/voices that were historically marginalized, and to an extent, this book is dealing with women’s narratives. I was thinking about how these marginalized narratives, when told, offer alternatives to the “history” we are given (in books, in other places). So “the pink institution” on one level also refers to a feminine kind of narrative space.

2. The book is extremely visually appealing; why did you use such a non-traditional style/form to tell this story? Or rather, how does that unique structure change/complement the meaning of the story?

I started out writing this novel with this idea that I’d write a book that behaved in the ways I thought, at that time, books should behave. Eventually, I gave up on that plan because it just flat-out didn’t work! The work suffered. My mind was busy generating strategies for how to tell the story, meanwhile the actual story was hiding out elsewhere, in the details that made up the stories.

When I stopped imposing an order on the book and surrendered all that I thought I knew about this story and really listened to the work – that is, attempted to see the logic it had within it and on its terms – that is when the formal aspects of the book came together.

In this case, the forms erupted from the content out of necessity. For example, in the first part of the book there is a great deal of negative/blank space between words/phrases. In terms of the narrative, this is the “oldest portion” of the family’s history – and so those negative spaces give visibility to the gaps, breaks, and fragmented nature of memory, of the passage of time.

This book required that the form and content mutually illuminate and realize one another. So when thinking about memory, for example, I created a form that works like memory works – a form with gaps, a form that includes the fragment as a dimension of consciousness.

3. In our class, we talk a lot about the use and significance of white/blank space on the page, and to me, space seems to play an important part in this novel. So, I was wondering, for you, how does white space function? How does it interact with the text?

I’m a big believer in “the gap” – the “blank space.” I find it in text, but also in the world. For example, abandoned parking lots are gaps. The walk from my apartment to the grocery store is also a kind of gap. Furthermore, I think the universe uses and fills these gaps. I’m always looking for found text when I walk around. I am energized by a writer and artist to consider the potential divinatory significance of the signs, traces, and fragmented notes we find in the gaps. Being vigilant to gaps keeps me asking questions, keeps me engaged, embodied.

In terms of text – gaps/blank/white spaces – these can signify various things within the book. They can be places that give visibility to silence, for example. I don’t think of silence as the opposite of language, but as one of its aspects. It can also give visibility to memory, its processes – the gaps therein, and so on.

I often feel that the gaps within our texts are haunted – littered by the traces of things that are absent (but of course this is a kind of presence). And I guess, on some level, I believe in genuflecting to “the dead” – the “no-longer” (that which is transformed into a new kind of presence). Like an eraser….you can remove words, but you are left with the marks of erasure: the sign that something was there, then wasn’t (which gives it only a different version of presence).

Perhaps this is a way for me to engage with a kind of spectrum-based consciousness within my work…trying to create work which genuflects to a resonate complexity – the complexity of what is seen and heard, and the complexity which is not seen or heard, but is nonetheless present.

4. Was it hard for you to know when to insert the "tableau" in between the stories, and why did you make it a point to include them?

The tableau idea came from a Southern Confederate Pageant that took place in the town where I grew up. This performance was put on for tourists and was a series of vignettes introduced by children (dressed in hoopskirts), holding placards which had a small, descriptive narratives describing each scene which was about to be performed. These scenes were meant to depict what life was like before the Civil War (which, according to this production, was nothing short of paradisal, a mythological Eden).

Growing up observing this performance I was very struck by it as a form, and as a form used to write/present history – a history that of course left out vital narratives in exchange for a kind of public dreaming which very much felt to me like a public form of mass-numbing out. In other words, I thought it was messed up and that it continued a kind of violence. I began to consider how the ways in which history is framed is itself a mode of violence.

So this book provided an opportunity to work with that form – the form of the tableau – but in a transgressive way. I wanted to see what would happen if that form were applied to a very different kind of narrative, one that didn’t reinforce a mythologized “history” but revealed portions of history that had been ghettoized.

5. I appreciate the values that peered through the novel of the south and the church and things of that nature. What value did you most want to highlight?

Hmmm…I’m not completely sure I understand the question, but if I’m on the right track here…I’d have to speak again about history – who gets to tell it and why…and my desire to create a kind of alternative to the history that was given or on offer. A large part of this project was exploring what happens when the stories we relegate to the margins are liberated…when silence and painful gaps are given visibility within the story.

I also wanted to juxtapose “ghost stories” - horror stories, if you will – with the horror stories of abuse, addiction, and so on. Ghost stories were celebrated in my family, and in Southern culture in general, and I wanted to explore the relationship between ghost stories and other kinds of “hauntings.”

And I was very interested in how patterns bloom across time and space, through various fragmented fields, and multiple generations (of living, of memory). How does addiction look here and how does it look there? I was interested, in other words, in how certain threads persist through lineage and culture. I was interested in observing this pattern language.

7. What do you hope readers will take away from The Pink Institution?

Well, I guess what I hope people take away from this book is what I hope for in terms of what they’d take from any book.

On a good day, a book can change your mind. At times, a book can deliver you more deeply - more poignantly - into your existing questions (I’m thinking of Kafka’s notion that literature can work like an axe to break up the frozen sea within us). A book can give you new questions. It can enrich your engagement with the human condition in some way. I don’t know that I’ve done so with this book (or ever!), but it is what I hope for.

8. Do you consider yourself to be an Avant Garde writer? If so, why? If not, why

not?

I think the term Avant Garde is very fascinating – the history of that term, and the literal translation of that term (forward-looking).

In terms of the literal translation, I note that many forms emerge after atrocities and are sometimes called Avant Garde (for example, the constraint based writing that emerged after WWII as well as Butoh - the form that emerged in Japan after the Atomic bomb). Often the gaze of these forms isn’t only forwardly oriented. These forms ask a variety of questions, such as: how do we give visibility to radical absence, now? In other words, I think of such forms as looking in all directions at once.

Of course ‘Avant Garde’ means more than its literal translation or the way I’ve considered it in the above paragraph and all of which is to say, I’m delighted that your class is investigating this question of what Avant Garde means. This seems like a very good conversation to be having at this time – this moment in the world.

I have found the term “hybrid” helpful – this idea that I do something (with language) that uses the synergy of multiple genres (poetry and prose, for example. I don’t consider myself an Avant Garde writer, which I suppose doesn’t mean much – as I don’t consider myself any kind of writer in particular, though some words (such as ‘hybrid’) are useful.

Part II

1. What do the black and white pictures throughout the novel represent? How were they chosen and what are they supposed to evoke from the reader?

They genuflect to the idea of the “scrapbook” or the “memory book” – the visual, family history. They were also images/snapshots that I had around me while writing the book – so there was this way that the pictures held an energy that was congruent to the narrative and it felt right to include them.

Each reader will have their own experience with the images and how they work in the text – so I don’t think I can say what they are supposed to evoke from the reader…but I’d add that the synergy between text and image, in general – the energy that erupts from the proximity of the two – is one that I find fascinating, and I often like to bump images and text up to one another for this reason – to see what else might be revealed.

2. The theme of objects: Childhood, Motherhood, and Maidenhood, serve as reoccurring themes throughout the novel appearing in list form, what does this serve to represent? Is there significance to the ordering of these objects in lists?

In terms of the ordering, I tried to do it chronologically: first we are children, then maidens, then mothers… . This helped to structure the time-line of events for the characters that section of the book focused on, so that we, through “snapshots” or “object details” watch them grow up and acquire identity.

3. What is the significance of the book's cover? The image of the hanging pig reoccurs throughout the novel on the chapter pages, what is its significance?

This is really up for the reader to decide as it does not have a specific textual reference. The pig image works like a metaphor works, in a way. It also points to something, it suggests. But there are no actual references to slaughtering a pig in the book itself.

The image of the slaughtered pig actually comes from a Eudora Welty photograph in which she photographed a hog-killing (she was a marvelous photographer and her images are full of the uncanny, the sublime).

I work a lot with images (and used to teach Text/Image Arts) and find that when I’m working on a project I often make or locate a visual that feels like the visual-form of what it is I’m trying to express in words. The cover was a collage I made – and the text, to an extent, was an attempt to give words to that image.

The pig is painted an old piece of vellum from a book about moths. I overlaid this vellum on top of a janky Xerox photocopy of a photograph taken in the hometown where I grew up (the individuals in the photograph are tableau participants).

4. The confederate ball program guide, with all its "text smears" is meant to serve as an authentic artifact to set the scene, why did you choose this particular event/object?

That text came from an actual program guide for the tableau I discussed earlier (in the first set of questions). It is an old copy, and had become somewhat ruined over time – so where I wrote “text smears” – those were places in the original artifact that had been lost to time and water damage. Eventually, through the process of editing, I tweaked my own text, but that was its origin.

Interview with Selah Saterstrom

2008-04-21T20:29:00.001-04:00

April 21, 2008

Hi there –

Thank you so much for reading and engaging with my work – and for these wonderful, thoughtful questions! I will do my best to answer them…

1. What does the color pink signify in this work?

At some point while writing TPI, I wrote a poem. It didn’t work with the book and couldn’t be included, but for some reason it held a dynamic – a kind of energy – that I knew was essential to the book I was trying to make. So it taped it above my desk.

In that poem there was a line: the pink institution wrap-it round spell. As I was completing the book, I realized that the reason I had the poem above my desk was because the title was embedded within that line. “The Pink Institution” is a kind of metaphorical umbrella which cast a ring around multiple ideas about institutions: the institution of “history,” the institution of marriage, the institution of the Law, the institution of familial relationships, and so on.

The color pink – for me – is associated with Crepe Myrtle trees. In Mississippi, during spring, these trees release small, detailed pink petals in huge abundance. So much so that as a child I used to consider these petals a kind of snow – and it does look like that, as if it is snowing pink petals. I kept thinking of that image while writing, and also the color pink represents a feminine space for me.

One of my concerns was to give visibility to stories/voices that were historically marginalized, and to an extent, this book is dealing with women’s narratives. I was thinking about how these marginalized narratives, when told, offer alternatives to the “history” we are given (in books, in other places). So “the pink institution” on one level also refers to a feminine kind of narrative space.

2. The book is extremely visually appealing; why did you use such a  non-traditional style/form to tell this story?  Or rather, how does that unique structure change/complement the meaning of the story?

When I stopped imposing an order on the book and surrendered all that I thought I knew about this story and really listened to the work – that is, attempted to see the logic it had within it and on its terms – that is when the formal aspects of the book came together.

In this case, the forms erupted from the content out of necessity. For example, in the first part of the book there is a great deal of negative/blank space between words/phrases. In terms of the narrative, this is the “oldest portion” of the family’s history – and so those negative spaces give visibility to the gaps, breaks, and fragmented nature of memory, of the passage of time.

This book required that the form and content mutually illuminate and realize one another. So when thinking about memory, for example, I created a form that works like memory works – a form with gaps, a form that includes the fragment as a dimension of consciousness.

3. In our class, we talk a lot about the use and significance of white/blank space on the page, and to me, space seems to play an important part in this novel.  So, I was wondering, for you, how does white space function?  How does it interact with the text?

In terms of text – gaps/blank/white spaces – these can signify various things within the book. They can be places that give visibility to silence, for example. I don’t think of silence as the opposite of language, but as one of its aspects. It can also give visibility to memory, its processes – the gaps therein, and so on.

I often feel that the gaps within our texts are haunted – littered by the traces of things that are absent (but of course this is a kind of presence). And I guess, on some level, I believe in genuflecting to “the dead” – the “no-longer” (that which is transformed into a new kind of presence). Like an eraser….you can remove words, but you are left with the marks of erasure: the sign that something was there, then wasn’t (which gives it only a different version of presence).

Perhaps this is a way for me to engage with a kind of spectrum-based consciousness within my work…trying to create work which genuflects to a resonate complexity – the complexity of what is seen and heard, and the complexity which is not seen or heard, but is nonetheless present.

4. Was it hard for you to know when to insert the "tableau" in between the stories, and why did you make it a point to include them?

The tableau idea came from a Southern Confederate Pageant that took place in the town where I grew up. This performance was put on for tourists and was a series of vignettes introduced by children (dressed in hoopskirts), holding placards which had a small, descriptive narratives describing each scene which was about to be performed. These scenes were meant to depict what life was like before the Civil War (which, according to this production, was nothing short of paradisal, a mythological Eden).

Growing up observing this performance I was very struck by it as a form, and as a form used to write/present history – a history that of course left out vital narratives in exchange for a kind of public dreaming which very much felt to me like a public form of mass-numbing out. In other words, I thought it was messed up and that it continued a kind of violence. I began to consider how the ways in which history is framed is itself a mode of violence.

So this book provided an opportunity to work with that form – the form of the tableau – but in a transgressive way. I wanted to see what would happen if that form were applied to a very different kind of narrative, one that didn’t reinforce a mythologized “history” but revealed portions of history that had been ghettoized.

5. I appreciate the values that peered through the novel of the south and the church and things of that nature. What value did you most want to highlight?

Hmmm…I’m not completely sure I understand the question, but if I’m on the right track here…I’d have to speak again about history – who gets to tell it and why…and my desire to create a kind of alternative to the history that was given or on offer. A large part of this project was exploring what happens when the stories we relegate to the margins are liberated…when silence and painful gaps are given visibility within the story.

I also wanted to juxtapose “ghost stories” - horror stories, if you will – with the horror stories of abuse, addiction, and so on. Ghost stories were celebrated in my family, and in Southern culture in general, and I wanted to explore the relationship between ghost stories and other kinds of “hauntings.”

And I was very interested in how patterns bloom across time and space, through various fragmented fields, and multiple generations (of living, of memory). How does addiction look here and how does it look there? I was interested, in other words, in how certain threads persist through lineage and culture. I was interested in observing this pattern language.

7. What do you hope readers will take away from The Pink Institution?

Well, I guess what I hope people take away from this book is what I hope for in terms of what they’d take from any book.

On a good day, a book can change your mind. At times, a book can deliver you more deeply -  more poignantly -  into your existing questions (I’m thinking of Kafka’s notion that literature can work like an axe to break up the frozen sea within us). A book  can give you new questions. It can enrich your engagement with the human condition in some way. I don’t know that I’ve done so with this book (or ever!), but it is what I hope for.

8. Do you consider yourself to be an Avant Garde writer? If so, why? If not, why

not?

I think the term Avant Garde is very fascinating – the history of that term, and the literal translation of that term (forward-looking).

In terms of the literal translation, I note that many  forms emerge after atrocities and are sometimes called Avant Garde (for example, the constraint based writing that emerged after WWII as well as Butoh - the form that emerged in Japan after the Atomic bomb). Often the gaze of these forms isn’t only forwardly oriented. These forms ask a variety of questions, such as: how do we give visibility to radical absence, now? In other words, I think of such forms as looking in all directions at once.

Of course ‘Avant Garde’ means more than its literal translation or the way I’ve considered it in the above paragraph and all of which is to say, I’m delighted that your class is investigating this question of what Avant Garde means. This seems like a very good conversation to be having at this time – this moment in the world.

I have found the term “hybrid” helpful – this idea that I do something (with language) that uses the synergy of multiple genres (poetry and prose, for example. I don’t consider myself an Avant Garde writer, which I suppose doesn’t mean much – as I don’t consider myself any kind of writer in particular, though some words (such as ‘hybrid’) are useful.

1. What do the black and white pictures throughout the novel represent? How were they chosen and what are they supposed to evoke from the reader?

Each reader will have their own experience with the images and how they work in the text – so I don’t think I can say what they are supposed to evoke from the reader…but I’d add that the synergy between text and image, in general – the energy that erupts from the proximity of the two – is one that I find fascinating, and I often like to bump images and text up to one another for this reason – to see what else might be revealed.

2. The theme of objects: Childhood, Motherhood, and Maidenhood, serve as reoccurring themes throughout the novel appearing in list form, what does this serve to represent? Is there significance to the ordering of these objects in lists?

3. What is the significance of the book's cover? The image of the hanging pig reoccurs throughout the novel on the chapter pages, what is its significance?

The image of the slaughtered pig actually comes from a Eudora Welty photograph in which she photographed a hog-killing (she was a marvelous photographer and her images are full of the uncanny, the sublime).

I work a lot with images (and used to teach Text/Image Arts) and find that when I’m working on a project I often make or locate a visual that feels like the visual-form of what it is I’m trying to express in words. The cover was a collage I made – and the text, to an extent, was an attempt to give words to that image.

The pig is painted an old piece of vellum from a book about moths. I overlaid this vellum on top of a janky Xerox photocopy of a photograph taken in the hometown where I grew up (the individuals in the photograph are tableau participants).

4. The confederate ball program guide, with all its "text smears" is meant to serve as an authentic artifact to set the scene, why did you choose this particular event/object? That text came from an actual program guide for the tableau I discussed earlier (in the first set of questions). It is an old copy, and had become somewhat ruined over time – so where I wrote “text smears” – those were places in the original artifact that had been lost to time and water damage. Eventually, through the process of editing, I tweaked my own text, but that was its origin.

Interview with Catherine Kasper

2008-04-09T16:21:00.002-04:00

Thank you for reading my poetry. I’m happy to discuss the poems and I’ll try to be as helpful as I can. I’m not fond of explaining poetry as it seems to me that poetry tries to get at what can’t be explained in words, with words. That’s its challenge and its wonder. I do believe there is such a thing as “emotional knowledge” and “intuitive knowledge” and I hope you feel empowered to apply those.

1. Blueprints of the City: It’s many cities, not just one. It’s about the interests, but final consequences of being a “visitor” anywhere, of arriving new places with distorted preconceived notions, and the dangers of that, and of the reality versus the idea.

2. Monoprints has several female “characters” and voices. Some of these are bits of overheard conversations, some of them are fictionalized, etc. In many of my poems, there are several voices. Some are re-constructed. I like to hear women’s voices since they’re still not heard enough in the world. See the Monoprints discussion below for more.

3. Solar, etc.:

Begin with: Solar plexis: 1. The largest of the autonomic plexuses, lying in front of the aorta at the level of the origin of the celiac artery and behind the stomach, formed by the splanchnic and the vagus nerves and by cords from the celiac and superior mesenteric ganglia, and branching to all the abdominal viscera through its connections with the other abdominal plexuses. Also called solar plexus.

Your questions about “Thirty-three Articles” are wonderful. I think poetry, like life, gets us to consider and ask questions, (when it’s good) and focus on the question. I’m not saying this simply to be evasive. As in the last poem of this book, the questions are more important than any pretense of “answers.”

4. Some scholars argue that the term “avant-garde” is date specific, i.e., pertinent to Modernism. I just write, but others have called my work “experimental.” Few people are linear thinkers, and sometimes, I feel that forcing linearity on work is antithetical to what the work is exploring, or thinking through. For me writing is often “thinking through” something, and that’s emotional/intellectual together; I don’t artificially disconnect these two impulses of the brain. In terms of historical vantage, it also seems to me that to force linearity after Modernism and the events of the twentieth century still seems false to me so far. Writers like Gertrude Stein and James Joyce made a great deal of sense to me from the first time I read their work and thought, this is what I’ve been looking for, I understand this.

I don’t “push myself” into any genre. I write, and it seems to me that the nature of the work chooses the genre that suits it. I often do not see what is particularly “experimental” with my own work, whether it is poetry or fiction, other than in comparison to what is published by large publishing houses. There is much “experimental” work being published by small presses, just as there was in the twentieth century.

Being a woman writer is probably as difficult as being a woman in this world: there are many challenges, even down to the words we use, and especially in pay inequity. What is also difficult is growing up as a working class person who chooses to be a writer or artist. Few people understand the choice to be part of something that doesn’t pay a salary and is often berated in the popular media. We seem to fear not only people who think, but people who like to think, and give them all sorts of derogatory names. Learning not to listen to that AND to find a way to make a living where you have time to think is difficult for anyone.

5. The colors in Monoprints come from the monoprinting process. I’m very interested in the visual arts. The way the poems are on the page has as much to do with canvas as paper. I’m highly influenced by the poet Barbara Guest in this respect.

In observing a master monoprinter, I watched her lay in each color separately, and in the end, saw the 4 or 5 color print that was a color layer/image and at the same time individual colors: both of these were true at once. My goal was to see if the same could be done with words: I designated colors, sometimes for mood, sometimes in relationship to certain objects or words. This was about seeing how if a poem could work like this visual art process or not.

The locations are “familiar” to me. I wrote these poems while in the location—is that what you’re asking?

This is probably related to your question about inspiration. A writer draws inspiration from everything, I think, no matter how corny that sounds. I love to read, to draw, to walk, to make things. I’m interested in words and definitions, in the visual arts, in the sciences, in natural history, in graphic novels, in museums, etc.---the list goes on.

6.. I probably do write using first person, and in fact, have written many personal essays. I think especially in my poetry I try not to. After Ed Dorn’s Gunslinger, and other examinations of the overuse of the first person speaker, the “I” exhausts me, even as it does in this short interview. I’d rather hear your voice, other voices, than my own. That’s where my interest in outside texts, words, and voices enters the poem that is always directed outward into the world, rather than only inward into myself, if possible, so we are all hearing a symphony of voices, dead and alive, all at once.

Interview with Christine Hume about Alaskaphrenia

2008-04-07T15:12:00.003-04:00

1. What inspired you to create a work like Alaskaphrenia?

I was born in Alaska, but moved within the first six months so I have no recollection of it. For this reason it has always held a mythic space for me. I wasn’t interested in the state per se, just the idea of the place, as it is embedded in our national mythology, as an imaginative retaining space and frontier. I tried to think about the poetic line in the book as a kind of shifting frontier, and the poems themselves as speculating on, among other things, the American promise of renew and self-invention. Our national fantasy of Alaska’s limitless vertiginous vastness and freedom has historically informed the dynamics of individual and collective self-definition. Its fictive emptiness (“In the United States there is more space where nobody is than where anybody is,” says Stein) has always been read as an invitation to produce still more fictions, still more possibilities for transformation. If, as Alaska allows us to believe, identity exists as self-invention, one’s identification and explanation of the self might always be in flux—just as Alaska is in flux, existing as a place of multiple possibilities, formed around one’s attention to the messages arriving from “outside” (outside ourselves, but also more literally what Alaskans call the lower 48). So the real state does seem to hold a physical and psychic place for all disgruntled and down-trodden citizens who don’t want to abandon their country all together, but want to remove themselves from it in some part. If America were a brain and its map broken into phrenological assignments, Alaska would be the place of invention, imagination, and love-of-danger-and-the-unknown. That said, the book revisions Alaska as a mental space; it internalizes its paradoxes and stereotypes, and I hope makes a case for the reality of one’s imagined life.

That said, I’m sexually attracted to the cold. I also fear the cold, maybe the two are related. Unfortunately, I’m not kidding. This also last paragraph also answers, in part, your question about the color blue. Blue games! Blue films! Blue balls! Oh yes, and the ocean blue, the bluest blue sky—their indistinguishability and infinitude. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

2. "Comprehension Questions" appears to be a type of reading guide for the reader. By starting your collection off with this poem, is it your intention that the reader keep these questions in their mind and attempt to find answers as they read the rest of the work?

To the later question, no, though I have no objection to this practice. I wanted to create a sense of pre-existing story. The comp questions usually come at the end of a story or passage, and I wanted to plant the idea of a disappeared or invisible or given pre-existing text, which is what the idea of Alaska in itself is (everyone in America has an idea, a feeling for what Alaska is and means), and then go from there. I also wanted to imply a narrative by way of the questions alone. Growing up taking standardized tests, I often found a more interesting narrative and more interesting answers implied in the questions themselves—by skipping the master narrative and moving right into the questions, the sense of uncertainty, of piecing something together via the imagination. I also use a lot of forms in the book that draw from nonpoetic sources, like the guidebook or test, and I wanted to set the tone of the book playing with generic form. I mean the piece to be funny. As imperatives weave themselves thorough the whole book, and I think these questions take on the tone of imperatives, and reorchestrate received advice found in travelogues and psyschology manuals. The shopworm retrofitted to a different purpose and attitude hopefully calls attention to caesura, oppostitions, assumptions, and rhetorcis that they inhapbit or force us to inhabit. The form plays straight-man to the content in this case; in other cases there is a more urgent calling out for help and security. I wanted to use vast peregrinations of inquiry, and non-fiction forms useful for structureing the unknown and stimulating a feeling of uncanniness, and of remembrance and oblivion merging in a place of origins.
Also, getting back to the idea of reverals (comp questions usually coming last, not first—or as Beckett says “first last words”), I think of the site of the book is an optical illusion, a Fata Morgana, where the peaks of the Alaskan Range appear to be floating in midair or an inverted crystal island.

And getting back to the specific poem itself, the poem can be read self-reflexively, as a discussion of reading and writing itself. “What dark authority lurks among the unpruned spruce?” The poem invites a close reading, even as it discredits comprehension in any ultimate sense.

3. How do you feel all of these poems work together as a collection? Would you prefer that the reader read the collection of poems in order, or that they jump around and take in each piece on its own?

Well, I put them in order, and I hope there is a sense of accumulation and a loose sense of movement. One of Pessoa’s alter egos says that the best way to travel is to feel. Building on that, to travel is to follow with your imagination, to transform. Imagination collaborates with perception, and sets a community of moods in dialogue with empirical probabilities; when these conditions are extreme, one often reaches for a guidebook. Of course the authors of guidebooks have often inhabited a place so thoroughly, experienced it so intensely, that they have been forever changed by that place, and could never go back to write the book that they would have needed to read, if such a book could even exist. Instructions, maps, advice, litanies of caveats offer a sense of expectation, which becomes part of the actual experience, not necessarily a master-narrative onto which one’s experience is grafted, but a more fluid interchange and alchemical complication.

4. You appear to integrate different structures into each of your poems. For example, some are written in block text, some in multiple columns and some utilize white space more than others. What do these different structures add to each poem and to your collection as a whole? Is this variance in structure something you envisioned before you started writing Alaskaphrenia, or is it something that developed once the writing began?

Part of the act of writing for me is that each poem must find it’s own form. Form is necessary meaning, not outside meaning or alongside or even in relation to meaning, it IS meaning.

5. In the chapter, On the Horizon, what was the reasons for putting the text at the bottom of the page and why did you space them apart?

Like a landscape painting of a fog-covered coast, the poems are meant to enact horizon. Some of the horizon you can see through the fog, sometimes it’s just a fuzzy shape, connecting and isolating objects you see through it. Fog on ice, each hiding the other.

6. What did you want the reader to get out of your poems?

I want to kick butt! I want the reader to feel a sense of disorientation and recognition in extreme at the same time. I want readers to be involved in a headlong rush of emotion, the kinetic lickety-split of associations, logics, time frames—an accrual of elastic, electric presents/presences AND contemplations in enduring stillness. I want to allow their own freak thoughts to surprise them. I want them to be inspired by their own imaginations. But your question also leans on another one about audience. The question of audience is an impossible one for me, almost no answer seems even momentarily accurate, but the closest I can get is this: I write for a self that foregrounds the books and people I’ve loved most ardently and the aspects of those texts and folks that I’ve been lucky (sometimes unlucky) enough to be haunted by. In doing so I try to let the language-object lead that self into a wiser, heartier acre. I have the sense that language works to assert itself in more and more expansive, inventive ways. If I’m intuitive enough, I can create a place (not a representation of a place) in and of itself, characterized and composed completely with language.

7. How do you feel about your poems being read in our Avant Womens Writers class?

I’d love to hear YOUR answer to this! I’m sure the frame of the class and the context of the other readings, which I’m very happy to be included in, gives you a particular and percolating reading of the book.

8. You use the color of blue a lot to describe things that would not be seen as blue in our world. Other than the fact that Alaska is part of the title, what other reasons do you have for continuing to refer back to blue throughout your work?

To answer this well, I will refer you to James Hillman’s essay on Blue in the first issue of the magazine Sulfur and William Gass’s beautiful philosophical inquiry, On Being Blue. “So blue, the word and the condition, the color and the act, contrive to contain one another, as if the bottle of the genii were its belly, the lamp’s breath the smoke of the wraith.” Blue is a mood and music—the blue lucy is a healing plant. Psychologically, the word appeals to me as a state of suspension, a limbo between black and white, one saturated and insistent. It is the color of sea and sky, yes, and the color of everything that’s empty: blue bottles, bank accounts, and compliments. Examination books, blue bloods—and beards, coats, collars, chips, cheese. Blue stockings, blue laws, blue movies, and the look of the skin when affected by cold, illness, fear, suffocation, the rotten rum or gin they call blue ruin and the blue devils of its delirium.

9. Given that the poems are set to evoke an atmosphere of the beauty of this world and our place in it, how do you feel in touch with nature?

Oh, I love nature. I love to see it speeding through a windshield, and I love to leave it alone.

10. Would you consider this text to be a collection of poems and prose, or would you consider it a new way to structure the ordinary novel or book?

I’ve always wanted to write a novel, but I don’t think I have it in me; I’m not interested in traditional plot and character questions that I associate even with some more innovative novels. I’m fascinated by questions of genre however, and I’m reminded of a test I sometimes give my students about genre and expectations. If you blindfold a person, ask them to taste red and white wine without saying which is which, that person won’t be able to tell the difference. But ultimately, who cares so long as it tastes good, makes you want to keep drinking, fucks you up.

Stephanie Strickland Interview

2008-04-03T23:47:00.002-04:00

What inspired you to create a work like this?
What gave you the idea to set a story in space?

My conception of poetry was already changing and straining against the limits of the standard print book, actually both in The Red Virgin: A Poem of Simone Weil, where the contents are arranged index-style, meaning to indicate one can read the poems in any order, and then again, in True North, where I wanted the 5 sections of the book to ‘revolve around’ the central axis of the 5-part “True North” poem. It is just frustrating to try to enact these conceptions in print unless you make a so-called artist’s book. I first got involved with hyperspace when I did a Storyspace version on disk of True North.

What was most challenging about creating Vniverse?

For the first time, I had a vision that I myself alone could not carry out. That’s not so common for a poet, unless they are playwrights or librettists. I had to learn a lot about software and work with my wonderful collaborator, Cynthia Lawson Jaramillo, to actually implement the vision.

What do you hope that the reader takes away from Vniverse?

Delight in the poem, and in its relation to the print parts of V.
Different senses of how things can be organized (not just with respect to the page). Different senses of how time works, how waves work—

Perhaps they will become interested in other work of this kind and want to do some themselves. Perhaps they will feel that poetry and the 21st century have a wonderful history upcoming together that includes computation.

What do you want the work as a whole to communicate to the reader?

A wonderful book from Granary Press, called The Book of the Book, will show you many different examples of the ways books have been made, over time and as contemporary book projects, that have nothing to do with the format of a standard print book. The binding of two parts of a book upside down to each other is well-precedented. In fact, Penguin had published two coordinate novels in this way not so long before V.

What I wanted Penguin to do was to make the two halves indistinguishable—which could have happened had they used shrinkwrap and put the barcode on the shrinkwrap. Since they didn’t do that, and I couldn’t get them to do it, in fact the two sides are ‘coded’ somewhat differently. But so far as I could, I tried to have the entries to the two ‘sides’ occur equivalently.

What is most important to me is that V is a poem in three parts that exists in a mixed space that does not privilege one orientation over another. You can approach the book through the door of Losing L’una or through the door of the WaveSon.nets or through the Vniverse. [Very few folks know this, but there is actually another (hidden) entrance, namely an online setting of the poem “Errand Upon Which We Came” from Losing L’una http://califia.us/Errand/title1a.htm which I made with M.D. Coverley.]

In each case, your reading experience will be different so your choice matters a lot, as to how you begin it. You can’t go back and do it over—your first impressions will color everything that comes later. So whereas spatially, there is a great deal of freedom, with parts upside-down to each other, and able to come before or behind or between each other, temporally a reader has to take more responsibility than s/he is used to. Any beginning and any path-choice makes a difference.

An historic note: Emily Dickinson made some three-dimensional poems by folding and curling bits of envelope and pinning them together in different configurations. She also used + marks as superscripts on many words in her poems to refer to lists of words written at the bottom of the page (whether as alternates or supplements to the original word, or something else entirely, we’ll never know). Marta Werner [ http://altx.com/ebr/ebr6/6werner/6wern.htm ] and Susan Howe both write about this.

How did you decide to title each constellation?
How did you decide to define the constellations? Do the keywords of each constellation stem from one general idea or meaning?
Is there a pattern to the colors you chose to use for certain keywords?

Cynthia and I sat in front of a screen and drew them. I wanted to make ‘my own’ constellations, to emphasize the fact that we all can make our own ‘constellations’ and read our own ‘constellations’. Some of these constellations have more to do with a woman’s life—the embryo/fetus, or bull/oxhead=womb+Fallopian tubes, for instance. Goose was for Mother Goose. Only in the case of the Big and Little Dipper, here combined, is there an overlap with traditional constellations. The names were simply to keep track of them—“the Infinity Sign needs to be farther away from the Twins and Kokopelli”—in the course of our manipulations.

All the shapes are related to the meaning of the WaveSon.nets inside them (the Dragonfly is the emerald darner in WaveSon.net 47), and the keywords in any given constellation are thematic ‘keywords’ for the motifs in that constellation.

The colors all relate to words in the texts that occur within that constellation, e.g. the Swimmer’s are red, and WaveSon.net 2 brings red and ruby.

How do you feel the WaveSon.net poems interact with the triplets of Vniverse? Should they be read simultaneously?

If you can! And also at the same time read the diagram visually and let your cursor stray, so even more text is brought into play. But if you try it, read say the WaveSon.net and then the triplet version, you will see that something has changed. Some of you will feel it is a little change, but still it somehow affects the poem, perhaps the sound of the poem? Some of you will feel it is a big change, and in some of the poems it is a bigger change than in others. Whichever way, does it affect the meaning? As you know, it is easy online for spacing to get messed up. Does that matter? There are certain structures where the smallest changes matter.

Why did you pull out the triplets you did for each poem?

They are the triplets that arise when you don’t delete or disorder the lines; therefore, they represent the smallest possible increments of change. Of course the poem was written in triplets, so in a certain sense the WaveSon.net is the form imposed on the triplets, and the bigger Wave that is the ongoing of the WaveSon.nets is a still higher level structure. Thus, “WaveSon.net emerging,” perhaps, rather than “triplet pulled out.”

Ideally, how would you like the reader to approach each piece? Should Vniverse be read numerically, or should the reader allow their cursor to guide them sporadically around the page?

Ideally, I would like the reader to think of Vniverse as an instrument, a textual instrument, to be played as they like on any given day. There would be no need or even wish to repeat a performance (though you could). I hope they would be patient and curious enough to discover what the instrument can do.

Is there a linear pattern when reading left to right?

The lines of the poems read traditionally left to right, of course, but what happens when you press a ‘next’ is that two poems interpenetrate each other and you have to choose what and how to read. If you allow your cursor to roam, while reading a sonnet, or group of triplets, you will be activating other colored keywords and triplets of text that then become part of the text onscreen. In these cases, you might read from right (the WaveSon.net) to left (your eye picking up some keyword or triplet that is unrolling in response to your moving cursor).

When you yourself look at Vniverse, do you prefer the Touch or Number reading approach?

Touch. Though I like the fact that the numbers let me move differently—abruptly elsewhere if I want; and also that, if I should wish, I could follow the whole thing in order by number. But if you want a linear unrolling, the print page is better.

How does Vniverse fit into V: WaveSon. Nets/Losing L'una? And can you tell us a bit about the collection as a whole?

It fits right in the middle. If you begin the book, from either end, you will arrive at the page with the url. You must then make some kind of physical move—stay sitting but turn the book over (and read through back to the same url, midway, from the other end); or, you must yourself ‘turn over’, arise and go to the screen, and see the part of the poem V, the Vniverse, that is situated there.

I talk about the collection as a whole in the next two questions.

What do you feel you as a writer gain from using hypertext that you do not gain from plain text? Likewise, what do you feel the reader gains from reading hypertext as opposed to plain text?

Hypertext refers only to the linking structure. Much more happens in digital literature than hypertext. The screen presents a different kind of frame, and, in this case, a different kind of space, based on the Director software (playing in the Shockwave player). It permits words to seem to emerge from deep space in a timed pattern. Oral poems arrive in a timed pattern, but words on a print page do not. The simultaneous presence of the diagrams (also emerging out of deep space) comments on the words, while not ‘illustrating’ them.

In the print book, as you know, very few of the WaveSon.nets are end-stopped with punctuation. It is entirely possible to read them straight through and feel that it is one long poem (whether it is exactly a narrative is another question). What you do, when you do that, is break the frame of the Son.net and instead privilege the Wave in WaveSon.net, the ongoing way they feed into each other. The numbering of the WaveSon.nets makes that fairly easy to do.

Oral epic, by contrast, usually was told episodically and piecemeal. [See John Foley’s How to Read an Oral Poem.] The longer poems in Losing L’una are fragmented to the highest possible degree, punctuated by a double numbering system that moves along from 1 to 8, before the decimal point, and from 1 to 142 after it, numbering the tercets (triplets) sequentially no matter which of those 8 poems they occur in. These are interspersed with short poems with straightforwardly numbered tercets. And the final poem, “L’una Loses,” stays entirely within “0”: waxing from 0 to 12 and waning back to 0 all within itself. This lyric sequence is I think difficult to read as a single sequence, much less a narrative. In fact you can read it by saying the numbers before each section or by skipping over them, a choice you have to make—just as you have to choose whether to ‘read’ or skip over the quotes marks throughout Notley’s The Descent of Alette.

In an interview I described this numbering: “There are numbers that rotate like bicycle-lock dials in V: Losing L’una. What happens to the left of the decimal doesn’t affect what happens to the right. Two simultaneous orders of counting are happening—within one number. V: WaveSon.nets appears to show simple numbering, but these ordering numbers don’t serve to “discipline” the text which only rarely begins or ends in line with the number. It is as if a calibration tool were slipping over the surface of the text with a certain amount of play in it. In V: Vniverse the numbers name the stars, accompanied by keywords. One can reach any constellation by entering a number, like a code, in the upper circle.”

As you know V is dedicated to Simone Weil. In Losing L’una, the broken up part, Simone the philosopher is more prominent. In WaveSon.nets, Simone the religious mystic is more prominent, and a coordinate mythic realm, a realm in which “to recognize your mother,” is built. This ‘mother’ is a vulnerable fragile figure, but her realm is amenable to ‘epic’ style reading.

In the Vniverse, more frame-breaking occurs. Not only is the frame of the page broken, but the digital permits both a more synoptic view and a closer-in view, while at the same time forbidding that ease of reading straight through all of the WaveSon.nets. The digital version excels in an overview of the entire poem—several sweeps of the hand across the opening screen will produce a hundred words that will serve to orient you to the concerns of the poem.

The digital also allows a closer-in view: the oscillation of the triplet and Son.net forms, the relation of those forms to the diagrams and to other text from the poem one can introduce randomly by simply moving the cursor onscreen to bring forth new triplets overlying/underneath/nearby the stable ones. The ‘next’ command activates many implicit time-scales: the time of break-up, the time of emergence, and the time of cross-layer existence between dissolving and emerging poems co-exist with the time of reading forward in the same constellation. If you care about learning new ways to read and about new senses of time, the digital version is best for that.

Is this idea of the Universe central to humankind, women in particular, or one person you had in mind when writing?

Well the Vniverse is exactly not the Universe, yes? V has replaced U. So those *shapes* can easily be changed one into the other, U to V; but the meanings of them differ wildly. U by being part of uni- means just one, ‘the’ one. V is a mark of opening out, the book opens in a V and flies away to the screen.

The poem V is focused on certain kinds of bodily knowing, especially touch and hearing. And especially the knowing that occurs in a female body—and the history of such knowing, in the person of the witch as well as Weil. The poem does quarrel with the views of the witch put forth in Malleus Maleficarum, the Inquisition’s book on how to torture witches, i.e. women with presumed knowledge.

Simone Weil talked a lot about the soul, but for her the soul is always embodied. She said, “Earthly things are the criterion of spiritual things.”

And here are some perhaps relevant quotations from an interview with Jaishree Odin:

Odin: In V, you create a woman’s language where patriarchal formulations of material as well as mystic experience for women are recast and retold from various perspectives. Your recasting is at several levels, invoking real women as well as mythological figures and stellar constellations. This results in imagery and metaphors that are very feminist in orientation and impact, yet what I find remarkable about your work is that you resist getting locked into that experience—it is just a jumping ground to more profound themes of human relationship to the world and to broader cosmos. Would you like to elaborate on that?

I said: “Simone Weil was the first woman I read whose style convinced me she knew her own mind, her mind inseparable from her clumsy, sensitive, empathic body. A wonderful value of her philosophy is how body-based it is. She had utmost respect for “the work entering the body” in the lives of laborers, fishermen, and farmers. Her concerns could not have been broader, the whole good of humankind, the way to use and value knowledge.

“She said, ‘Earthly things are the criterion of spiritual things.’”

Odin: It seems to me that your use of numbers in V presents the pulsating movement, the rise and fall of events—the rhythm of life itself. Would you agree with that interpretation?

I said: “The rhythms of life, in and out of phase with each other, and the felt sense that seeming abstractions have profound physical effects, the weight of the wave.”

Odin: A number of feminists have commented on women’s relationship to mysticism in the West. For example, Luce Irigaray describes the mystic experience as an essentially feminine experience, represented best through the metaphor of touch as in this experience both the individual “soul” and the unknown or the “nothingness” touch one another without one becoming lost in the other. In V, you use the term Godde to point to a reality that is attributeless and you use the words “opening the channel” to come in touch with the waves or vibrations of this reality. I see here a shift from seeing to touching. But some poems also refer to hearing or “hallucinated hearing.” Do you use touching and hearing to represent two different experiences or one and the same experience?

I said: “Both touching and hearing are privileged in V. Both are disprized in our world compared with the visual. Children whose preferred learning mode is kinesthetic or aural have a very hard time with our sight-based education. Both touching and hearing are close to waves—vibrational touch and acoustic waves. V: Vniverse is visual, but in a diagrammatic way, not big images.”

Odin: The title V is very revealing. As you point out, it is an iconographic image, but it also stands for many other things, for example, virginity, abstraction, bird’s flight among others. Most of all it refers to the conical hat of witches who were persecuted for daring to seek knowledge. How did you stumble upon this multivalence of V in both written alphabet and the shape that symbolizes an idea?

I said: “V is at first the waveshape. Hold a stylus to stone and move your stone-holding hand back and forth. With perceptible physical effort, you inscribe the stone with V, with V’s, VVV, a waveform, zigzag, ricrac.

“V is next the shape of an open book, here opened far enough to let the text jump up to a vertical screen. V is the shape of an entire assembly of geese in flight. Flying in V formation the whole flock adds 71% greater flying range than if the bird flew alone.

“V is lifted wings and a witch’s hat, if you turn it over. It is critical that you do turn the book V over to read it. From this gesture in 3-space you move to vertical reading on a screen. The dimensionality onscreen is given by reader-action, by decays and overlays that reader choice brings about. It is also given by images such as the Dipper constellation. The Little Dipper portion is indeed a dipper shape, but it is paired with the Big Dipper which is a bear’s head, referencing its Latin name Ursa Major. This “condensation” of levels, of image and name, is very characteristic of electronic media, though usually the levels are text and code. But in receiving that image you are receiving some hybrid, a cognitive image operating on several levels.

“If L’una is the moon (luna), it is also a solitary female one (l’una). If the moon is the mother, then a shift in what “mother” is takes place. It is the solitary woman who comes forward. L’una, “the one,” is also the daughter Persephone disappearing, this time under the sea. The lost daughter is also Weil, lost to her mother at age 34. The mother-daughter and the solitary-wise-woman-witch figures become fluid, turn into one another. In V: WaveSon.nets/Losing L’una, waves of sound on a network carry L’una away, but she resurfaces in V: Vniverse. At the end of the WaveSon.nets Weil stands swaying at prayer in the stance of a rabbi she could not have been, a dragonfly above her head. She doesn’t stand outside time or make a system. She works from this transgressive body, transgressive for a Jewish prophet.”

There is certainly an emphasis on women and their difficult historical experience in V: WaveSon.nets/Losing L’una, in all of its parts. If there is one figure that comes through more than others, it is certainly Simone Weil.

Do you consider yourself to be an Avant Garde writer? Why or why not?

Sometimes I do, because using software to make poems, and thinking of poems as structures moving in suggested 3-dimensional space (or actual 3-dimensional space, as in an installation) is not a traditional practice. Poems with the constraints of galaxies or proteins—that has not been the traditional view. On the other hand, such poems are extremely firmly structured, which might be thought to be a traditional trait.

I sometimes feel like an archaic poet, because I am very immersed in and seduced by the music of poetry. I am interested in communal and collaborative structures which are, also, in a certain sense, archaic—though technology is certainly refiguring communality and collaboration. Poems were early forms of knowing. I think today, faced with the incredible complexity of worldwide interconnectedness (including multiple languages) and with the pressure of cascades of data, poems may again become a form of knowing—knowing ourselves, our world, and knowing more about the systems we are relying on—through means that only software allows us to discover.

Interview with Debra DiBlasi

2008-03-31T21:08:00.002-04:00

1. First, what inspired this existence of this person Jiri Cech?

The character, Jiri Cech, was inspired by a real Czech with whom I was having a somewhat torrid sexual affair, and by a couple of racist comments he made. Although I’m certain everyone is racist to a smaller or greater degree – and I mean everyone – I was disturbed that my continuing to sleep with this guy was a kind of racist collusion, which brought up questions regarding sexual desire vs. morality (troglodyte ape vs. human ape).

At the same time, I was teaching an experimental writing course at Kansas City Art Institute, wherein one of the major assignments was to write a ten-section fiction using randomly selected sentences, phrases and images cut from magazine and newspapers – an experiment in creating meaning from random information. I always do the assignments with my students; thus came to be the first story in The Chronicles, “Czechoslovakian Rhapsody Sung to the Accompaniment of Piano.” Proof that you can turn any factual unrelated information into fiction involving real issues in your real life.

2. Instead of presenting him just in a written form, for what reasons did you choose to show Jiri Cech using multimodal fiction?

Basically, I expanded the experiment of meaning-from-randomness as it relates to Systems Theory, something that I’ve been interested in for many years (and which I’m discussing at the forthcoming &NOW Festival of Innovative Writing & Art). Multimodal fiction is really just a manifestation of Systems Theory.

Systems Theory focuses on interconnections, attempting to understand not just the whole or its parts, but the whole, its parts, and their connections to each other and to other wholes and parts, ad infinitum. An example that often used is the system of a tree: There is the trunk and branches and leaves; the birds, mammals and insects that live on and under the tree that help disseminate its seed; the fungus that feeds on the tree’s roots that, in turn, helps the tree absorb water; the air cleaned by the tree’s biological systems so that birds, mammals and insects can breathe; the tree as it relates to other trees, to its climate and particular landscape; and those to the state of the environment; and the environment to the state of the planet; and so many other interconnections of which we are not even aware.

I used myself as primary catalyst (like a single tree) in creating conceptual aspects of my investigation: racism, vengeance, sexism, societal fear of death & dying, terrorist paranoia, religion, suburban sprawl (greed) as it relates to the decimation of the environment, the advent of new home computer technologies that allowed for greater democratization of aesthetic decisions and their public presentation, to name just a few.

Secondary catalysts were those that “entered” The Chronicles: editors who published Jiri’s poems without knowing he was a fictional character; or Google searches of a word that resulted from a Google search of a word that resulted from a Google search of a word… Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of these.

3. Is Jiri Cech supposed to represent a particular type of person, culture, or way of life?

Jiri is full of contradictions in a way that most fictive characters are not, but most real humans are. Why is this so? Because most fictive characters are based on literary rules and standards – based on previous literary characters accepted by and in the public realm – not on that indubitably gray area that is the real world in which real people live.

The writer/critic Steve Tomasula (who, by the way, interviewed Jiri for the CD, “Steve Asks Jiri: ‘Does Poetry Suck?’”) was one of the few people who recognized the looming contradictions in Jiri. Most readers still, and childishly, want their good guys wearing white hats and bad guys wearing black hats lest they have to reconsider their own flaws and assets. But life and people are simply not this or that. It and we are this and that. I’ve befriended drug dealers, mobsters, street people, and sundry ne’er-do-wells, and I can tell you that absolutely all of them, even the hit man, had good, admirable qualities as a human being. I prefer to think that there are not bad people, merely bad behaviors. And if you cannot also love the person who behaves badly, then you cannot also love yourself – nor will your fictional characters seem confoundingly real.

There are to date, in reality, nearly 500 individual works of prose, poetry, video, music, audio interviews, consumer products, and websites in The Jiri Chronicles, not including what I know in my head that has not yet been made public. I’m guessing that you read, saw and heard about…what, 50 of these works? So what does that tell you-the-reader about what readers [can] know about Jiri? What does it tell you about what you [can] know about other people? What does it tell you about a fiction that’s so expansive that almost no one – in fact, probably no one – will ever read the whole of it? And therefore what does it tell you about what we [can] know about the world, about any one system in this myriad of systems within the possibly limitless universe?

Jiri loves capitalism and hates communism because of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, but he also hates conservative politics and politicians because they represent to him the same type of fascists that kept Bohemia under foreign rule, from the Nazis to the Soviets. That’s just one example and, as you can see, it results from Jiri’s particular experience in the same way a real hit man is what he is because of his particular experience.

Jiri is you and he’s me; he’s us in all our contradictory glory and shame. He’s what you can and will never know about a person you love and/or hate. He’s a reminder to stop judging someone unless you’ve walked miles in their shoes.

Seymour Glass would have appreciated Jiri – but would’ve still killed himself at the end of “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.”

4. Jiri Cech’s sexuality defines a large part of his individuality and habits. Why did you choose to use this as a major characteristic?

One of Jiri’s likeable traits – and he does have a few – is that he’s very open about who he is, what he desires, what he loathes – even if I don’t always agree with his desires and loathings. He enjoys sex, as does any healthy human being. But he’s a vampire, a predator, a user. If I were a psychoanalyst, I’d say that his sexually predatory nature is the result of his youth, when he was a refugee Switzerland, selling sex for beer, food, and paper on which to write poetry. when he was prey. Therefore now, for Jiri, sex is not only physical gratification but revenge. And he’s learned that the more sexual he is, the sweeter, more thorough the revenge.

5. What is the significance of the cover art of the Jiri Chronicles?

That’s Jiri as a baby, one of the images from his set of autobiographical postcards. (I designed a better more relevant cover, frankly, that used the whole naked Jiri baby floating in blue sky and clouds, but the publisher wouldn’t use it.) Jiri claims that his mother thought he was “Jesus Christ himself.” And, ah, here is one of the external catalysts in The Chronicles!

In question 4 above, I referred to Seymour Glass. If you’ve read Salinger’s Franny & Zooey (and if you haven’t well…shame on you x 10 because the Glass Family Chronicles are tremendously important works of fiction and philosophy) then you’ll recognize the above phrase as relevant to the end of F & Z, requiring that you build interconnections between all references.

And this aspect of The Jiri Chronicles is terribly important: Readers are expected to be active participants in the “system” that is The Chronicles, and to explore that role, and draw conclusions about themselves and the world based on that participation. Reading is too often a passive experience, with readers expecting, even demanding that writers give them everything they need to expend as little energy as possible while being superficially entertained by a story. Essentially, they want to watch TV. That’s why we have Chick Lit, and Lit light and hoards of mediocre novels and short story collections that meet these middle-brow expectations and offer no new insight in contemporary culture and global society.

6. What is the reason for adding using four dots with the word Umlaut?

After naming Jiri’s metal band Umlaut, he and the lead singer, Hans, discovered that there were at least three other bands called Umlaut. So the two of them decided that having four dots would make their band better than the other Umlauts. Thus their new name: Umlaut with 4 dots not 2.

7. In Jiri Cech’s poem, Notes to Myself, what is the significance of making “regret this year’s luxury”?

The first section poems in Jiri’s collection, Whither: poems of exile, were written during Jiri’s stay in the refugee camp (about which I wrote in #4 above). When he fled Czechoslovakia, he took not much more than the clothes on his back. His poverty was acute. Merely surviving took precedence over everything. During this gloomy period of his life, he often dreamt about being rich, about traveling the world, about having money to spend – and being so confident of his “worth” that going broke in London, Paris, or Rome would seem only a momentary setback. I agree with Jiri: Regret is a luxury for someone who doesn’t know where tomorrow’s meal is coming from and therefore is always scrabbling toward the future, without the extravagance of pondering the past.

[These poems were actually written using only the definitions in a Czech-English Dictionary.]

8. Why does Jiri Cech promote so many different forms of music including “blues to African, ballads to Native American, and genres so bastardized they're absolutely unidentifiable”?

Hm, I’m not sure the word “promote” is quite right. Jiri’s just a dabbler, a dilettante. He’s wealthy and, like some of the wealthy I know, thinks his bank account corresponds to his cultural knowledge. He’s wrong. He’s also lazy: As you may have discovered, almost nothing that Jiri creates takes more than 10 minutes – first, because he writes experimental poetry while sitting on the toilet. and if he sits longer than 10 minutes his legs go numb; second, because he’s too busy breeding the virus that is suburban sprawl. Thus, when he sets out to create a Native American piece of music, the result is usually, well, hideous and often based on some weird stereotype of what that music sounds like.

9. Does Jiri Cech really believe he is a vampire?

Ah, the big question! What do you think?

10. Will Jiri Cech be trying out any new type of media any time soon?

My goal was to make Jiri or his work extant in all media. To date, he has not made it onto television or in the movies. I’m still working on that.

Unfortunately, Jiri was recently arrested in Johannesburg, South Africa. I’m not quite yet sure why. Something to do with a woman: “chasing tail,” as he calls it. As a result, we won’t be hearing much from him until his lawyer is able to get him out of jail.

11. Do you consider The Chronicles of Jiri Cech in this multimodal form Avant-Garde?

I use the term “avant-garde” in its original incarnation: to mean “the front guard” or “in the forefront.” (Much more on my definition of avant-garde on my blog, http://gertrudesbasket.blogspot,com/) So, yes, in hindsight I do consider the multimodal to be avant-garde because I’m investigating issues regarding 20-21st century media’s relationship to the writing and reading of literature using literary systems directly related to 20-21st Century technology & media, and the socioeconomic and political implications therein. By the way, the term “multimodal” only came about in the past couple of years, and then in the U.K. Multimodal has made its way to the US via Allison Gibbons, a PhD student in Linguistics who uses it in her dissertation that include deconstruction of part of The Jiri Chronicles, Steve Tomasula’s writing, and others of similar hides.)

Speaking as a teacher of experimental literary forms: When you set out to actually write & explore, avoid labels as much as possible. They’ll only corral you in the redundant past or inside the publishing market which is teeming with idiots. If you need constraints, use those based on linguistics (like George Perec & OuLiPo) or other disciplines like science, math, visual art, and music.

Final Essay Assignment

2008-03-28T12:37:00.002-04:00

Now that the semester is drawing to a close, what have we learned in this class? What is "avant-garde" writing? How is it different from traditional writing? How are these texts different from each other? What makes these texts fundamentally different from New York Times best-sellers? Why aren't these texts taught in other English courses?

Basic Guidelines:
1. This will be an 7-10 page essay.
2. You will use MLA & have a Work Cited page.
3. You will offer smart, critical analysis.
4. This is NOT a book report!

Essay options:
1. Write an essay in which you compare a text from this course to a text you read for a "traditional" literature course. What are their similarities & differences? Where can see literature converge & separate? What risks are taken in which texts? What is exciting about each? Are there risks that push one text too far from the reader? Are there a lack of risks that makes one text less provocative?

2. Write an essay in which you compare a text from this course to a New York Times best seller. What are their similarities & differences? Where can see literature & pop culture converge & separate? What risks are taken in which texts? What is exciting about each? Are there risks that push one text too far from the reader? Are there a lack of risks that makes one text less provocative?

3. Write an essay in which you compare 2 texts from this course. What are their similarities & differences? Where can see literature converge & separate? What risks are taken in which texts? What is exciting about each? Are there risks that push one text too far from the reader? Are there a lack of risks that makes one text less provocative?

4. If you have an idea of your own, let me know. Run it by me.

Enjoy!

Interview with Stacey Levine

2008-03-18T14:13:00.001-04:00

1. Is Munson a real place? Is it completely imaginary or did your personal past experiences create Munson?

Munson is fictional—-a representation of a small town. I intended the representation to both echo and tweak/play with the lived experience of living in a place like that. Writers brings their experiences to writing—it’s unavoidable. It’s preferable that this happen, in any case. So yes, of course I considered, drew on, my own experiences in order to create the setting.

2.
Did you design the appearance of the book? What is the significance of the size and appearance of the book?

I did not design the book, though I was asked if I preferred the fuchsia color on the cover to a brown/tan cover. I said I preferred the brown one and they ignored me! The book was one of many interesting volumes published by Clear Cut Press ( www.clearcutpress.com ) between 2003-2006 or so. It is/was an endeavor that experimented with business models and sought unique ways to get books into readers’ hands. Clear Cut developed a very specific aesthetic regarding their books, designing pocket-sized volumes similar to paperback books in Japan. They were edited and designed by some very talented folks. The books were printed in Asia and distributed through not only networks of friends and small businesses, but through some major distributors.

3.
Do you consider yourself and/or Frances Johnson avant garde? If so, what about the book makes it avant garde?
I have serious doubts as to whether the avant-garde really exists in today’s culture of hypercapitalism. In order for the avant-garde to exist, there would need to be a space in the culture for provocative, outsider art that has no overt goal of gaining publicity or monetary worth. This culture doesn’t support that. In addition, the society would need to be more uniform, less fragmented, in order to support a renegade or underground aesthetic. Did you touch on things like this in class?

4.
What is the significance of Munson and Little Munson?

I am interested in fictional expressions of dominance/deference and strength/weakness, as in litters of rats or cats in which one baby tends to grow fatter while others grow leaner or runtish. This can happen in personal, social, business, and other relationships too.

5.
Why is Frances Johnson the only person in Munson who questions her life and her surroundings?
She’s really not the only person who questions these things: Ray and Kenny do, to some degree, too. Frances is a version of the stereotypic young person who embarks on the stereotypic journey to discover who he/she is, and that requires questioning the life she has led up to that point. The book is meant to slightly spoof “coming-of-age” novels and also old romance novels.

7.
A few symbols seem to repeat in the book: volcano, annual town dance, oil, and the raisin in Nancy's car. What is their significance?

I try to not think of these as symbols; I was trying to get away from that. Instead, I wished these to contain the oddness of things we encounter in our lives and culture, weird features of the world that we try to make sense of. The struggle here for me as a writer is that it is impossible to avoid symbols. History and culture has trained us in the art of seeing/interpreting them. So it was a fun but failed experiment. That said, all these elements you mention, such as the volcano, have qualities that correlate to the characters in a psychological way. I wouldn’t pin it down to a specific meaning, like the volcano = pent-up anger, but more to a dream-like sense that these features kind of suit the characters and story.

8.
Why are the townfolks so obsessed with Doctor Carol's marriage to Frances?
The townfolks are the resistance to Frances’ growth as an individual. I’m sure if you’re around 17-22 years old, you may have experienced something like this--some force in your world that asks you not to do the things you want, and proposes another plan that is disappointing or frustrating to you.

10.
What is the purpose of asking rhetorical questions about Frances.
The rhetorical questions are partly compositional. I thought the narrative would look prettier with the interruptions of these sentences. They are so different-looking from the rest of the book’s declarative sentences. The questions also simply echo and/or refract the theme of the book, which has to do with Frances becoming individuated, whole, and separate from the town of her origin.

11.
What is the purpose of the ballerina? Is she a reflection of Frances' feelings?
Doesn’t the ballerina, Linda Del-Adam, inspire the admiration of Frances’ mother? If so, how do you think Frances would react to another girl gaining her mother’s approval, while the mother is simultaneously critical of Frances?

Interview with Jenny Boully

2008-02-26T12:28:00.002-05:00

1. What was your inspiration for THE BODY? Do you consider THE BODY avant-garde?

I was inspired by the use of form in several issues of the "Seneca Review" and "Conjunctions" that I was reading at the time. I was also inspired by the amount of reading that I was doing. I had a story to tell, certainly, but I wasn't sure how to tell that story. I thought I would use footnotes and then tell the story later, but that never happened. So, the footnotes became annotations to something inferred, imagined, sensed, and the blank pages were born.

I don't think I consider the book to be avant-garde--my knowledge of that movement is quite limited, so my answer isn't fully researched. I wouldn't like to say that my work is this or that only because I have a hard time turning critic on myself or my work. But I do enjoy reading what others make of it.

2. Craig Dworkin's words on the back of your book say this "may or may not be a love letter, a dream, a spiritual atobiography, a memoir, a scholarly digression, a treatise on the relation of life to book." Can you shed any more light on this subject? Is THE BODY any, or a combination of any, of these things?

The quoted passage above isn't from Dworkin, actually. But it's funny that you should mention it--there's a little secret in small press publishing: a lot of jacket copy is written by the author herself, and in this case, I wrote what you've quoted above. So, yes, I feel as if the book is all of these.

3. Is THE BODY based on an actual essay that you, or someone else, have written, or is it based entirely on an idea that has never been written?

The Body is based on what was my life at the time. So it is autobiographical. I left out the actual story, of course, but I feel as if I give so much of it away in the footnotes themselves. I feel as if I've given the right clues and that the astute reader will reconstruct the narrative.

4. What were your thoughts and feelings while writing The Body? Was writing in this style challenging?

The style wasn't challenging, but having to live within a certain "mode" or "tone" was a challenge. You want to wake up and believe that everything is behind you, but you can't quite shake it yet because the book has yet to be written. I was undergoing a change in place, and I was quite lonely and feeling all sorts of out of sorts. I had a few mementos, some letters, and a lot of emptiness. In some ways, that is what The Body is composed of.

5. What do you hope the reader takes away from this work?

I hope the reader takes away the story of a failed love affair, but I also hope that they take away whatever story they constructed, that story they read between the lines--that is, I hope they take away faith in something living in the in-between.

6. What are your impressions of other avant-garde writers and how do you feel this book contributes to the genre and other's understanding of it?

I'm not sure I entirely understand the avant-garde movement or what that entails, never having taken a class or studied it. My reluctance to answer this question has more to do with my ignorance on the subject. I hope you will understand that. Perhaps if I had more time to research I could answer more intelligently.

7. How do you feel about style and its impact on a piece as a whole? Does the style used "make" the piece, or does it simply add to the overall message/impact of the book?

I have always firmly believed--despite what some critics have said in some reviews--that The Body could only exist in the form it is in. The subtext and the text can then be one, so yes, the form is entirely co-dependent on its content. Or maybe what I mean is that the form is content and I couldn't have left it out.

Interview with Carole Maso

2008-02-20T09:23:00.001-05:00

1)Fall Semester 2006, in my Fiction Writing Class--with Lily as an instructor again--we were assigned Ava, Carole. All remember to prior to this second digestion that I liked it, a lot. A whole lot, but serial quoting was not going to be the name of the game. I re-open this work and it is divine. And there is some notes I liked to address. My friend had scribbled down--and quoted? by a phantom authority?--a "gorgeous mess." Would you deem that a perfect characterization or an imperfect incarceration of the work of Ava?

CM: I think it is that at times, but the book really feels elusive to me, just outside my grasp and not easily stabilized by a phrase—even one of my own

2)Another note written was that "blanks are described as the air you breathe between phrases." Obviously, you are an advocate of spatial movement in literature and in novel. What are exactly are you feel i n gs toward such a p r o g r e s s i v eand avant concept? Do you recommend all young writers try it? Do you feel that this element is a very misused element?

CM:I think any given text has to find its own way to the page, and that look, or arrangement or configuration as much as any other component, is the story. It’s not an arbitrary thing, but it often takes a lot of experimentation to know and understand what space on a page is about, what it might do, what the potentials are. This is well worth playing with in exercises, so that one feels free and open to those potentialialities in a realized work of art. 3)The greatest thing above Ava is its random nature. But for you the writer, this is obvious all by your devilish design. How did you organize the random nature of Ava's final day and hours? Is Ava more or less adopting your stream of consciousness and mental exercise as you explore the full of life of Ava or do you say I will divulge this memory and not evolve it to here and jump here and oh yeah we'll move back to this place? Simply, how do you organize the random?

CM: AVA was written in a trance, informed utterly by music, and the sorrow and joy of watching a close friend in hhis last months of life. It was written without conscious decision making, it was written freely and only after it was finished, was it reworked slightly to make certain rhythms or patterns more emphatic. It was arranged largely by intuition and a sort of intelligence that feels quite beyond me.4) When researching for this interview, I came upon an analysis of your text in comparison to the discussion of Massachusetts poet Mary Ruefle's discussion and definition of the semi-colon. I can see the comparison of your text and the concept of the semi-colon, "which connects the first line to the last, the act of keeping together that whose nature is to fly apart." Do you see your novel as such? And if your novel is one very, very, very, long sentence line, can we coin your book a novel? (I can and will, but I love to hear your thoughts.)

CM: I don’t know that semi-colon discussion you are referring to, but I don’t see the book as trying to keep together things that are flying apart. It seems to suggest a kind of argument for unity or wholeness I am not sure the book actually adheres to. I don’t see it as one very long sentence—if I thought that was they what it really was, I would have written it that way.

5) Without a doubt, this book brilliantly challenges literary conventions on multiple levels. Did you feel like you were taking a risk by writing "Ava"? If so, what do you think is the biggest risk in writing such a unique novel? What most inspired you to do it?

I was bored by every novel I picked up. Nothing I could see seemed to have anything at all to do with how I moved through the world or how I perceived it. How the figures in my world appeared to me. The ways my mind and heart and body move. It did not feel like a risk to write. I just wanted to get closer to what it was like for me to be alive. To have written in the other old formulaic would have been much more difficult a task and would have in a strange way been to die a little, and I did not want to die anymore.6) There are tons of references to literature, writing literature, authors - Virginia Woolf, Neruda, Garcia Lorca, etc...- , but there seems to also be a focus on film as well - conversations about film and/or filmmakers, and Francesco being a filmmaker, and the book is extremely visual at times. I was wondering, how did film play a part in your writing "Ava"? (If it did play a part) Is the style or structure at all influenced by any particular filmmaking techniques?

CM: I am a film addict. I feel film can do some things far more effortlessly and elegantly than other mediums. I love it. Great films are a constant source of inspiration. 7) What do you hope the reader will get out of this book? If you could choose one thing above all else...?

CM: The intense beauty and mystery of a human life.

8) What cord did hope to strike within your readers by writing in such a distinct format?

CM: A sense of wonder at that beauty and mystery. A sense of possibility and the dimensions of joy.

interview with Vanessa Place regarding Dies: A Sentence

2008-02-18T12:24:00.003-05:00

1. Why did you want to write an entire book in one sentence?
I thought of the one-sentence form first, in part as a respite from
the fractured/fragmented book I was then working on (La Medusa, which
will be published by FC2 this Fall)(the challenge of the fragmented text
is to keep it together without it coalescing, like an Impressionist
painting; the challenge of the single sentence is to keep it falling
apart while continuing its momentum, like an Abstract Expressionist
action painting), and in part as a way of challenging the fundamental
unit of prose -- the sentence. (The title is a multiple pun, one being
the death of the sentence.) Having thought of the form, content was
next, and the sentence (as in fate/punishment) of humanity appears to be
endless war. Or time ongoing punctuated by particularly bloody periods.

2. Did you have any influence on the unique design of the book?
Some influence; I am one of the co-directors of Les Figues Press, and
we envisioned the long/lean design of the series as a series. (See
www.lesfigues.com) However, I was lucky in that the design mirrored the
trenches of WWI and the long bloody rut of war as a specific form of
human existence, and existence, pocked with story and tragedy, in its
human form. We are vertical creatures.

3. You've included many French phrases. What is the significance?
Many French phrases, yes, many other languages as well (German, a
touch of Vietnamese). The easy answer is that I know French next best to
English, and can do more by way of punning, riffing, etc, with French
than other languages. Also it was very important to not have this be
particularly locatable as a nationality, and French, like English, has
the (Western historical) reputation of being an international language,
and the language of the Empire/colonizer. In terms of nonspecificity,
note the mutation of the name John in this regard, so the Doe aspects of
John should become more pointed as the sentence moves on.

4. What is the significance of the soldier's boots, and what are the different places the boots take us back to?
It is a journey story, or allegory; the errant hero must be able to
move, yes? What happens when you take away his boots? I can't recall all
the places the boots go, but believe that there is an ironical movement
in having the footwear go farther than the foot (now blown to
smithereens), just as the commercial product transcends its consumer,
who loves the product much more than the product cares for its
purchaser, just as the things of life outlive, and thereby own, their
owners. Too, I am playing with the Irish tradition of the amputated
anti-hero (Beckett, O'Brien). And the unspeaking John has no hands, no
mitts or mittens, and can thereby signal nothing. Between them, they've
been fully ravished, and ravishment is a trope that suggests ecstasy
(transcendence) and rape. The speaking in tongues of the saved and the
silence of the damned.

5. Does the book take place during one time period, or is the narrator shifting to various time periods?
Shifting time periods, no time period, note shifting verb tenses in
certain scenes, so time is circular, a conceit.

6. What was most challenging about writing this book for you?
It was an oddly easy book to write, the greatest challenge perhaps
being the need to backstitch, to use certain words or images repeatedly
in order to keep a constant thread and the feeling of ongoingness in a
book where no one moves and nothing changes.

7. If you had to choose what category to place this book in a library, what section would you put it under (poetry, fiction, etc - assuming "long sentence" is not a category!)?
That is the question. There is prose, and poetry, and I've been
called both and neither is the whole story. I'm working on an essay on
post-conceptual writing with appropriation poet Robert Fitterman (to be
published by Ugly Duckling Presse), and perhaps this is the point where
we realize genre is a medium (like oil paint) and start to look at
writing the way people look at art -- classifying by type sometimes,
like sculpture, and period others, like Constructivism. You could think
about what you would put on the shelf next to it instead. I know that
in one class it was taught in conjunction with The Waste Land, and in
another, The Inferno. What do you think?

-Megan Stokes, Becky Slinger, Meghan Corcoran, and Jody Brezette

questions/answers from Lidia-- Real to Reel

2008-02-17T17:34:00.003-05:00

1. How should readers read the story "Scripted"? Should we read column by column and section by section? Or should be read one column in its entirety--up to the end of the story-- before reading the second column? Is there a right (and/or wrong) way to read this story? Also, are the three columns representative of three different persons or just one person, with three different viewpoints? Why does the story move from 1st person to third to second in an order that is not sequential? (The first person usually seems to have more idealism within it, while the second person seems to be cold.)
I DON'T ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN DICTATING TO A READER "HOW" THEY SHOULD READ...INSTEAD, I CONCENTRATE ON CREATING WRITERLY TEXTS (SEE ROLAND BARTHES), IN WHICH THE READER CAN TAKE PLEASURE IN THEIR ACT OF READING, MULTIPLY MEANINGS AND TRY DIFFERENT STRATEGIES. SO THAT THE ACT OF READINGS IS AS ACTIVE AS THE ACT OF WRITING. KNOW WHAT I MEAN?IN THE CASE OF SCRIPTED, I WAS VERY INTERESTED IN THREE THINGS:
1. HOW IT IS THAT OUR "INDIVIDUALISM" IS UNDERCUT BY A RATHER LIMITED SET OF ALREADY KNOWN DRAMAS
2. HOW POINT OF VIEW IS STRUCTURED--HOW TAKING IT APART INSTEAD OF ASSUMING ITS STABILITY IS INTERESTING
3. HOW "VOICES" ARE ALWAYS CROSSING ONE ANOTHER

2. Why does scotch come up so frequently in these stories? (kind of dumb question, i know.) Is there a reason for the consumption of a specific alcohol?
HEH. IT'S WHAT I DRINK.
BUT I ALSO TEND TO AGREE WITH MARGUERITE DURAS--THE THINGS SHE SAYS ABOUT WOMEN WHO DRINK AND CREATE ART...THE WORLD FINDS THAT FAIRLY DISTASTEFUL IN A WOMAN. BUT IN A MAN, IT'S PART OF THE CULT OF THE MALE GENIUS ARTIST, PART OF HIS CREATIVE AURA.
SECONDLY, I LIKE TO PEPPER MY STORIES WITH ALCOHOL AND DRUGS IN AN "AMERICAN" SENSE. THEY ARE PART OF THE STORY. MY STORY. THE STORY OF THE AMERICAN ARTIST, TOO.

3. Is there a certain character or voice (a.k.a. narrator) that exists throughout this collection as a whole? Is the character male or female? Does it matter if the reader identifies the narrator as male or female? (We've observed that at points, there is an enmeshing of gender, such as on page 76.) What role does sexuality, and perhaps homesexuality play in this collection?
PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WRITTEN STRUGGLES (SOMETIMES TOO HARD, I THINK) TO BLUR THE LINES BETWEEN SEXUALITIES AND SUBJECTIVITIES. I'VE NEVER BEEN CONVINCED BY CATEGORIES OF GENDER OR SEXUALITY. MY EXPERIENCES ARE NOT HOUSED WELL INSIDE THE AVAILABLE TERMS, YOU KNOW? SO I TRY TO EITHER ABANDON THE, OR TRANSGRESS THEM, OR CROSS BACK AND FORTH VIA WRITING. NO, THERE IS NOT AN OVERIDING MONO-VOICE THAT TRAVELS THROUGH THE STORIES, ON THE OTHER HAND, I HAVE TRIED TO CREATE A SENSE OF "HETEROGLOSSIA" (M. M. BAKHTIN), A MULTI-VOCALITY THAT EMPHASIZES HOW THE VOICES OF THE MANY ARE ALWAYS SPEAKING, RATHER THAN THE VOICE OF THE ONE, ALL-POWERFUL AUTHOR.
I ALLOW THE AUTHOR VOICE IN AND OUT AT RANDOM IN ORDER TO UNDERCUT THE AUTHOR'S POWER AND DEMOCRATIZE THEIR VOICE AMONG MANY.

4. Your prose seems to present the body as a symbol of humanity or humanness, is this correct? Or are the references to the body symbolic of sexuality? Or perhaps both? In other words, what role does the body play in your prose? (And furthermore, is it different in different stories?)
BINGO ON BOTH. IN MOST OF MY WRITING I TRY TO PRESENT THE BODY AS THREE THINGS:
1. THE CORPOREAL FACT OF EXISTENCE
2. THE PRIMARY METAPHOR FOR EXPERIENCE
3. THE PSYCHO-SEXUAL "SITE" WHERE ALL MEANING IS MADE AND UNMADE.

5. Do you view this collection as a novel, in its entirety? Can the stories be read as one story? Or should they be viewed as single stories?
THAT'S A COOL QUESTION. I THINK THAT YES, THE STORIES CAN BE READ AS ONE STORY--IN THIS CASE THE SINGLE PSYCHE OF A WOMAN WITH ALL HER VOICES, ALL HER EXPERIENCES, HER PAST, HER PRESENT, HER BODY IN ALL ITS STAGES, HER PSYCHE BROKEN INTO PARTS, THE CHAPTERS OF HER BEING--IT CAN BE READ THAT WAY.
BUT I ALSO THINK THERE IS MERIT IN READING THEM AS STAND ALONES. THE WAY A SINGLE DAY CAN MARK SOMEONE FOR LIFE. OR THE WAY A CERTAIN YEAR CAN CHANGE A PERSON FOREVER. THE "SPACE" OF THE SHORT STORY ALLOWS FOR THAT KIND OF POTENCY. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?

6. The story "Chair" makes several references to childhood. How much do your own childhood experiences influence your writing as an adult?
MEGA. I MEAN HUGE. I CAME FROM AN ABUSIVE FAMILY, I HAD A DAUGHTER WHO DIED, MY CHILDHOOD AND CHILD ISSUES RUN UP AND THROUGH EVERYTHING. TO A CERTAIN EXTENT I THINK WOMEN WRITERS--EVEN THE ONES WHO HAVE NEVER HAD CHILDREN--CARRY THE TRACE OF THE CHILD IN ALL OF THEIR WRITING. I THINK OUR BODIES ARE THE REASON. I DON'T REALLY SEE MUCH OF A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BIOGRAPHIC REALITY AND FICTION. I THINK EVEN OUR "REAL" STORIES OF OURSELVES ARE FICTIONS, AND I THINK SOMETIMES FICTION GETS CLOSER TO A PERSONAL "TRUTH" THAN ANYTHING ELSE...

7. Film wiggles its way from title to sentence and word to page space. It is clearly an important realm of your writing. Why film? What do you get from film? And trite and simple (and you know it was coming,) what is your favorite film?
WELL, FILM IS THE DOMINANT MODE OF ARTISTIC PRODUCTION IN MY LIFETIME, SO IT HAS PERMEATED MY ENTIRE LIFE. IN ADDITION, I FELL IN LOVE WITH FILM WAY BEFORE I FELL IN LOVE WITH ANY HUMANS...THE FIRST FILMS I EVER SAW CHANGED MY REALITY FOREVER. LASTLY, I THINK THE STRUCTURE OF FILM AND THE STRUCTURE OF FICTION ARE INTIMATELY INTERTWINED, AND I LOVE TO "PLAY" IN BETWEEN. OH AND MY HUSBAND IS A FILMMAKER. HEH.

8. We have a whole chapter based and entitled off the color blue. Blonde folk pervade much of the text as well. Are you fan of the Aryan race--or what is the more, non-fascist reasoning behind these specific fixations?
THIS CRACKED ME UP A LITTLE BIT. A FAN OF THE ARYAN RACE? HA. OK SO FIRST OF ALL, I AM A BLONDE, SO THERE'S THAT. BUT "THE BLONDE" IS AN ICON IN AMERICAN CULTURE--SO I HAVE USED IT METAPHORICALLY AND SYMBOLICALLY TO POINT TO THAT. IF THERE IS ANYTHING FASCISTIC ABOUT "THE BLONDE," IT'S AN AMERICAN FASCISM--OUR SADISTIC COMPULSION TO LOVE THE BLONDE (THINK MARILYN MONROE, PARIS HILTON, ETC. ETC..). SO "THE BLONDE" IS AN AMERICAN PATHOLOGY, ON THE ONE HAND, AND I'VE LIVED A BLONDE LIFE THAT WAS AT ODDS WITH THAT NARRATIVE, ON THE OTHER.

9. Can we have you etch out the significance of structure and meaning of "Chair?" It is such a rich text and way too complex for us without your guidance. (I SERIOUSLY DOUBT THAT...HA.) The conclusion of the chapter incorporates different perspectives and usages of the chair; we find this very interesting. The paragraph that follows is quite memorable as well. Also, the lives of the chairs are divine, like on page 78 paragraph "To life the chairs." I love it; it feels brilliant. Lidia, tell me what it all means. Grazie.
WELL A GREAT DEAL IS REVEALED BY THE OPENING QUOTE--ABOUT THE MEANINGS OF THINGS. AND A DICTIONARY, SAY, LIMITS THE MEANINGS OF THINGS--INSCRIBES THEM INSIDE THE PRISONHOUSE OF LANGUAGE. NARRATIVE, ON THE OTHER HAND, RELEASES MEANING BACK OUT OVER A VAST TERRITORY OF SIGNS AND IMAGINATION AND EMOTION. SO TAKING A SINGLE WORD LIKE "CHAIR," AND LIBERATING IT, IS A RADICAL ACT. SO THERE'S THAT.
SECONDLY, I WANTED TO WRITE ABOUT INCEST IN A WAY THAT "RELEASED" IT FROM THE DREADED CONFESSIONAL MODE SO MANY WOMEN HAVE EMPLOYED. THIS WAS MY SOLUTION--TO ENTER THE AESTHETICS OF ART AND REPRESENTATION, AND THE MOTION OF MEMORY (HOW IT'S MADE, UNMADE, REMADE LIKE IN FILMMAKING), TO TELL A SMALL TRUTH.

10. The idea of "wanting" and consumption seems to be another important link between the stories (the we read) from the collection. What do these elements have to do with the current state of the human condition? Are you making a social statement that we (as readers) should be aware of? (We think we are on to something here, but we just want a little bit more info.)
YUP.THE "WANTING" AND "CONSUMPTION" YOU ARE SO ASTUTELY NOTICING IS SOMETHING I CARE ABOUT A LOT--IT TAPS INTO A BIG QUESTION I HAVE AS AN AMERICAN WRITER AND ARTIST--WHICH IS, HOW DOES ONE "MAKE" IN THE FACE OF CAPITALISM? HOW DOES ONE REACH A READER WHO IS MORE AND MORE A CONSUMER AND LESS AND LESS A RADICAL AND ACTIVE LOVER WITH THE WRITER OF A TEXT?

GREAT QUESTIONS. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING MY WRITING. IT IS VERY MEANINGFUL TO ME TO HAVE MET YOU THERE, INSIDE WORDS, WHERE WE MIGHT TOUCH WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OR RULES OF THE WORLD.
LIDIA

Ava and Class

2008-02-13T10:32:00.003-05:00

After looking back on the class, and realizing the responses to the book, I noticed that all of us had a little bit of diffaculty explaining why we liked it so much. At first I was suprised, because usuallly all of us have much to say for the other books, but why if we liked this book so much, did we have such a hard time articulating our thoughts?

As I thought more and more aboout the book, I realized that because it was very vague in description and because every sentence had a significant meaning, it is hard to be precise on why we enjoyed this read. How is a reader able to generize the experience in reading this book, when it was clear in class that everyone had their own pages of enjoyment? How were we able to say that we favored pg 22 in comparision to 174, but we got more out of the book on pg 150?

In my opinion, I felt that I enjoyed this book, because it was so random. Ava was going to die, and she wrote exactly what she thought. So, in other words I myself got a lot out of the book, and still find it extremely diffacult to articulate why. The only thing I could honestly come up with, is that it is a more positive book with huge amounts of passions on each page.

Garcia Lorca's "Somnambule's Ballad"

2008-02-11T16:36:00.000-05:00

Somnambule Ballad
Federico Garcia Lorca (~1927)

Green, how much I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship upon the sea
and the horse in the mountain.
With the shadow on her waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, hair of green,
and eyes of cold silver.
Green, how much I want you green.
Beneath the gypsy moon,
all things look at her
but she cannot see them.

Green, how much I want you green.
Great stars of white frost
come with the fish of darkness
that opens the road of dawn.
The fig tree rubs the wind
with the sandpaper of its branches,
and the mountain, a filching cat,
bristles its bitter aloes.
But who will come? And from where?
She lingers on her balcony,
green flesh, hair of green,
dreaming of the bitter sea.

--Friend, I want to change
my horse for your house,
my saddle for your mirror,
my knife for your blanket.

Friend, I come bleeding,
from the passes of Cabra.
--If I could, young man, this pact would be sealed.
But I am no more I,
nor is my house now my house.
--Friend, I want to die
decently in my bed.
Of iron, if it be possible,
with sheets of fine holland.
Do you not see the would I have
from my breast to my throat?
--Your white shirt bears
three hundred dark roses.
Your pungent blood oozes
around your sash.
But I am no more I,
nor is my house now my house.
--Let me climb at least
up to the high balustrades:
let me come! Let me come!
up to the green balustrades.
Balustrades of the moon
where the water resounds.

Now the two friends go up
towards the high balustrades.
Leaving a trail of blood,
leaving a trail of tears.
Small lanterns of tin
were trembling on the roofs.
A thousand crystal tambourines
were piercing the dawn.

Green, how much I want you green,
green wind, green branches.
The two friends went up.
The long wind was leaving
in the mouth a strange taste
of gall, mint and sweet-basil.
Friend! Where is she, tell me,
where is your bitter girl?
How often she waited for you!
How often did she wait for you,
cool face, black hair,
on this green balcony!

Over the face of the cistern
the gypsy girl swayed.
Green flesh, hair of green,
with eyes of cold silver.
An icicle of the moon
suspends her above the water.
The might became as intimate
as a little square.
Drunken civil guards
were knocking at the door.
Green, how much I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship upon the sea.
And the horse on the mountain.

(trans. Stephen Spender and J.L. Gili)

Accidental Species and Ava

2008-02-10T23:22:00.000-05:00

First off, after reading the authors response to Accidental Species I have come to appreciate the book a lot more. I felt the fact that I could not understand it really bothered me, but now that I have seen there was actually meaning to this literary confusion, it makes me happy that some of my questions were answered in the interview.

When it came to the book AVA, all I have to say is that I just could not put it down. It took a awhile to get use to the one line sentences, but after a couple pages I was able to get in the rhythm. It was simple, fun, and poetic at the same time. One of my favorite lines, had to have been on page 241 which is a small poem that startes off wiht "The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind....."

As I continued to read this book I honestly put myself in the postion of not having many days on earth and what I would do if I were to have been Ava. The read was more personal for me than anything else, and I am glad to have read it!

Interview with Kass Fleisher "Accidental Species"

2008-02-09T10:10:00.000-05:00

"Accidental Speices" by Kass Fleisher

1. What is the main theme of the book that you want the reader to take away?

It's not so much a theme as an experience. My hope is that people will feel the tension, which is very difficult to put into "transparent" words, of struggles with family, particularly female family relationships, especially in the face of the absence of a future relationship (which is to say, she will never be the mother of children). Since I don't say that "exactly," I don't mind if people don't catch on; it's ok if perhaps they found a few lines they thought were funny, or handsome, etc.

2. What is the significance of how you divided the chapters?
Each of the chapters chronicles (without doing so "exactly") another phase of the situation, and each of those phases, or so it felt to me, required its own formal qualities, since the situational qualities were also shifting. I also have a thing for the numbers 8 and 3. Those came up again.

3. Where did you get the idea to write in this form? Did you have any influences?
Poets. Poets, poets, poets. I think at some point I discovered that other people, like Laura Mullen or Thalia Field, were doing work like this, but to my disappointment it was often labeled "poetry." I continue to find this unfortunate for those of us who call or think of ourselves as prose writers (and I'm not saying that Mullen or Field do, but I've seen the phenomenon with fair frequency), because it continues to thwart the development of literacy for this kind of challenge of the sentence, the paragraph, the chapter, and so on. Prose readers need and deserve a wider ability to read and appreciate language.

4. What are the purposes of the changes in point of view, which sometimes come in the middle of sections?
I don't really respect the notion of a self. I do, of course; in practice one has to identify oneself as different from the world in a specific way; but I don't in the way that people tend to take it for granted. The self I am at this second will be different in about thirty seconds (and counting). That and, to be utterly frank with you, some of it just "came out that way," and finally what I discovered was that, when talking about especially painful circumstances, third-person or second-person or the Royal We or just anything but first-person-singular is waaaay easier to handle than...first-person-singular. It creates a distance for the reader as well as, blessedly, for the writer. In the sequel to this book, _The Adventurous_, I change "persons" much more purposefully, I think. I do it in both but I think in the second one I was more ready to see the distancing impulse and know it for what it was, and when I switch to third it's more likely to be completely because I damn well wanted to challenge that selfhood thing I made up in the above.

5. What is the significance of the cover image? Why does this best represent the book?
It's rather stunning, eh? Quite the best thing about the book. The painting itself probably goes for many thousands of dollars and I always tell people to frame the book and hang it on their walls. Two items about the painting: one is that it was done by a dear friend, and it's always lovely to have such collaborative senses about things; and the other is that the bird, although likely not precisely an accidental species, seemed---being pinned down as it was---and the drops looking something like tears, vaporous regret if you will---it seemed more expressive than the damn book, actually. A picture paints 1000, etc. I'm pretty sure that my use of it has nothing to do with the painter's conception, although she was wonderfully generous to give it to me for the book. Maria Tomasula's work often used (past tense because it does so less often now I think) images that suggest Christlike martyrdom---being tied down in one way or another. I don't see this woman as a martyr, although she's occasionally a victim. She's had too much complicity in her own situation to qualify.

6. There seems to be a theme of death in the book (death in childbirth, the car accident). Please explain the significance.
Well, you know, to be honest with you, we're all going to die. This has obsessed me since I was five. I think it's an utterly absurd circumstance and can't imagine why things have to be that way---but such they are.

8. There seemed to be a theme between love/pain of writing and physical love. Can you elaborate?
It gets worse in _The Adventurous_. I don't know what to say about that, really, but I'll make some noise here now that if I'm lucky may sound like I'm "answering." While I can imagine people loving only with their eyes or their hands or their noses, for me beauty has to do with the truth a person articulates through their language, and that language is frequently not syntactic language. When most of us try to say who we are, we become ridiculous, linguistically speaking. This is part of my concern: syntactic language can be so stultifying to the location of beauty in language, and it's also (in a post-orality world) the primary means of attempts to be beautiful (to love/be loved). I hope there's enough noise in that for you. It's funny how you can set out to exploit what language is capable of when it's released (unpinned) from syntax---and then end up unable to say, syntactically, what about that is so fabulous.

9. Is there anything you would like us to tell the class about the book?
I tell you all this: no matter what you think of it, I thank you greatly for reading it. Please thank your professor for putting it before you.

-Erin Brady, Kelly Maus, Joan Corcoran and Becky Slinger

Accidental Species

2008-02-05T08:08:00.000-05:00

I absolutely loved this book. The first section I was so motivated that I whipped out my binder and started looking up words and images that I didn't know and wrote them down in order to better understand the hodge-podge of words in the first chapter. I think the usage of the varied sentence structure and word placement serves to create the feeling of the words just washing over you; the end result is that the details both enhance and push you away, like waves. In particular, I loved the repetition of the phrase, "on the day the space shuttle flew overhead," and its changing in order to reflect the sexual nature of each stanza. I never knew sexual inuendos could be so cleverly hidden and yet obvious at the same time, but Kass Fleisher manages to do it with style.

Throughout the rest of the book, she captivates using varying structure of her sentences and seemingly random word choices in order to create an overall meaning. One of my favorite parts was when she somewhat mocks the traditional structure of a novel, saying: "In the beginning-- she said, relinquishing herself to our cultural need to establish endpoints and origins over and over... (Fleisher 47)" It is in this manner that she continues to question and ridicule a traditional and accepted form of the novel and creates her own version in a book that I thought was amazing and thought-provoking.

Merry, Not So Contrary

2008-01-29T16:56:00.000-05:00

I absolutely loved this book! Merry is the girl that lingers inside of each and every one of us, trying to get out- a dark shadow of misery and resentment and manipulation. I love the relationships within her family that Bernheimer set up. Merry's denial of her misery is what proves this novel so amazing and made it such a page-turner for me.

The Complete Tales of Merry Gold

2008-01-29T16:22:00.001-05:00

I love love love this book. Yes, triple love. To me, Merry is the dark side in us all. She is selfish, and cocky, mean and manipulative, alcoholic and self hating. In a way she's the tragic hero. Despite her character flaws and sociopathic tendencies I couldn't help rooting for her. Maybe it was our joint love of vodka and sarcastic judgement of others, but I felt connected to the character in the sense of being able to fully picture her and her motivations in my mind. I kept imagining this wonderful Tim Burton inspired character. A little girl with pig tails and black bows who goes around causing havoc. The evil Eloise if you will. I absolutely loved her description of the the joggers and their running suits indicating, " I am a member of Team Loser." She has such a wicked wit, that I both admire and love.
On a structure note, I found the lack of chronological order to fit perfectly with the story. Bernheimer jumps back and forth between POV as well as Merry's childhood and adulthood, crafting an intricate "pattern" of story. At first I found this frustrating as their was little footing for the story but as soon as I let go of attempting to make sense, I easily jumped back and forth throughout Merry's life. I think this fits nicely with the rhythm of Merry's emotions throughout the novel. She goes from elated to depressed and back up several times throughout the course of the book. This peak and collapse pattern conveys the confusion of the story further as well as the unraveling of Merry's life.

Themes in Merry Gold

2008-01-29T13:05:00.000-05:00

First of all, the more I read this book, the more that I like it. I thought it mixed the thought-provoking darkness of the Brothers Grimm with a modern, alcoholic twist. Merry Gold is an extremely frustrating character who I just wanted to move in a positive direction with her life. Then I realized that Merry is exactly the kind of person who does not have a forward or backward progression, but rather just goes in circles of happiness and being forlorn, with many adventures in between. At one point in the novel, Merry literally runs herself in circles to prove to her sister that she prefers making patterns to fitting in. Merry exclaims, "'Don't I have cause enough to make patterns?' I would ask her. 'I've collapsed on a sidewalk, woken up in a hospital, and now been sent here to live with you. I can't even scald my own fingers (Merry Gold 94).'" Merry cannot fit into regular society, so she weaves her own world both physically and in the fabric that she sews. At the end, I wouldn't say she was necessarily content, but she seems intrigued by all the fantastical elements in her own life. It was these images of her hanging herself by a shoestring, or being turned into a flower that brought her world to life for me.

One of the other major themes I noticed was the use of animals. When we asked Kate what the animals were used for, she mentioned the prevalence of them in most fairy tales. Looking back through the book, I found even more mentions of them, simply in descriptions such as "she had eyes like a snake." Or, more noticably, Merry can talk to mice and sews shirts for frogs. It is this connection to the wild world that makes this novel a true fairy tale; most humans do not associate daily with animals, let alone sew clothing for them or talk to them. I think Kate points out a loss our society has suffered in our rejection of animal contact and even when Merry cannot find happiness among humans, she at least finds satisfaction with her animal friends.

Three, Three, Three

2008-01-29T02:23:00.000-05:00

Through out the second half of "The Complete Tales of Merry Gold" I noticed Bernherimer used a sequence of three items. It first appears on page 62 "Out of my window, I watch their mother prepare the dirt for some plantings. She appears to have bought some flats of daisies, marigolds, pansies." This is obviously a play on words of marigolds= Merry; pansies= Ketzia; and daisies= Lucy. Another instance is on page 80 when Merry is talking about her two friends from Design School, Semyon and Tibor. "Tibor made some infants' caps by decapitating stuffed animals and gutting them: monkeys, lions, and dogs." The next instance is on page 87, "The second and third day the child came and went again." Next on page 91, "When I was a very young child, I would wake my dolls up, three-in-a-row in their pink dollhouse bedroom." Bernherimer continues this sequence of three on the next page "I would line up three outfits in three different sizes, on three little chairs in their room; I myself sewed these outfits." Page 93, "I had a big pile of clothes I had made for class and would wear everything: woolen pants, knitted sweaters, furry caps." These are just a few examples of the usage of the sequence of three.

What's so special about the number three? I looked up the number three on wikipedia (So I know it may not be the most "accurate" source of information, but it's nicely organized) and it said that there are three Greek and Roman gods, one each ruling, Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld. It is often believed that people die in threes (this only impacts the people you interact with on a day-to-day basis). So what does this have to do with the book? WELL, that is a good question. I think that the definitions I listed above can be related to the text because in a way, Merry Gold, is the ruler of the underworld- she is constantly talking up a good game and is a bully. Ketzia is the ruler of the earth, always doing as others tell her, especially Merry Gold. Lucy is the ruler of the Heaven because Merry Gold and Lucy get along better than Merry Gold and Ketzia, she agrees to play the games with Merry Gold.

As far as the definition of people dieing in threes and how this relates to the text... hmmm... um, I'm not sure about how this relates to the text, I guess I just thought it was an interesting random fact.

The Avant Savant gets kinky...

2008-01-29T01:38:00.000-05:00

New book. And so comes the habitual google. I was directed to many a blogs and an interesting theory approached my periphery of literary analysis. And in the fog of the googling blog arose The Page 69 Test. or sometimes traded in for the The Page 99 Test. For discussion purposes, we shall gold star the original school of thought: The Page 69 Test.

It's as simple as a pie, unless you are Keri Russell.

One book determined on one single, solitary page.

Whiz threw through the pages like a whisper through a batch of marigolds, and we are now on the determinant page 69 and all of discussion will rely solely on this one page. Revolutionary? Revolutionarily lazy?

However, I think this is trusty barometer. I love this book and I love page 69. It is smack-dab in the middle of my favorite chapter of the piece and it is build-up to some of my favorite lines:
"I remember being exhausted. I remember seeing my face stare back at me from the black window. I remember the shiver of the cold on my spine. Sometimes snow would blow into the room and cover our bodies."

Wonderous. Her writing is as meticulous as Merry Gold, the seamstress. There is a lot to be explored in the straddling page 69. With just the quote above, it brings many themes present throughout the text. The parallel structure of three is utilized throughout. Kathleen, I know has touched upon the whole concept of the grouping of three. These three lines of four show the make-up of the three. While life usually moves in three, the make-up is not entirely connected. As the first two lines proceed the "I remember" with -ing verbs and the third one proceeds with a noun. Even within the simple syntax of the middle of the page 69 demonstrates a faulty and phony bond that Merry Gold aches about whether it be with her parents, her sisters or her two best friends. She may feel a place and an order at one point, but she will always disappear from this equation, usually from her own nature to distance herself from the constantly evolving world around her [she wants to immobilize herself (the whole talk of cutting off her legs on page 92 and her fascination with the wooden-leg neighbor)].

Another element to explore within this page is the concept of color. Like autobiography, it is purposeful. We are told later on and maybe before I cannot place at the moment that Merry revels in the grey area, but many times she must encounter stark colors to that--many times it is the color of black and white, marrying the hueful extremes to mate grey. There is black in this scene with Danilo and then it contrasted with the white girl in the white dress who falls through the white ice. Leaving as always Merry Gold in the dichotomy, in the grey. The grey slithers throughout the piece. We usually, through nurtured connotation, perceive the colors in an inanimate sense; black as evil and white as pure. The grey is the slime we see coating Merry and her intimate interactions with men. Danilo is a creeper, how cavalier is he with making her a puppet, making her dance and engaging in something as so innocent of having Merry place her head on his shoulder. The actions contrast in the underbelly of emotion. It's a simple act, convoluted in the "narrowed eyes" of these hard characters like Merry and Danilo.

Oh gosh, there is so much. Questions to be had on this page: why is Merry (cold rhymes with gold ever notice that, came up with that right now--has to be purpose too since coldness is always what she is) Gold, with a name reminiscent of the flower, always compared to animals and insects and flowers? Is there purpose to her eating the leg of the chicked, as leg has been a focal point before?

Look one page and I am writing a novel. yet. a. gain.

Brilliant job Kate; you passed The Page 69 Test. This book is a gem--and with a glimmer in the cold light--a eerily-warm beauty.

Merry Gold

2008-01-28T22:32:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed this novel, especially chapter 23 "Merry Comes Back". I think that the trees being fake, the daughters having to straighten their curly hair, and her restlessness in her childhood bedroom showed how Merry feels about her life and the unfillfulment in it. I felt compassion and anger for Merry Gold as she tried to find happiness, only for her evil ways to get the best of her.

2008-01-28T22:06:00.001-05:00

I thought this book was brilliant! Bernheimer is completely honest about the thoughts of an older sister. Though Merry appears to be malicious in her actions (especially toward Ketzia) I think all of us who have sisters or close cousins have done mean things to them which we regret or put in the back of our minds. I absolutely loved the mention of the "Triple C" children's clothing and Merry's fascination and knowledge of various flowers. I would like to know which fairy tale this book most resembles? I thought it was sort of similiar to the three wicked stepsisters (Merry being one of them) and Ketzia being Cinderella? Anyway, just an idea.

Merry Gold

2008-01-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

I thought this book was fantastic, once I got past Merry's evil ways. In any case, when a young girl is cutting of the legs of dolls and cutting off her sister's hair; one begins to question her stability. But actually it caught my eye right from the start when she had the Vodka, I knew there would be more to that tale to come. I think Merry persuaded me to dislike Ketzia after a while because she was so weak and Merry so strong. But it is so real because I sometimes see my self as Ketzia, and my older siblings as milder versions of Merry. I don't think Merry ever had total control of her own life, and for that reason, she always ended up with Vodka as her only way out. And so just as the many characters from fairy tales, she probably wished that she could disappear several times. I think the fact that Peter neglected her from the beggining, she thought that she would never be loved, and so it didn't matter whether she was nice to anyone, or formed any meaningful relationships. She had no where to go and nothing to do, but be a misfit to get some sort of attention. I think her ballad tells all, "she was unrecognized...and so Merry turned away"

Interview with Kate Bernheimer

2008-01-24T18:19:00.000-05:00

1. What is the significance of using titles for only some chapters? Is there a pattern that we could not find?

The chapters that are titled are based on the fairy tales listed at the front of the book; so only the chapters that are based on specific fairy tales have titles. Many of the titles themselves are based on the traditional fairy-tale titles.

2. As a reader who is unfamiliar with the particular fairy tales that parts of the novel are based off of, is my understanding of the text lacking in some way? Am I missing some links to the novel? Is my understanding compromised due to my lack of knowledge in this particular genre??

I hope that the opposite is true. I hope that the novel offers a sense of familiarity with the unfamiliar; that is I hope that one way to understand the novel would be through an intuitive reading. To encourage intuition, as with all the novels in this series, I carefully selected tales which I assumed most readers would not know, and with which I myself was not as familiar with from my childhood. I do this for many reasons, but one of the most basic reasons is that I want to sidestep the reflexive associations that I, and readers, might have with the more well-known stories. I do not assume that readers have any specialized knowledge in fairy tales, and I certainly hope that the books are easily comprehensible without any such knowledge. That said, a reader who has an awareness of the tropes and history of fairy tales might glean different things from the book than a reader who only knows fairy tales as a faint and familiar memory from childhood, or from popular versions. I hope neither reader is compromised by the incompleteness of each of these books; if you sense missing links, it is probably because Merry herself is missing links in her own story. The novel is, in part, about the implicit failure of personal narrative to tell a whole story. There is no whole story, and that's sad.

3. What is your intention with using animal imagery throughout the novel?

Well, I love animals. So that's the simple answer, but animals, of course, are very important in fairy tales; neither toad nor snake, bear nor hedgehog, is lower than a human on any scale of earthly significance. The culture in which we live, by which I mean 21st century American culture---provides little contact between humans and other species, unless you count the giant cockroaches with whom I am now intimately familiar down here in the South. I lament that distance between humans and other animals, and I populate my novels with many creatures out of adoration and longing. I would say the same reason exists for why I use many plants in my novels.

4. What is Merry's obsession with amputation about? What is this based on? Could it perhaps be symbolic of her desire for power?

That is an interesting interpretation of Merry's obsession with amputation, that is is symbolic of a desire for power. Because I don't have very much philosophical distance from my characters, it is hard for me to objectify them enough to know the answer to questions like this; I inhabit the characters in a very deep abstract and emotional way, so for me they don't exist as symbols, but as realities. Merry is obsessed with amputation because she is obsessed with amputation is what first comes to mind when that quetsion is posed to me and I'm surprised, but it is posed to me a lot. I think her interest in missing limbs has a lot to do with fear and powerlessness, her sense of herself as missing some significant part of herself, which she is. She lacks empathy (though I could also read her as deeply empathetic, to the degree she cares enough about people in the end to keep herself away from them). She lacks memory, she doesn't know what happened to her in childhood. She lacks knowledge: she doesn't know why she is how she is.

5. As the author, which of Merry's frustrations, characteristics, or experiences can you most identify with?

As the author, I identify with, i.e. am deeply interested in, i.e. am intellectually and emotionally invested in, all of her frustrations, characteristics, and experiences, and the conclusions I draw from them about the human experience. Obviously, I consider the contemporary human experience, in the industrialized and developed world, to be rather problematic. As to her specific failures and predicaments, they are all things I have experienced, whether in my imagination or elsewhere.

6. How did you select the name Merry, particularly this spelling of the name?

I knew her name from the moment I began The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold, the first novel I wrote in this particular series. The names just came to me, by which I don't mean to imply anything mystical. I was quite pleased when I realized Merry's name was Merry; Merry Gold, of course, invokes Marigold, and that made me glad.

7. How and why did you select the images you did? (We loved them, by the way!)??

Thank you so much! I work painstakingly on selecting the images, on Merry's behalf. There is intuition at work. I know that I want to depict certain feelings with the illustrations. I select illustrations that feel special to me, and that come out of instances in the novels where I feel a rising out of the novel of an idea just as in a fairy-tale book, the illustrations depict not necessarily the character who is the main character, but maybe a wee rat in a corner of the tale, glowering out. So in the chapter where Merry lives briefly with her little sister, Lucy, and starts hearing things, in partiuclar mice talking to her, the image I chose is from NASA, a photograph of a spiral galaxy that some scientists thought looked like a mouse. I wanted the image to have a cosmological feel, but also reflect Merry's particular brand of madness; she's a girl who hears mice talking, so of course she'd love (as I did) that a galaxy might resemble a mouse, and also that scientists might think so. In Merry's world, that would provide some proof that she was not insane: See? Even scientists recognize in mice the meaning of the universe! There are certain images that will appear in each novel in this series; each book contains a Halloween picture of the character herself, for example. I have coded reasons for this, one of which is that the books are about female disguise.

8. Why do shifts occur in POV throughout the novel? Do the shifts have to do with Merry's emotional involvement in a particular scene/story/fairytale? (For instance, is first person used for the more involved fairy tales?)??

The books are in part designed to invoke the multiplicity of a fairy-tale collection; there are the tales, but there is always also the spectre of the editor or translator who collected the tales, and then there is the illustrator, and the book designer, and so on. Fairy-tale books are objects in themselves---a fairy-tale collection is not generally remembered only as text, i.e. as just words making stories. This is Merry's collection, edited by her, in a sense. The chapters with the titles are the chapters based on fairy tales; those chapters are told in the first person, as they are Merry directly narrating events of her life through a fairy tale lens. The chapters that are in third-person illustrate a particular moment in time through a more distant historical lens. The first-person chapters narrated by the seamstress are meditations on time and story, more reflective, less experienced than the fairy-tale chapters. Then there are the pictures, and the reprinted fairy tales; these are hand-selected by Merry for the book.

9. What is your inspiration for writing, studying, and supporting the fairy tale genre?

I consider fairy tales to be of tantamount literary importance---perhaps the single most influential body of work on hundreds of years of literature. I also think fairy tales contain the secret of the world, which is that it is violent, insane, beautiful, transient, fated, and almost gone (and so ever-after). It seems to me that while our culture reveres fairy tales recycling their motifs and tropes again and again it fails to recognize their deeply transformative power. As an academic, I find now that many of my beloved colleagues have little awareness of the scholarship being done about fairy tales, which of course is a deeply felt effort to preserve and celebrate this intricate, political tradition. So as a novelist, children's book author, editor, and occasional creative scholar, I seek to celebrate the genre in every way that I possibly can. Fairy tales might survive the great reading decline, if I have my way.

--END INTERVIEW--

Red

2008-01-23T17:44:00.000-05:00

It definitely took a stretch of my mind to wrap my head around the Autobiography of Red; however, once I got past that, it was good. The fact that color was not a visual, but yet a sound, kept me very interested. To know that the blackness of the night could be heard, was eerie, but so intriguing. And even the gold that shined so brightly in happy moments, showed a very nice use of color. Beyond that, the relationships spoke volumes to me. How that the smoking of Geryon's mother affected him directly, was interesting. The fact that his lungs always hurt so much, yet she was the smoker, was awesome. It strikes me that the cover of the book wasn't red, but yet a plain picture of the volcano. I think Geryon was truly trying to find himself throughout this book, and as he erupted and things did not work out for the best between him and Herakles, he moves into a new stage through his photography. He always liked the night, disappearing, and the overcoat to hide him. He takes a rather striking photo that I can picture of the man curled up in fetal position (himself), and I see that he blooms throughout the book. Though the pain he was to take from his bother, his lover, and the world; shaped him to a beautiful man, from an ugly monster. It's true that the journey is sometimes necessary!

Autobiography of Red

2008-01-23T00:49:00.000-05:00

As I've said before, (and those of you who have read my own personal writing can attest) I don't do deep and ambiguous well. I have a hard time taking writers seriously who think putting four words and a semi colon on a page is a story. I like words, lots of words; to me brevity is not an enticing story teller. That being said, I have to hand it to Carson. I think she did a pretty impressive job creating an intriguing story through short verse. It was amazing reading it and thinking "I don't know what the hell is going on," yet finding myself turning the page regardless because on some level, despite the lack of context clues, I was intrigued by what was next. I understood just enough to keep reading and to, in a way, fill in the details myself. That is not to say Carson lacks details. What is ironic about her style is that every page is filled with detail, just not in a concrete sense of the tool. Beautiful imagery and descriptions are used to evoke emotion as well as character struggle but as far as setting-time, place, galaxy etc. the content was purposefully vague. It was a weird dichotomy of exactness and estimation all at once. I could see what she was saying I just couldn't for the life of me place it anywhere. Again, this both irritated and intrigued me. I found myself fighting the logic of putting clues together in an attempt to "figure it out" as I progressed further into the novel. By the end, I just had to come to the conclusion that it's not suppose to add up. The fact that monsters wear T shirts and have sex and for the most part live in a world not unlike ours, was a bit hard to picture but easier than I thought to accept once I made up my mind to let go.

Autobiography of Red

2008-01-23T00:18:00.000-05:00

The style used in Autobiography of Red made the work challenging to read through yet was refreshing in that it is a style I have never seen used in any other work. Coupled with the unique lines of verse was the curious character of Geryon. What first struck me about this work was how both the style and subject matter utilized such a strange menagerie of physical description, dialogue, and sequence of events. Had the work been written in a more traditional, prose format, I believe it would not have been as successful overall. Also, the lines of verse truncate events and thought processes, which adds to the ongoing curiosity generated by Geryon's unique qualities.
A scene that struck me as particularly peculiar was the scene early on where Geryon moves into his brother's room and soon engages in some type of incestual action with his brother. Little information of Geryon's brother is given as a lead up to this encounter, which makes the event profoundly perplexing. Also, Geryon's mother is an interesting character. The only time where I found clues at this "world" that Geryon is living in resembles reality is through description of Geryon's mother. This is illustrated on page 34 where his mother shares a conversation with a friend on the phone, which Geryon overhears as he sits nearby.
Overall, Anne Carson's work was enjoyable, yet makes me question what exactly she is trying to say in this work. It is incredibly imaginative, however, which is something I appreciate among modern writers. Perhaps closer reading or more commentary/context would relieve this confusion and allow me to see a fuller picture of Carson's creative intentions.

Anne Carson

2008-01-22T20:23:00.000-05:00

While I am an English Writing major and have always considered myself someone who loves reading, I have always been weary of nonconventional pieces such as Anne Carson's "Autobiography of Red". I guess I have always been intimidated by books that did not follow the standard patterns that I was introduced to when I was younger and so am very familiar with. I was really hoping that this course would introduce me to/force me to read books that differ from the forms that I am used to, and here I am getting this on our very first book!

I agree with a lot of you when I say that I really picked up (and this surprised me a bit) a large since of emotion from this book. I couldn't believe at first how much the character of Geryon struck me. Carson's writing is so universal that I was able to relate to this character in a way I didn't think was possible after discovering that he was a "winged red monster". Someone (I forget who) posted below and described her reaction to the book as a sort of "coming of age". I think that is a really intersting description for this book and it helps me see Geryon in a different light. Perhaps that is part of the reason why he is so relateable. Whether he is a winged monster or not, he is dealing with a lot of the emotions that we have either experienced ourselves, or read several other characters who have dealt with the same types of things.

Ann Carson

2008-01-22T18:48:00.000-05:00

Reading Ann Carson's "Autobiography of Red" was an interesting experience for someone who has only been exposed to conventional styles of writing. At first, it was difficult for me to get into the flow of the novel and see it as one continuous piece of writing. That said, I thought that the language she uses is exceptionally beautiful, and certain passages struck me as particularly significant in the way she uses words to represent ideas that don't necessarily go together. For example, on pg. 84 she says, "It was the year he began to wonder about the noise that colors make. Roses came roaring across the garden at him. He lay on his bed at night listening to the silver light of stars crashing against the window screen." I found that throughout the novel, Carson describes ordinary things and ordinary acts in ways that make them come alive.

Carson's Use of Sight

2008-01-22T18:45:00.000-05:00

Diving into this novel, I was also skeptical about the style in which Anne Carson chose to write Geryon's story. However, after the first few pages I was completely entranced by how she utilized descriptions in order for us, as readers, to experience Geryon's life.
Carson used her descriptions to emphasize Geryon's experience of the outside world particularly using the sense of sight. One thing I noticed about this novel was the small amount of verbal interaction between characters, most especially on the part of Geryon. It made me feel like I was looking at the world through a paper bag with only two holes for seeing all the while muffling my voice.
She successfully makes the reader feel Geryon's mental oppression while revealing much about other characters in Geryon's experiences.
Similar to the passage we read in class by Gertrude Stein, Carson wrote this novel in a form that lays out a mental process. It showed the observations that one would make through senses as well as the ability of the mind to jump from one thought to next without any progression.
I thoroughly enjoyed the way that Carson wrote this novel and would like to read some more of her works. It is extremely different from other novel types and more cleverly reveals the personality of the characters than other books I have read.

Autobiography of Red

2008-01-22T15:53:00.000-05:00

When I first began reading this book, I was slightly afraid that it was going to be a book where everything was strange simply in order to prove its right to be called "avant." Given the structure, translation of the past into modern, and the hints as homosexuality, this book had the option of giving into a stereotypical, avant novel. However, I thought it used subtle messaging and complex imagery to establish the nuances of its characters and a deep plotline. I really appreciated the fact that Carson approached difficult topics in confrontational, yet tactful manner.

Although it was alarming, I believe the scene between Geryon and his brother and the sexual abuse which happens, is pivotal in order to understand the rest of the novel and the development of Geryon himself. Without knowing all of his past, it would be impossible to put together a clear representation of who Geryon actually is. Also, I feel that society is more apt to veer away from a topic as controversial as child abuse, particularly since it was his brother who was abusing him.

Also, the unique structure of the book allowed for the meaning of red to come out within the book. Frustrated by his past and, I think, his repression of anger toward his brother and hidden homosexuality, Geryon is forced to literally see red at every turn. He reads about it, he looks it, and he talks about red throughout the entire novel. Without release, he is forced to live in a red world and conform to its standards. Also, I loved the usage of the one-liners at the beginning of each section because they set the mood for the words that were to come. My personal favorite was the line, "Under the seams runs the pain," because I believe it encompasses the entirety of the novel within its words. Geryon is a character to be pitied and has to suffer throughout the novel, with occasional bouts of happiness. However, all of this pain is "under the seams" and no one can access it or know about it except for Geryon.

Anne Carson

2008-01-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

After reading this book, all I can say is that I felt a true amount of sadness for the main character Geryon. I felt that he mostly wanted some type of love and meaning in his life, but was never given the ability to be understand who he was because of his environment. I felt that at the beginnging of the book, all Geryon wanted to do was love his brother and at the end, his brother ended up being the worst influence in his life. It was sad to be that as a young child he was constantly tormented of his lack of intellegence and his unwillingness to like his brother. For example, "Your stupid you can't tell time can you? How old are you anyway? What a jerk. Can you tie your own shoes yet? .....(30), and the torture continues thoughout the book. All I could do was just feel bad for Geryon, and hope that his situation would eventually change.

I felt that that the book was written in a way that at first it was hard to understand where it was going, but as I finished I began to really enjoy the structure and how it all came together. However, I was not too please with the sadness of the life of Geryon. Sure, it is suppose to be a book about the hardships of his life, but did it all have to be so sad? Why couldn't there have been more of a light at the end of the tunnel?

Emotion

2008-01-22T12:25:00.000-05:00

I believe that Anne Carson did an unbelievable job portraying emotion in her novel, "Autobiography of Red." Initially, we are introduced to Geryon as a shy, introspective child that yearned to find his place in the world. His brother proves to be depraved as he abuses Geryon, taking advantage of his innocence, and refusing to help him decipher the maze that was elementary school. Geryon's mother, although she loves him dearly, is removed from Geryon as she seems to be a lost soul, as smoke clouds her reality.
Geryon is troubled and alone. His idiosyncrasies prevent him from assimilating into society. The pain his brother inflicted upon him both mentally and physically, prevents Geryon from maintaining the natural urge to socialize. "He lay very straight in the fantastic temperatures of the red pulse as it sank away and he thought about the difference between inside and outside. Inside is mine, he thought."(page29)
Geryon seeks solace in a compassionate stranger that he meets at a bus stop to New Mexico, Herakles. Geryon falls in love with Herakles, as he proves to be different than any one Geryon had ever been exposed to. Yet, Herakles breaks his heart. Carson illustrates his state of unrest beautifully when he comes home from his stay with Herakles. Geryon laments that there has never been any fruit in his mother's fruit bowl. Consumed with emotion he begins to cry, which eventually ends in shared laughter with his mother. He is experiencing such conflicted emotion, and as a reader, I felt as though I was right there with him, sharing his pain.
I find it very interesting that the yellowbeard's topic for his dissertation was emotionlessness which parallels with Geryon's penchant for knowledge. Geryon is perpetually questioning the status quo, challenging time and space. He consistently asks, "What is time made of?" I found yellowbeard's answer both intelligent and thought-provoking. "Time isn't made of anything. It is an abstraction. Just a meaning that we impose upon motion." (page 90) I also think that Geryon was satisfied, but rather puzzled by this definitive answer.
When Geryon reunites with Herakles and Ancash, his relationship with Herakles is inevitably not the same, as it proves to be a little jaded. Geryon continues to take pictures that reveal the truth to him. He seems discouraged at times, and even notes to a passing llama that he will eventually amount to nothing. Yet, Geryon presses on for meaning. His depressive states do not hold him back from discovery. At the end of the novel we see that Ancash views Geryon as a person capable of great things, as he encourages Geryon to use his wings, to discover himself and the world around him.

Autobiography of Red -- A very quick intro to Avant Women Writers!

2008-01-22T12:22:00.000-05:00

As a new addition to the class, I'm quickly trying to catch up with the reading, so please excuse my brief comments on Anne Carson's book.
I had no idea what to expect as I picked up this book but I have been pleasantly surprised. Geryon, though quite a difficult character to identify with (as a young, male, red-winged monster), connected with me in ways I never anticipated. His tormented love story with Herakles is powerful and my absolute favorite part of the book is when they first meet as Herakles steps off of the city bus. Carson writes, "Herakles stepped off the bus from New Mexico and Geryon came fast around the corner of the platform and there it was one of those moments that is the opposite of blindness. The world poured back and forth between their eyes once or twice" (39). Though not really a traditional love story, I can't help but be attracted to the odd relationship these two form.

I think this is a book that needs to be re-read to really grasp its meaning. With every re-reading, the reader has a chance to grab something new from the text -- something relevant to life.

Confusing things: the significance of red in this book--obviously it is important, hence the title. Can anyone help me with this? Also, the monster thing -- is Geryon the only one who is a red winged monster? Are others monsters? Do people think it's weird? Does it even really matter?

Thanks! Happy to be a part of the class.
Sara

Universally unique

2008-01-22T10:29:00.000-05:00

First, I was pleasantly suprised at how much I ended up enjoying Carson's book. While there are a million different things to say about it, for the sake of not taking up too much blog space, I'll concentrate on a few for now. When I finished, one of the things that struck me most was how relatable, how universal, the story is despite its uniqueness. When it all comes down to it, the story began as a retelling of a myth from an unheard perspective, and it turns into a unique coming-of-age story about a character simply trying to find his place in the world, find his identity and hold onto it, become a "master" (so say the couple references to the gaucho pgs. 80 and 93) of his internal and external environment, both of which he is constantly questioning in a philosophical way. I think Geryon's curiousity about the world and his instinct to want to be able to control it is what makes him a relatable character (despite the fact that he is a red monster with wings =) ).
This is exaclty why I enjoy his hobby of photography. Photography is all about perspectives and angles (p. 65: "Photography is a way of playing with perceptual relationships"); it also has to do with control, which is why I think Geryon likes it. He can stop time (p. 93: "Much truer is the time that strays into photographs and stops.") in a way that conveys his individual interpretation of something, that is then preserved for someone else to look at and make their own individual interpretation- but the photograph began with what he saw. Note Steisichoros' comment in the interview: p. 147, "No I mean everything everyone saw everyone saw because I saw it...I was responsible for everyone's visibility." Part of Geryon's problem along the way is that he often sees the world from his "lens" only, and it takes the input of other characters to help him gain perspective and grow up, learning to appreciate life more and look at it from different ways.
Carson reflects the same kind of idea in her language. In particular, she describes the environment a lot in impossible terms but terms that convey clear moods and feelings and also offer a new perspective. (While I, too, marked a lot of the same favorite lines as you guys, this one here shows what I'm trying to say) On page 70, “Outside the natural world was enjoying a moment of total strength. Wind rushed over the ground like a sea and battered up into the corner of buildings, garbage cans went dashing down the alley after their souls.” It’s not just raining and windy out; garbage cans don’t just blow around- it’s a moment of empowerment and garbage cans have souls. It’s very abstract but at the same time offers a clear meaning (if that makes any sense- it's kind of paradoxical I guess). Other lines I liked that do the same type of thing: p. 44 “a sound of fishhooks scraping the bottom of the world”; p. 60 “Like the terrestrial crust of the earth which is proportionately ten times thinner than an eggshell, the skin of the soul is a miracle of mutual pleasures.”; p. 64 "it was like a handful of autumn.”; p. 84 “Four of the roses were on fire. They stood up straight and pure on the stalk, gripping the dark like prophets and howling colossal intimacies from the back of their fused throats.”; p. 108 “The sound was hot as a color inside”; p. 133 “The sky rushed open before them- bowl of gold where the last moments of sunset were exploding." Much like Geryon's photographs, Carson's descriptions, use of adjectives and similes, convey a thousand words and offer several different interpretations. This sort of multiplicity made the novel even more enjoyable I think.
Sorry, this is way longer than I planned, but the last thing I'll say is I really loved the intellectual/philisophical aspects of the book- the parts that deal with questions of time, space, and distance; questions such as "How does distance look?"; "What is time made of?"; or the conversations/thoughts about: the erotics of doubt and skepticism; "does a man with a harpoon go hungry?"; the limits of form and the importance of how you use it; reality is a sound you have to tune into; etc... I particularly liked this part when Geryon was on the plane to Buenos Aires: p. 80 “Outside a bitten moon rode fast over a tableland of snow. Staring at the vast black and silver nonworld moving and not moving incomprehensibly past the dangling fragment of humans he felt its indifference roar over his brain box.” “A man moves through time. It means nothing except that, like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.”

Anne Carson

2008-01-22T08:57:00.000-05:00

I've read one of Anne Carson's short stories before and I really liked it but this book was dramatically different in style and subject. Carson's descriptions were strong in language but I never really got a clear picture of the world Geryon lived in or what he looked like exactly. I also found that Carson language sometimes confused me even upon a second reading. I thought the book jumped around a bit too. I was never sure what year it was or how old Geryon was, but that might have been Carson's intention. The most confusing part of the book was the interview at the end that did not give any real answers so I was wondering why it was placed at the end. I would think something at the end would wrap things up for the reader and clarify the verse but I was further confused. While Carson's sometimes confusing writing in the book initially turned me off to the book, her beautiful descriptions kept me reading (besides the fact that I had to keep reading for class); i.e. "Then the rock silenced him. It pitched away on all sides utterly blank except for one crazed blackish unit of intraplate light bouncing from rock to rock as if looking for lost kin" (63).
-Becky Slinger

2008-01-22T00:49:00.000-05:00

I am a huge fan of Anne Carson. Upon opening the first page and reading the quote from Gertrude Stein, "I like the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as they have to do," I had shivers running down my spine. This book and I became fast friends; the sentences were dripping with strength from the voice of Anne. Although difficult to read, Carson paints a tremendous picture of Geryon's character and the troubled soul that is lurking inside of his monster body. I was confused at times and although I can interpret poetry pretty well, this was really difficult. I really enjoyed the mark of transition in character that Carson does when Geryon shifts into his creative realm.

The only thing is .... sorry if this is immature, but... er...Geryon and his stick- is he, a.. homosexual? Let me know. Sara G and I want to know.

Thinkings from your local Avant Savant...

2008-01-21T23:32:00.000-05:00

The beauty of avant writing is that the discussion is limitless--and also with its limits. Ok, let me recoil for one second. If avant writing was limitless piece of literature either this state of freedom reigns for one page or its entire text. But I suppose if the work's limitless was momentary state of freedom--flooding with numerous discussion--this state either had an unanticipated reason for such or it had nothing of the sort. If this state had a unanticipated reason that reason was Sara G and her post tonight or maybe her utter pretension and hamminess to imitate Ann Carson the reason was not that.

Alright. I had my fun. Carson's "Autobiography of Red," like every text we will luckily encounter this semester, it will take us for one real funky ride and Ann seems no reason to fight or begin this trend. With only reading one other text of this semester (that being Carol Maso's "Ava"), this is pretty much in a class of its own. As "each" shall be. In rudimentary glean, they can chalk up some comparison, but the divisions within the text are their apparent differences.

I don't want to go on for days and I am still in the process of a creative work for this piece--which Ann, you are making my fingers feed off your creative verve. Two things that struck me for my discussion is the concept of adjective (and the adjective RED in specific) and the integration and connection of the cigarette/smoke within this text. What is your own theory on the adjective? Carson describes this genre of word as "latches of being" as they "are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity." Adjectives ground nouns and verbs in purpose, specific, defiant purpose, no? But I was thinking, maybe, we are giving these bad boys too much clout. Adjectives muck a lot up no? Loaded, bloated, swollen adjectives muck a lot up no? The question is thus now: are they latches or are they leeches? Do these linguistically-inclined nomads have the right to have their own innate purpose and livelihood? Would hell be as foreboding of a being or even be a being with its simile of adjectives of "as the sun is high." What is your general verdict on the adjective? If Stesichoros undid and detached the adjective, why does Ann Carson latch on one singular adjective (RED) to Geryon (noun) and his world (another noun)?

Next on the agenda. The cigarette. This was a character all on its own. I just loooooved it. To me, in our concrete world and need to place validity in such concrete touch, material is a very personal thing to us humans and especially in our day and age. Page 40, VIII. Click section is a particularly good example where the cigarette and his mother are in sync with their discussion. The cigarette partakes in general discourse and reactive the the situation at hand as it experiences the ups and downs of their conversation. With the final punch of the line, the cig and mother puff up hard once more. The the next section following the character of the cigarette overwhelms her devotion to her sun as "she was not looking at him but past him as she stored the unlit cigarette in her front pocket." She knows she must quit and Geyron has accepted tolerance. Even once put away, it still has life. As they grapple with the concept of distance and its dependence on light, the light in thought is of that a match for the cigarette. The life of the cigarette demeans any deep philosophy out of the life around them. This may also lead itself to the dissatisfaction seen in Sex Question section. The mom has full attention on the cig not him, thus sex becomes his attention equivalence for the void his mother's neglect and probably from the ambiguous relationship with his brother. Whatcha all think?

This is a piece you have to work for but there is just some shots of loveliness that you can not deny. Some are:
they jumped forward on the back of the night.
up against another human being one's own procedures take on definition.
facts are bigger in the dark.
they recognized each other like italics.
the huge night moved overhead scattering drops of itself.

Some of my faves.

Random closing thoughts: Why does Carson precede the autobiography with a poem from Emily Dickinson? Why is Geyron living in a sedentary (or as constantly described motionless) world?

Ok, seriously. I'm out. Sorry for this bulky piece; I hope many have the same questions.
ciao ciao, Sara G.

2008-01-21T22:57:00.000-05:00

I really enjoyed "Autobiography of Red"; I found it really refreshing & interesting in style and structure, as well as in content. I thought it was really original, and its flow and style really got me. It totally kept me reading to the end. But I think I especially enjoyed its basis in Greek myth. I'm not sure how many people are familiar with Greek/Roman mythology, but I've always found it pretty engaging, so it was cool to see the myth of Geryon and the Tenth Labor of Herakles (aka Hercules) translated into this story and style. I appreciated the flipped protagonist-antagonist relationship (Geryon as the protag and Herakles as the antag)--it even gave the myth this cool new dimension--like it challenged a lot of other myths that I know. If Geryon could be the "good guy", then it's totally possible that the other "monsters" from mythology were too. Sort of a "there's two sides to every story" thing. I know that Carson's work was just loosely based on the myth, but her new "translation" was really what got my attention. As a writer, it opened up all these possibilities, since there are an infinate number of myths out there just begging for a retelling, an update--something like what Carson did for Geryon. Really cool. I'm glad I got to read this, and got inspired by it. I don't know that I could write in verse, but it's certainly something to strive for.

2008-01-21T21:13:00.001-05:00

As a reader, I felt that Anne Carson's book was carefully crafted, but missing a crucial section on being tempted by a female. Or did I miss something? (I know there was mention of his mother's breasts and the assistant librarian's daughter's foot.) Is the reader meant to believe that Geryon is indeed gay? Or that his sexual abuse as a very young boy by another male makes him believe that he is meant to be with men, since he became comfortable with the male intimacy early on. Even if Geryon tried engaging in romantic relationships with women, they probably would not work out because he is so sexually and emotionally confused. It was sad witnessing a sensitive young boy transform into a young man and continually be taken advantage of throughout his life by male "predators."

Volcano Symbol

2008-01-21T19:34:00.000-05:00

Anne Carson's style of writing is interesting and engaging. The story of Geryon and the monster within him was original. The style was difficult for me to get into due to the tradition i have with conventional styles. I thought the sexuality of Geryon and his relationship with Herakles was an interesting dynamic. I am wondering if his sexuality relates to the volcano symbolism in the story. I know it sounds naive of me but I wondering what the symbolic meaning of the volcano?

response

2008-01-21T14:20:00.000-05:00

I had a hard time with Stesichoros. Stesichoros did not seem to flow with Geryon's story. It seemed unnecessary and out of place. I would have enjoyed the novel more without beginning and ending it with Stesichoros.

I enjoyed that Geryon was a monster. It made his character more interesting and made him easier to relate to. I think everyone sees themselves as a monster at some point, alienated in some way (perhaps not as alienated as Geryon feels). I was happy for Geryon on page 144 in his conversation with Ancash:

"Geryon?
Yes.
There is one thing I want from you.
Tell me.
Want to see you use those wings."

Someone finally recognized that Geryon is not just unique, but special. He needed that compliment to give him confidence. I guess I just typically like stories with happy endings, and this ending made me think that Geryon was going to go places and become an exciting, independent, and confident little monster.

2008-01-21T14:14:00.000-05:00

I was first drawn into Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson's powerful descriptive imagery and her uses of the color red. I paid particular attention to the theme of subjectivity throughout the book and I think the story revolves around Geryon learning that things in the world can be interpreted differently by different people. Throughout the book he questions abstract things such as time and even concrete items like a fruit bowl. An exmaple of Geryon realizing that things in the world can be viewed differently by different people is when he attends the volcano with Herakles' grandmother. She finds the lava dome beautiful, while Geryon calls the scenery terrible rocks. With his realizations Geryon finds that it is true that, "There is no person without a world" (82). I think Geryon finds his identity in flying to the volcano to become an eyewitness and I enjoyed this new ending to the story.

Something I was interested in was the poem by Emily Dickinson that appears in the front of the book. This poem is also quoted in the section where Geryon flies to the volcano and alluded to in that section's title. Emily Dickinson is mentioned throughout the book and one of her poems is even the subject which Herakles and Ancash are studying. I was just wondering if anyone else had any insight to the significance of the poem and Emily Dickinson to the book overall.

Fragments and Comedy in Lists

2008-01-21T14:09:00.000-05:00

I really liked how Anne Carson blended poetry and prose into this story. I also liked how she took a mythic tale and put it in modern time. But, for me, the most interesting parts, and probably the most creative, were pgs. 9-14 and 18-20: the sections called "Fragments of Stesichoros" and the "Appendix C." In the "Fragments" section, there was no punctuation, rather a capital letter of a word in the middle of the sentence signified a new line/thought. In grade school we're taught that fragments are something to avoid, but in the creative world they're embraced. I thought pgs 18-20 were interesting how it was in a list format, making it easier to follow the story. I also thought this section was comical because of the continuing inner debating by the speaker. The way I heard this section in my head reminded me of a modern crime report.

Although my overall opinion of the book is still to be determined, I appreciate the research the author did to turn this mythic tale into a modern idea.

For my creative piece, I want to use a theme of this book that is about how the main character is red living in a black and white world, and the contrast that creates.

2008-01-21T11:24:00.000-05:00

I enjoyed our first trek into the avant-garde. Since the novel was written in verse it seemed to jump through space and time easily without having to explain the transitions. The novel was also void of the "unnecessary" and we were left with the raw story of a young man's life. This form worked well for me for the most part, but there were a few times when I would have liked to know more or have stayed in the scene for a little longer.

I also thought that turning the original story into a romance between the two young men was an interesting idea. Another thing that caught my attention was that no one seemed to notice much that Geryon was red, but were surprised when they found out he had wings.

when/how did plot events develop?

2008-01-20T19:25:00.000-05:00

in my reading of Anne Carson's, Autobiography of Red, I kept returning to this question: when/how did plot events develop?

what do i mean? well, sometimes in my own writing i will have a particular plan in mind for a piece of work. i'll have the major plot events mapped out (to some extent), and i feel rather in control of the work. other times, i like to begin with just the beginning and see where the initial idea takes me. i feel less in control of a piece of work when this is the case, but inot necessarily in a negative way. both patterns have worked for me @ one time or another; they are just differnent systems, i suppose.

while reading Carson's book, i kept wondering when and how she decideed to make particular shifts in the plot or to develop new events? a huge example of this begins on page 125, XXXVII. EYEWITNESS. did Carson plan all of the preceding plot events after selecting this particular group of events? or did this event-- Geryon finding out about his origin-- stem from the rest of the plot events?

(hope this makes sense. its not really a question, more so a comment, i realize this. but did anyone else have questions similar to mine? in your own writing to you have a style or a pattern for developing plot ideas?)

Syllabus

2008-01-13T15:04:00.000-05:00

Avant Women Writers: A Conversation
ENLT 390

Required Texts:
Kate Bernheimer, The Complete Tales Of Merry Gold
Jenny Boully, The Body
Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
Thalia Field, ULULU
Kass Fleisher, Accidental Species: A Reproduction
Christine Hume, Alaskaphrenia
Stacey Levine, Frances Johnson
Carole Maso, AVA
Joyelle McSweeney, Nylund, The Sacographer
Selah Saterstrom, The Pink Institution

Hyper-texts available on-line:
Debra DiBlasi, Jiri Cech
Shelley Jackson, My Body
Stephanie Strickland, Vniverse

(Strongly) Recommended Texts:
Catherine Kasper, Field Stone
Vanessa Place, Dies: A Sentence
Lidia Yuknavitch, Reel to Real
Debra di Blasi, The Real Chronicles of Jiri Cech

Course Description: Unlike many English literature courses, which tend to focus on the "dead, white male," this class flips the old paradigm for something new: female writers who push the limits of writing as an art form who are still alive and kicking and writing and challenging! This course invites the conversation between reader, text, and writer to emerge as a new "possibility-space" for the study of literature. Students will engage in active dialogues with these avant women writers through author interviews and blog participation. It is through this interaction that we can learn how and why these women are "avant," why they do not submit to the status quo but struggle against it fiercely. We will be exploring texts by and conversing with writers such as: Anne Carson, Shelley Jackson, Carole Maso, Stephanie Strickland, Kate Bernheimer, and Lidia Yuknavitch.

Course Requirements: This is not your ordinary literature course. For one, this will be a very reading intensive course, but more importantly, the goal for this course is INTERACTION and CONVERSATION! Every writer that we will read this semester has agreed to correspond with the class as a whole, and through this dialogue, I hope to form a conversation between you (the reader) and the writer and the text.
Students will break into small groups for presentations of author interviews. Even if you are not in a group that is presenting a certain author, you are more than welcome to contact them. In fact, they welcome it! Each group will present two authors/books.
Within 48 hours of the presentation, the group must post the notes from the conversation with the author on-line on our class blog. In addition to the transcription of the text, group members are expected to respond to the ways in which the conversations have changed your view of the text. Keep in mind, conversation is meant in the broadest manner here. Conversations may be between: you and the text, you and the writer, the text and the writer, the class discussion, or even the dialogue between your reading of the text and your own creative writing.

Students will submit a creative response for each class.

In lieu of a final exam, you will be required to write an 8-10 page research or analytical essay based on these or other “avant” texts.

Grading: Your grade will be calculated as follows:
Creative responses: 30%
Group presentations: 25%
Final essay: 15%
Participation (both in-class & blog): 30%

Creative Responses: Rather than require you all to write response essays or journals, instead, I would like for you all to respond to each of the readings that you are NOT presenting on with a creative project of some kind. This can range from, but is not exclusive to, a short story or poem to a painting to a mix cd to fabrics. If you’re uncomfortable doing a creative response, you’re welcome to write a 2-4 page analytical essay on the text as long as it is NOT a book report!

Conversing with your Community: Because I believe it is absolutely important to have a knowledge of and support for community arts, in order to receive an A in this course, you MUST attend THREE community arts events (poetry readings, plays, art openings, etc.) and write a short response to each. Think of this as another method of conversation.

COURSE CALENDAR
This calendar is subject to revision.

Jan. 15 Introductions & definitions: Our first conversation
Why only women?: Our second conversation
How did we get here?
Divide into groups; set presentation calendars

Jan. 22 CLASS CANCELLED: reschedule?
In lieu of class, we will be discussing Carson’s Autobiography of Red on the blog. Each student must post once and comment on someone else’s post.
Carson, Autobiography of Red, (We’ll also discuss Carson on Jan. 29 so don’t fret.)

Jan. 29 Bernheimer, The Complete Tales of Merry Gold

Feb. 5 Levine, Frances Johnson

Feb. 12 Boully, The Body

Feb. 19 Maso, AVA

Feb. 26 Yuknavitch, Reel to Real, selected stories
selection from Place, Dies

Mar. 4 SPRING BREAK!

Mar. 11 Field, ULULU

Mar. 18 Fleisher, Accidental Species

Mar. 25 McSweeney, Nylund, The Sarcographer

Apr. 1 Strickland, Vniverse
Jackson, My Body
DiBlasi, Jiri Cech

Apr. 8 Hume, Alaskaphrenia
Kasper, selection

Apr. 15 Class cancelled for Notre Dame’s A Festival of Our Own.

Apr. 22 Saterstrom, The Pink Institution

Apr. 29 Last day of class

An Introduction

2007-11-29T11:43:00.001-05:00

Welcome to Avant-Women Writers: A Conversation.

This space is set up for open dialogue between readers, texts, and writers, in conjunction with a course I'm teaching at Saint Mary's College next spring called, you guessed it, Avant-Women Writers.

Here's the course description: Unlike many English literature courses, which tend to focus on the "dead, white male," this class flips the old paradigm for something new: female writers who push the limits of writing as an art form who are still alive and kicking and writing and challenging! This course invites the conversation between reader, text, and writer to emerge as a new "possibility-space" for the study of literature. Students will engage in active dialogues with these avant women writers through author interviews and blog participation. It is through this interaction that we can learn how and why these women are "avant," why they do not submit to the status quo but struggle against it fiercely.

Welcome to everybody! I hope you linger, post, comment, and play here long after the semester ends.