Tag Archives: links

03/09/2012 · 12:50 pm

Monday Linkage

Monday! September! Perhaps you are waking up blurry and vampire for coffee. Perhaps it’s the afternoon where you are, but you’d rather be reading. I have some links you might like, at any rate a small break from whatever you’re doing, or not:

 

12 of the most beautiful literary journals online (PANK is here! But many others which I was only tangentially aware). Paper Darts and Metazen look fabulous, I think.

 

An analysis of colour and whiteness in The Great Gatsby by Jo Dingley of Canongate Books (and the start of her new blog, Not Writing My Novel – which I shall be reading with interest)

 

This incredible long poem by Anne Carson, on Emily Bronte, a mother-daughter relationship, a moorland, a broken heart and many other things besides, entitled  ‘The Glass Essay‘

 

An interview with the translator of Clarice Lispector’s A Breath of Life, which I must, must read (as is the case with all Clarice Lispector’s novels)

 

And lastly, something light on Tin House’s blog ‘5 1/2 writers under 11‘.

A sample:

 

“Andrea Wexler (Age 0): Andrea Wexler may only be an infant, but the literary community is already abuzz with this wunderkind’s ability to place lettered blocks in her mouth with a dexterity that The New York Times has called, “breathtaking.” Conceived at Yaddo, Wexler was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship as an embryo and later went on to receive a MacArthur Fetus Grant. She is presently a lecturer in residence at Columbia University, where students and faculty are all anxiously awaiting her first word.”

 

Any gems you’ve discovered? Please share!

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27/03/2012 · 1:58 pm

Sunblind, Newsladen

One last image from by the falls of the Clyde. I haven’t had time to take pictures of the glorious sunshine here today, only time to be blinded by it on making my way to the local gym. I’d forgotten my sunglasses, and really regretted it.  Pale eyes used to low winter sun and many cloudy days, exposed to a shock of brightness. Spring, all at once, kicking the old season back before even most trees have budded.

I’m not going to ramble about the weather – as much as I’d like to – but to share some news. My agent, the lovely Drea Cohane is jetting off shortly for London for the Book Fair and from there to Edinburgh, where I’ll get to meet her for a second time. Of course she’s not just coming to have a wee catch up with me, but to chat with people at Canongate Press. For those of you don’t know them, they are a well regarded Scottish publisher who just so happened to pick up Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope right before the author suddenly became quite famous.

They also published M.J Hyland, who wrote the excellent How The Light Gets In. I mention her because of an incident in which C, M.J Hyland and I tried to go bowling, and failed, and had some tea and interesting chat instead. That was the only time I met her, much to my regret, as she was fascinating (you hope for that from all the writers whose work you enjoy, but I’m not sure it’s the case). Anyway, back to the present  – I’m glad to see Drea making further contacts, and look forward to taking her to Edinburgh’s only Vietnamese restaurant when she gets in, around mid April.

The other piece of news I have is quite unexpected and wonderful. I’ve been asked to contribute book reviews for PANK’s blog! This came about after I saw that Roxane Gay, on htmlgiant, was giving away free books, and being a poor and bookhungry sort, I jumped at the chance. This lead to an email exchange, and to the very kind offer. I’m a little nervous, to be honest – hoping that my review will be up to the caliber of other reviews on PANK.

If you don’t know the site you should try to check it out. Aside from publishing short and longer fiction and poems and reviewing books, they run a great series called ‘ask the author’ where an author is asked questions based on the poetry or prose of theirs that Pank has published. A zany alternative to drier ‘where do you get your ideas’ interviews. As ever I’ll be putting links up here (provided all goes well) as and when reviews come out.

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19/02/2012 · 9:25 pm

Brief flight/ to read more poetry

Red Cardinal, Central Park

“A washed corpse, the body of rain-drenched trees

That below my window darkens further. In

Rememberance. Grave blankets of dusk over it.

Cold sheet of mist over it. Death a bird shadow

On the sill. This is the plot of my consideration.

The copse below my window, the small wood

Without an oracle, with no significant episode.

It is a hand’s breadth. It is a small ache.

The hand knocks at the window. The window opens.

The smell of wetted dirt and wild fruit steps

Up.

[…]

If you stand above woods the tree

Is one. It is many, if you walk below. Many,

If you step past the stations of your thought

And number your steps. Smaller and smaller.

The faculty of expansion decreasing. The faculty

Of breath decreasing. The rain withdrawing

With a whistling hush.”

 

Two extracts from ‘Past the Stations’ by Brigit Pegeen Kelly – from her book, Song.

 

Further – this, and this (the book of which I will be receiving as a bonus for subscribing to Hobart late at night, and having a fine talk about whisky and bourbon with Hobart on Tumblr.

 

And, if you’d like more, there is also this. Where I would one day like to go and stay in the house of the future, listening to the waves rasp the black rocks while I type. Or while on the shore I try thinking of poems that are worthy of the rocks.

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