Prufrock

 

Putting this here so that I can show it to a class.

 

Glenn Goldman

So sorry to hear this.  From Book Soup, an announcement of the death of the store’s founder, Glenn Goldman:

We are proud to honor his memory by doing the thing he loved most: selling good books to good people.

LA Times obituary and appreciation here.  Apparently the store will be sold.

 

Inaugural Poet

It’s not news anymore that the wonderful Elizabeth Alexander will read a poem at Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20.  But today the New York Times has the scoop on what the inaugural poet will wear: an ensemble by a New York designer, b. michael.  A spokesperson told the Times via e-mail:

“It has been said of Elizabeth Alexander her ‘poems bristle with the irresistible quality of a world seen fresh’ and also her ‘instinct for turning her profound cultural vision into one that illuminates universal experience.’ This is b. michael’s inspiration for the tone.”

While the prose could be smoothed out a little, I’m utterly charmed by the idea of the clothing designer taking inspiration from qualities of EA’s work (at least as described by Rita Dove and Clarence Major).

(Elizabeth has agreed to return to the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference in summer 2009–she taught for us in 2007 as well, to great acclaim–and we are so pleased about this.  The rest of the faculty are set but not up on the conference website yet.  I’ll announce their names in a separate post.)

 

The Big Save Endangered Literature Challenge

Tupelo Press is running The Big Save Endangered Literature Challenge, a push to encourage readers to buy at least one book of poetry directly from Tupelo’s website:

Because: if you order just one book from our website at list price (plus postage), Tupelo benefits and you benefit! We log in a genuine full sale, you get a wonderful new book to savor. When you buy one of our books from a bookstore or from Amazon we receive only about 35 cents after deducting for bookstore discounts (50%), distributor’s fee (30% of what’s left), plus the substantial cost of making our beautiful books. We can’t run even a lean non-profit on that. But buy directly from our website, the net to Tupelo after costs is about $11.00. The difference to us is monumental.

…if even half of the book lovers on our subscriber list buy just one book directly from our website, we can make our budget for the coming year.

I suspect that if you go to the website, you’ll have a hard time choosing, so why not buy two or three?

Here’s the list of authors.

 

Felicia Brewer

Felicia Brewer–wife, mother, lawyer, raconteuse and kindhearted woman–died yesterday of a sudden illness at age 38, leaving her husband, John, and their two young daughters.  They are in my prayers and also very much in my thoughts. 

 

After great pain, a formal feeling comes —
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs —
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?

The Feet, mechanical, go round —
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought —
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone —

This is the Hour of Lead —
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —
First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —

–Emily Dickinson

 

TV at 30,000 feet

Flying back from AWP on JetBlue during the Super Bowl meant that I kept being startled out of my copy of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (a giveaway item at the Houghton Mifflin booth!) as groans or cheers rippled through the plane.  I also spent some time with headphones on, clicking through channels and, as usual, finding almost nothing I wanted to watch except the one-hour program that kept repeating on the Times On Air channel (this month it includes interviews with Tom Stoppard and Steve Martin as well as a tiny segment on the National Book Awards that shows Robert Hass accepting his).  Oh, and I caught the last half of Legally Blonde, which I’d never seen before, and which was really fun.  I also saw Rob Sheffield, author of the affecting memoir Love is a Mix Tape, discussing the Beastie Boys on a program that seemed to be exclusively devoted to the cultural impact of the song “(You’ve Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party).” 

The speakers on our panel were wonderful.  I am so grateful that they agreed to participate.  Although we didn’t coordinate this ahead of time, their talks intersected and resonated with one another in wonderful ways.  Maybe at some point they can be published together so that more people can benefit from hearing them.

 

Recommended reading

From Mark Sarvas of the L.A. litblog The Elegant Variation:

If you are around this Tuesday evening, I will be hosting a panel at Skylight Books that I am VERY excited about, and I hope you’ll stop by and take part in the conversation.  Here are the details:

Tuesday, February 5, 2008, 7:30 p.m.

 Panel:  The NBCC GoodReads Winter List.

 In December, the National Book Critics Circle launched “The Best Recommended” project – now rechristened GoodReads - in which the NBCC asked its members to recommend books that they’d recently read and truly loved, trendy or obscure.

 On February 5, the NBCC will announce its second round of recommendations and this panel will look both at the recommendations themselves, as well as the art of recommending:  Who are your best recommenders (we all have them, right?), the worst recommenders (someone who consistently doesn’t get your taste)? What constitutes a meaningful recommendation and what do you look for when you hear one?  What about the business of recommending itself: who has the authority to do it, where do good ones come from and how does it sell books, if at all? 

Please join the NBCC award winning poet Amy Gerstler, the NPR book critic Veronique de Turenne, the novelist Katherine Taylor, the novelist and critic Darcy Cosper, and the blogger and novelist Mark Sarvas for this entertaining and lively discussion, and bring along some of your own recommendations!

Hope to see you there!

Best,

Mark

 

Marvin Bell at the Ruskin: workshop & reading with Lynne Thompson

Saturday, February 9: Marvin Bell will be giving a workshop at the Ruskin Art Club from 12-5:30, then reading with Lynne Thompson at 7:30. 

“What makes for a strong poetic voice? A personal voice? A distinctive voice? Doth it matter? If so, why and how? Please bring 25 copies of a contemporary poem that has, to your mind, a distinctive voice–loud or quiet. For the afternoon session, bring 25 copies of one of your own poems.”

The cost is $85 and includes lunch and admission to the reading.  For more information: call the Ruskin at 310-936-7484 or email Ekduende at cox dot net.