this is the cover of holiday's book, which is awesome. the cover, i mean. but probably/most likely the book, too.
you know what i like? baseball. and cute girls. which is how i kinda stumbled across harmony holiday’s new book of poetry. there i am, scrolling through my rss feed, and up pops this photo of a cute girl who apparently has something to do with negro league baseball. or something. anyway, after a little clickity click clicking around, i thought it’d make a good addition to the things i like online (for reasons that have nothing to do with baseball or cute girls and much more to do with cool poetry).
i haven’t actually read holiday’s book yet, but here’s what i know…
the excerpted poem i read on the publisher’s site swings like jazz (here’s a few lines):
Unburrowing dice teams from sand figurines
Risen to swirl steam scooping passing seemingly
A kindred-ided up and up, born of dormant corners
Forms filial then filled Goes mourn and swoon
Love have and love loom Union and risen
the title comes from this excellent jazz/hip hop thing by natural resource:
the rumpus review of the book revealed that there’s an audio component—oral histories & music samples curated by the poet—that accompanies the book.
I’m crazy with thesising and homework and Easter preparations. It’s a wonderful stress, though, and one that I’ll miss when I graduate in June. Hopefully I’ve gained a few good enough friends to continue to read for me over the years. But I’m getting sad just thinking about it, so I’ll take the crushing anxiety.
Recently our form and theory class read an essay by Phillip Lopate called “Against Joie de Vivre.” I was intrigued by what I saw as a pretty standard essay format – I mean the five paragraph essay from high school. You know, intro, thesis, antithesis, illustration, conclusion. I’d come so far from thinking that way that sometimes I need to be reminded about topic sentences. But Lopate used the classic form for a reason, I suppose—because it works. So it was timely that I came across this craft essay from Brevity (one of the only places I’ve found where you can read about the nonfiction craft—do you know any others?) in which Cynthia Pike Gaylord discusses thesis statements in the personal essay.
Over at The Rumpus this week, Steve Almond had this to say about the definition of creative nonfiction, which I am totally stealing: It is a radically subjective account of events that objectively took place. Seriously, that’s probably the best, clearest, closest definition I’ve heard yet.
Now, back to experimenting with natural Easter egg dyeing and finishing An Unfinished Woman. I love my life.
Author/editor of The Rumpus Stephen Elliott recently published an essay, found here, that, for the last week or so, I’ve gone back and read at least 15 times. “Good on Paper,” found in San Francisco’s 7×7, explores professional writing not as a job, upon which money is relied, but as a love that Elliott happens to do seven days a week, for as long as eight hours, occasionally taking half-days on Sunday to watch football.
I keep coming back to the essay because, as a writer who has no intention of relying on my craft for money (as stupid as it may sound to say money doesn’t matter), it’s reassuring to know that yes, it is possible to live professionally as a writer, without measuring your worth to the amount of revenue you bring in. If this all sounds vague, it’s because Elliott says it much better than I could, and you should just read “Good on Paper” – it’s got lust, love, death, and a central argument buried in the middle, like any good contemporary personal essay ought to. The catch is, of course, that he’s written seven books, and lives off 25k of “royalties and such,” but he also sees himself as essentially retired. So yeah – NaNoWriMo begins in only four days. Time to start crackin’ on that pension, yeah?
turns out that one of the five key steps to inciting a revolution involves falling in love.
i ♥ penguin’s “great ideas” series, which includes george orwell’s why i write & william hazlitt’s on the pleasure of hating. on the occasion of the 100th (and final) volume, the guardian chats with the series editor about their beautiful covers and his ten faves.
review, author interview, & excerpt of gary shteyngart’s super sad true love story—which features this killer opening: “Dearest Diary, Today I’ve made a major decision: I am never going to die.”
i see you driving ’round town with the girl i love and i’m like, “fuck you!” (ooo, ooo, oooo!)
next week the new yorker will publish their list of top 20 novelists under 40, which, as you can imagine, has stirred up the little tempest in a tea pot that typically accompanies such lists.
the rumpus has dug up ward six‘s response: 10 over 80 that you should go back and read.
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