Lydia Davis at Lannan

I always enjoy the Lannan Foundation reading and interview series, but never have I enjoyed an episode more than the recent one featuring Lydia Davis. If you are as wild about Lydia Davis as I am, you will not want to miss this.

Angry Poets

I was just listening to the Lannan Foundation's sponsored reading by and interview of W. S. Merwin with Michael Silverblatt (of the podcast Bookworm, which I listen to religiously). In this reading/interview, I heard W. S. Merwin say something about anger. Quickly skiming through the program I can't find the part I want right now, and I haven't got time today to listen to the entire program again, so I will just paraphrase. Basically, W. S. Merwin said that of all the passions, anger is the one most dangerous to poets, to poetry; that poetry written in anger tends to be bad poetry.

For me, this is true. I don't even think I can write when angry. My thoughts enter into their self-spooling loops and I can't think straight when angry. And so, another motivation for me to learn to give up my anger, to forsake it.

What about you? How does anger affect your writing?

The Cat's Table's the Cat's Meow

This blog is at risk of turning into a look-at-the-cool-thing-I-found-on-the-web report, but today is not the day that is going to get remedied. In fact today I have a charming podcast for you that I don't have time to rewind and relisten to in order to get the quotes word-perfect, but it's so enjoyable I'm going to post it anyway, with my own (probably egregious) paraphrasing.

This is an interview of Michael Ondaatje by Carolyn Forche, together with a reading by Ondaatje from his new novel The Cat's Table, all sponsored by the Lannan Foundation.

In her introduction, Forche says of Ondaatje, "He resists all manner of systematic thought," and I realized in that characterization my secret and ungraspable aim revealed.

One quote from the novel that made me catch my breath was, "We were not safe at all. There was no sense of time."

Well worth the over-an-hour listen, which you can also download from iTunes. (In fact, you can subscribe to the Lannan Foundation Series on iTunes, and it's nearly always a great listen.)

Reading by Ryan

Here's a very charming reading followed by an interview with Kay Ryan, newly-named Pulitzer Prize winner. The inimitable Atsuro Riley introduces and interviews Ryan in this Lannan Foundation podcast that was taped only last week on Wednesday the 13th. Don't miss Kay Ryan's thoughts on lightness and coldness in poetry, as well as her delightful discussions of her own uses of rhyme and humor.

And if you are frustrated trying to get published, you don't want to miss the conversation part of this event. Available as downloadable podcast, and also as direct online listening.