I've recently listened to episodes on ***three different podcasts*** I'd like to recommend to you.
1) New Letters on the Air host Angela Elam recently interviewed poet Rick Barot. Among the interesting things Barot said was that poets need to balance the principle of order with the principle of disorder in a contained chaos that makes a poem interesting and effective.
He stressed the importance of remembering that ordering some element or elements of a poem can kill the emotional vigor of the piece if not counterweighted with disorder, which can be achieved in an unexplained leaping between ideas, for example. On the flipside, all chaos without any ordering principle makes a piece disparate and risks excessive interiority or obscurity. It's the tension between the two that Rick Barot counsels poets to strive to find in every poem, not neglecting one principle in favor of the other.
Good advice, no matter which principle you naturally lean toward. Enjoy the whole episode.
2) Skylight Books Reading Series recently featured visual artist Danielle Krysa (the popular blogger of The Jealous Curator) talking about her new book Creative Block: Advice and Projects from 50 Successful Artists. Krysa discusses her own creative block and how she attempted to solve it by beginning her blog, thus discovering that studying others' art simultaneously inspired and discouraged her. So she contacted artists and asked them about their experiences with creative block, and it turns out at just about all of them have had periods of self-doubt and inability to work. So she put together this book, which is instructive for any creative type, visual or otherwise.
Krysa is charming; enjoy both the podcast episode and her blog, a place where I have lost countless hours.
3) NPR's Ask Me Another quiz show this week featured erudite musical group They Might Be Giants, singing (Don't Hate the Villain) Hate the Villanelle. The whole quiz show is, as usual, highly amusing and worth listening to, but if you just want the song, you can watch it on YouTube or on Vimeo. (The Vimeo sound is a bit better. Or listen on iTunes to the entire episode, for the best recording.) Enjoy!
Showing posts with label New Letters on the Air. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Letters on the Air. Show all posts
Friday, June 27, 2014
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Podcast Quote-a-Thon
I've been listening to a lot of podcasts recently, and here are a few excerpts:
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From Tieferet Talk, Tieferet Journal's radio show, an interview of Molly Peacock by host Melissa Studdard, about Peacock's book The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delaney Begins Her Life's Work at 72, which includes the following:
“You can't be jaded if you really attend to detail. Jaded means life is predictable. But life is not predictable in its exhilarating specificity…When you don’t understand the world and when you’re overwhelmed, one thing you can do is simply to describe it. If you describe it to yourself, it allows you at least to recognize it. You may not be able to comprehend it, but it’s there in front of you, in a palpable way that you are saying back to yourself.” Molly Peacock
“She didn’t meet the goal but she met her vision.” Molly Peacock
**********
From the New Letters on the Air podcast, the podcast of New Letters Magazine, a posthumous re-airing of an interview of John Ciardi by host Angela Elam, including the following:
“I realized the photographer is photographing himself…..” John Ciardi
“…submit one’s self to it in the knowledge that the language is more wise more able than the practitioner…” John Ciardi
**********
From the podcast New Books in Poetry, an interview of James Longenbach with host John Ebersole about Longenbach's recent book The Virtues of Poetry, including the following:
"The idea that we are most likely going to be forgotten should liberate the artist and not constrain him or her." John Ebersole
"...the poet whose deepest inclination is to associate risk with submission...." James Longenbach, as quoted by John Ebersole, reading from Longenbach's book
“You can’t write poems all the time. You’ve got to read a hundred of them in order to write one that’s half -decent.” James Longenbach
**********
**********
From Tieferet Talk, Tieferet Journal's radio show, an interview of Molly Peacock by host Melissa Studdard, about Peacock's book The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delaney Begins Her Life's Work at 72, which includes the following:
“You can't be jaded if you really attend to detail. Jaded means life is predictable. But life is not predictable in its exhilarating specificity…When you don’t understand the world and when you’re overwhelmed, one thing you can do is simply to describe it. If you describe it to yourself, it allows you at least to recognize it. You may not be able to comprehend it, but it’s there in front of you, in a palpable way that you are saying back to yourself.” Molly Peacock
“She didn’t meet the goal but she met her vision.” Molly Peacock
**********
From the New Letters on the Air podcast, the podcast of New Letters Magazine, a posthumous re-airing of an interview of John Ciardi by host Angela Elam, including the following:
“I realized the photographer is photographing himself…..” John Ciardi
“…submit one’s self to it in the knowledge that the language is more wise more able than the practitioner…” John Ciardi
**********
From the podcast New Books in Poetry, an interview of James Longenbach with host John Ebersole about Longenbach's recent book The Virtues of Poetry, including the following:
"The idea that we are most likely going to be forgotten should liberate the artist and not constrain him or her." John Ebersole
"...the poet whose deepest inclination is to associate risk with submission...." James Longenbach, as quoted by John Ebersole, reading from Longenbach's book
“You can’t write poems all the time. You’ve got to read a hundred of them in order to write one that’s half -decent.” James Longenbach
**********
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Interviews with Two Poets
Here are a few terrific interviews with poets.
For the first I have to give a shout-out to poet extraordinaire Mari L'Esperance, who told me about this interview with Kundiman fellow Janine Oshiro at Lantern Review Blog. One of the most interesting points for me was when Oshiro talked about forming a manuscript from her poems and thinking about it as a single work with an arc, and how this larger perspective showed her new poems that she could write to complement the ones that existed. I was also cheered by her statement that poets need to be comfortable with their own processes, and not focus on quantity of output.
Another interview I enjoyed this week was a New Letters on the Air podcast by Angela Elam, talking with James Richardson. Richardson talks about how the mood necessary for writing poetry is the opposite of the feeling of being productive. He says that when he makes himself write, he ends up writing the same old stuff. He explained that "it takes vast amounts of space" in order to come up with something new. Later he reiterates that particularly when ending up a book, "when everything you are thinking about is coming together...and you know everything, or think you do...", you can sit down and write a poem and get three lines into it and realize it is an old poem, which is why you need free time to "get back to your ignorance, back to your sense that you don't really know." "It's possible to be new just by your ignorance again," he says when comparing writing to the process of recent research in physics. Isn't that comforting?
Well, I've been a big fan of James Richardson for awhile, which is why I've posted about him one, two, three times in the past. And now I can't wait to get familiar with Janine Oshiro's work as well. Enjoy these interviews.
For the first I have to give a shout-out to poet extraordinaire Mari L'Esperance, who told me about this interview with Kundiman fellow Janine Oshiro at Lantern Review Blog. One of the most interesting points for me was when Oshiro talked about forming a manuscript from her poems and thinking about it as a single work with an arc, and how this larger perspective showed her new poems that she could write to complement the ones that existed. I was also cheered by her statement that poets need to be comfortable with their own processes, and not focus on quantity of output.
Another interview I enjoyed this week was a New Letters on the Air podcast by Angela Elam, talking with James Richardson. Richardson talks about how the mood necessary for writing poetry is the opposite of the feeling of being productive. He says that when he makes himself write, he ends up writing the same old stuff. He explained that "it takes vast amounts of space" in order to come up with something new. Later he reiterates that particularly when ending up a book, "when everything you are thinking about is coming together...and you know everything, or think you do...", you can sit down and write a poem and get three lines into it and realize it is an old poem, which is why you need free time to "get back to your ignorance, back to your sense that you don't really know." "It's possible to be new just by your ignorance again," he says when comparing writing to the process of recent research in physics. Isn't that comforting?
Well, I've been a big fan of James Richardson for awhile, which is why I've posted about him one, two, three times in the past. And now I can't wait to get familiar with Janine Oshiro's work as well. Enjoy these interviews.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Nagai on New Letters
Japanese poet and prose writer Mariko Nagai is the guest this week on New Letters on the Air, the podcast hosted by Angela Elam (scroll down to the picture and bio of Nagai to find the button you can click to listen online through November 16, or listen in iTunes anytime; you can also listen on their Facebook page). Originally I listened to this podcast because of the Japan connection, but I learned some interesting things about Nagai that I had not known.
One thing she said that has been on my mind this week is about silence. She doesn't use it to write. In fact, she says she listens obsessively to the same piece of music while writing something, singing away as she types.
She also talked about writing in English, though it is her fourth language (after Flemish, French and Japanese, in that order), but it was the language of her life from age 8 to 24, when she developed into her own personhood. This is interesting to me as a mother of bilingual sons who are growing to personhood largely in a language which is not mine.
Nagai also discussed translating, which she does a lot of, but said she would never translate her own work, as it would necessarily become a different piece in each language if she were the translator, which is an interesting observation, since it implies that this doesn't happen (or happens to a lesser extent) when she translates others' work or when someone else translates hers.
To enjoy the entire interview, click on the link above.
Now for an update on my memorization project. I dug out my notebook from the last time I attempted this project, and found that I actually had a third poem memorized at the time, Czeslaw Milosz's If There is No God, which is a great poem to memorize because it's only five lines long and the key phrase is repeated in the title and in the first and last lines. I also found out that I had forgotten much of the other Milosz poem I had previously memorized, On Angels, so I will have to brush up on it as well as learn my new poem for the month. Since I have to do both, I've selected a short poem for November's memorization too: Donald Hall's White Apples.
One thing she said that has been on my mind this week is about silence. She doesn't use it to write. In fact, she says she listens obsessively to the same piece of music while writing something, singing away as she types.
She also talked about writing in English, though it is her fourth language (after Flemish, French and Japanese, in that order), but it was the language of her life from age 8 to 24, when she developed into her own personhood. This is interesting to me as a mother of bilingual sons who are growing to personhood largely in a language which is not mine.
Nagai also discussed translating, which she does a lot of, but said she would never translate her own work, as it would necessarily become a different piece in each language if she were the translator, which is an interesting observation, since it implies that this doesn't happen (or happens to a lesser extent) when she translates others' work or when someone else translates hers.
To enjoy the entire interview, click on the link above.
Now for an update on my memorization project. I dug out my notebook from the last time I attempted this project, and found that I actually had a third poem memorized at the time, Czeslaw Milosz's If There is No God, which is a great poem to memorize because it's only five lines long and the key phrase is repeated in the title and in the first and last lines. I also found out that I had forgotten much of the other Milosz poem I had previously memorized, On Angels, so I will have to brush up on it as well as learn my new poem for the month. Since I have to do both, I've selected a short poem for November's memorization too: Donald Hall's White Apples.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Library Love
September is national library card sign-up month for students, according to the American Library Association. The New Letters on the Air podcast this week (see 9/11/11 on their schedule) hosted a program called American Sanctuaries, in which were interviewed writers such as E. L. Doctorow, Junot Diaz, and Anne Lamott about the importance of libraries in our communities and in their lives personally.
My mom was a big believer in librarires. Every three weeks to the day (three weeks being the maximum length of time our library allowed patrons to keep a book) she loaded my 7 siblings and me into our van and drove us to the library where I'm not even sure how many books we were technically allowed to pick out, because the librarians would always let us have as many as we wanted. "You're good patrons. You always bring them all back. Take whatever you want," they would say. And we would take over 200 most weeks. (When we went away for the summer, they would frown. "Our circulation numbers will plummet," they would say. "What day did you say you were coming back?")
My mom worried about getting all these books returned, so in that pre-computer time, I had the job of making a list of every single book we'd checked out before the kids were allowed to take them and disappear into their favorite reading nooks. You will probably recall that I love lists, so this task was pure pleasure for me. I got to examine each book before setting it free in our home.
When I first moved to Japan, it became clear to me that getting reading material was going to be one of my biggest obstacles to adjusting to expat life. (This was in pre-internet shopping days.) I quickly located the local library, discovered a single shelf of books in English, and with very little Japanese language ability, presented myself at the circulation desk and somehow made it clear I wanted a library card. It took a couple of visits to the library before I could get one, since I needed documentation proving my address, but I did get one, and then systematically read every English book they had, including the biology textbook. Who doesn't need a refresher course on the Krebs cycle, I reasoned.
Then I was out of books again. Soon I found out that the local YMCA had a book attached to its language school, so I presented myself there and asked for borrowing priveleges. Not a student? they asked. Then absolutely not. Mournfully I stood in front of their forbidden shelves, salivating over the books I was not to borrow, when a change in classes filled the hallways up with students, and without thinking about it, I grabbed a handful of books, shoved them into the pockets of my down-filled parka and joined the throng headed for the door.
I did this again and again, getting good at knowing when the classes changed, and eventually I had some 80 books in my apartment. A visiting friend was aghast. "You're stealing from the YMCA?" she said. "You have to take these back!"
And so I did. I loaded up two giant shopping bags full of books (not all 80, that would take several trips) and went to the gym area of the YMCA, entered a bathroom, and left the shopping bags there, figuring they would be found and eventually make their way up to the library. Which is what happened. I always wondered whether anyone knew I was the book thief. I was there so often with no official capacity, and always was in such a hurry to get out. (A different stint in Japan would find me an employee of the YMCA, with legitimate access to the library, ironically enough.)
When my kids were little we lived in Florida, about 5 minutes from the library by car, and we went there weekly, sometimes three times a week. If we had nothing to do and the weather wasn't good, off to the library it was. In Japan, we have gone to libraries on the far side of the city, for their children's section in English, and we have gone to the local one for the Japanese books.
I have so many more stories about libraries because I have spent so very much time in them. But I guess that's enough for today. And all you who don't have a current library card, now's the time to sign up for one, and get some stories of your own, in more ways than one.
My mom was a big believer in librarires. Every three weeks to the day (three weeks being the maximum length of time our library allowed patrons to keep a book) she loaded my 7 siblings and me into our van and drove us to the library where I'm not even sure how many books we were technically allowed to pick out, because the librarians would always let us have as many as we wanted. "You're good patrons. You always bring them all back. Take whatever you want," they would say. And we would take over 200 most weeks. (When we went away for the summer, they would frown. "Our circulation numbers will plummet," they would say. "What day did you say you were coming back?")
My mom worried about getting all these books returned, so in that pre-computer time, I had the job of making a list of every single book we'd checked out before the kids were allowed to take them and disappear into their favorite reading nooks. You will probably recall that I love lists, so this task was pure pleasure for me. I got to examine each book before setting it free in our home.
When I first moved to Japan, it became clear to me that getting reading material was going to be one of my biggest obstacles to adjusting to expat life. (This was in pre-internet shopping days.) I quickly located the local library, discovered a single shelf of books in English, and with very little Japanese language ability, presented myself at the circulation desk and somehow made it clear I wanted a library card. It took a couple of visits to the library before I could get one, since I needed documentation proving my address, but I did get one, and then systematically read every English book they had, including the biology textbook. Who doesn't need a refresher course on the Krebs cycle, I reasoned.
Then I was out of books again. Soon I found out that the local YMCA had a book attached to its language school, so I presented myself there and asked for borrowing priveleges. Not a student? they asked. Then absolutely not. Mournfully I stood in front of their forbidden shelves, salivating over the books I was not to borrow, when a change in classes filled the hallways up with students, and without thinking about it, I grabbed a handful of books, shoved them into the pockets of my down-filled parka and joined the throng headed for the door.
I did this again and again, getting good at knowing when the classes changed, and eventually I had some 80 books in my apartment. A visiting friend was aghast. "You're stealing from the YMCA?" she said. "You have to take these back!"
And so I did. I loaded up two giant shopping bags full of books (not all 80, that would take several trips) and went to the gym area of the YMCA, entered a bathroom, and left the shopping bags there, figuring they would be found and eventually make their way up to the library. Which is what happened. I always wondered whether anyone knew I was the book thief. I was there so often with no official capacity, and always was in such a hurry to get out. (A different stint in Japan would find me an employee of the YMCA, with legitimate access to the library, ironically enough.)
When my kids were little we lived in Florida, about 5 minutes from the library by car, and we went there weekly, sometimes three times a week. If we had nothing to do and the weather wasn't good, off to the library it was. In Japan, we have gone to libraries on the far side of the city, for their children's section in English, and we have gone to the local one for the Japanese books.
I have so many more stories about libraries because I have spent so very much time in them. But I guess that's enough for today. And all you who don't have a current library card, now's the time to sign up for one, and get some stories of your own, in more ways than one.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Conversations with the Dead and Others
Never am I more aware that as a writer I am engaged in a conversation with all the other writers I have ever read than when I am involved in the act of putting together my notes to poems, as I was this week when assembling a short manuscript for another poet to look over. Then I am overwhelmed with the influences that have lead me to write and think as I do, and I feel grateful.
This week one of you wrote to me to tell me about how many Moby Dick references there are in Louise Erdrich's work, and I realized I am going to have to reread Erdrich now that I have read Moby Dick, so that I too can join in that conversation I hadn't even know was going on.
Yesterday I was listening to podcasts on the bus as I was on my way to a meeting, and during my hour commute, I heard two different podcasts about artists responding to other artists' work. First was a KUOW podcast, "Pessimism, Optimism and the Songs In Between," about a project in Seattle in which bands were assigned books and had to write and perform original songs in response. The books chosen included Nabokov's Pale Fire, Maggie Nelson's book of poetry Bluets, and Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island. The songs are assembled by Levi Fuller on the CD Ball of Wax.
The other podcast I listened to yesterday on the subject of artist-on-artist influence was an interview with best-selling author Arthur Phillips about his new book, The Tragedy of Arthur, at New Letters on the Air. Phillips does a number of interesting things in this novel (one of which is to blur the lines between fiction and memoir, something I have a fascination with, but that's for another post another time), one of which is that he writes a play that in the novel may or may not be an authentic work of Shakespeare.
So it's on my mind this week not only how much I owe to other writers, but also how much I owe it to myself to be selective in what I read, especially as I age and have less time to indulge in books. I used to read everything that came my way, start to finish, but lately I look at the stack of over 50 to-be-read books in my home, and don't feel motivated to open most of them. I am craving a new conversation, or a different one than the ones I have been having in the last few years, and I think it is the writer in me more than the reader that is craving inspiration. While I do read for escape, these days escape-reading bores me, and instead I want to be astounded by the creativity in what I read.
I read a lot of popular science, poetry, and short stories for ideas and stimulation. I also have been reading essays a lot in the past decade. And, I am a bit loathe to admit, some spiritual reading. But clearly I am in need of something new, something different, these days. I wonder what it will be.
This week one of you wrote to me to tell me about how many Moby Dick references there are in Louise Erdrich's work, and I realized I am going to have to reread Erdrich now that I have read Moby Dick, so that I too can join in that conversation I hadn't even know was going on.
Yesterday I was listening to podcasts on the bus as I was on my way to a meeting, and during my hour commute, I heard two different podcasts about artists responding to other artists' work. First was a KUOW podcast, "Pessimism, Optimism and the Songs In Between," about a project in Seattle in which bands were assigned books and had to write and perform original songs in response. The books chosen included Nabokov's Pale Fire, Maggie Nelson's book of poetry Bluets, and Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island. The songs are assembled by Levi Fuller on the CD Ball of Wax.
The other podcast I listened to yesterday on the subject of artist-on-artist influence was an interview with best-selling author Arthur Phillips about his new book, The Tragedy of Arthur, at New Letters on the Air. Phillips does a number of interesting things in this novel (one of which is to blur the lines between fiction and memoir, something I have a fascination with, but that's for another post another time), one of which is that he writes a play that in the novel may or may not be an authentic work of Shakespeare.
So it's on my mind this week not only how much I owe to other writers, but also how much I owe it to myself to be selective in what I read, especially as I age and have less time to indulge in books. I used to read everything that came my way, start to finish, but lately I look at the stack of over 50 to-be-read books in my home, and don't feel motivated to open most of them. I am craving a new conversation, or a different one than the ones I have been having in the last few years, and I think it is the writer in me more than the reader that is craving inspiration. While I do read for escape, these days escape-reading bores me, and instead I want to be astounded by the creativity in what I read.
I read a lot of popular science, poetry, and short stories for ideas and stimulation. I also have been reading essays a lot in the past decade. And, I am a bit loathe to admit, some spiritual reading. But clearly I am in need of something new, something different, these days. I wonder what it will be.
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