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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces explicit
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Content provided by Ian Bodkin. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Ian Bodkin or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
Be well. Write well. And we'll all be reading.
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33 episodes
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Content provided by Ian Bodkin. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Ian Bodkin or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://player.fm/legal.
Be well. Write well. And we'll all be reading.
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33 episodes
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
Episode 29: I see a swimming poll in your future with return guest Liz Blood! Also we take a moment to honor the beautiful life and tragic loss of poet Jane Hoogestraat. A brief discussion of recent poetic activity and then a wonderful talk with Tatiana Ryckman and Liz Blood as they discuss how to go about finding the necessary information and inspiration in approaching a particular piece of writing. So Please give us a listen. https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/episode-29.mp3 From the original PBS broadcast with discussion of Jane Hoogestraat’s book Bordern Lands. Liz Blood is a writer, editor, and itinerant. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work has appeared in Numero Cinq, Hunter Mountain, Delta Sky magazine, the Oklahoma Gazette, Art Focus magazine, and Oklahoma Today. In 2014, her personal essay, “Sway,” was awarded first place in the magazine column writing category by the Oklahoma Society of Professional Journalists. Her essay “Bloodsport,” was recently published in Hunger Mountain. She lives in San Marcos, Texas with her boyfriend Will and his dog, Mini, where they chase cats and hike and jump in the river together.…
Episode 28: Endlessly Endless Attempting. In this episode we offer a great talk by Richard Farrell from the cool waters and mysterious babble of River Pretty in the heart of the Ozarks. Rich talks about hair cuts, being worthy of life’s wonder, simply the process, the right words rightly arranged, words prone to spats and fits, keeping the faith in midst of the sheer feebleness of words and that “silence reminds us how radically inadequate language remains,” but we push forward and continue to endlessly attempt at capturing the moment. So wash your hair out, smooth out the cushions, let the dog in from the yard and give a listen: https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/episode-28-endlessly-endless-attempting.mp3 Sign up for River Pretty. Richard Farrell graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served on active duty until 1993. For a number of years, he was a high school teacher in San Diego before deciding to pursue writing fulltime. He completed his M.F.A. through Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2010. He is currently a Senior Contributing Editor at Numro Cinq Magazine and the Non-Fiction Editor at upstreet. Rich teaches at Words Alive, PEN in the Classroom, San Diego Writers, Ink and at the River Pretty Writers Workshop in Missouri. His work, both fiction and non-fiction, has appeared or is forthcoming in Hunger Mountain, Numro Cinq, A Year In Ink Descant, New Plains Review and upstreet. He is currently at work completing a collection of short stories and a memoir on flying. He lives with his family in San Diego, CA. Click here to read an interview with Rich.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
Check out Episode 27: Written in Small Objects with the Return of Andrew Marshall. In this episode Tatiana and I get together and begin to determine the conversation going forward, the audience we can reach, the kind of small space we want to cultivate, and then Tatiana sits down with A.W. “Andrew” Marshall who recently published his first collection of stories, Simple Pleasures. They discuss reading for fun, allowing the process to ferment, what she said, a passage of life in a series of stories, the good and the bad days, the objects tucked away and the imagination they influence. So whittle a figurine, squirrel away your attachments, and find the small spaces of your obsession. https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/episode-27-written-in-small-objects.mp3 Buy a copy of Simple Pleasures here. Here’s what some brilliant people are saying about the book: Simple Pleasures marks the debut of Andrew Marshall’s curiously addicting fiction. In Marshall’s stories hearts can literally be touched, actually– grasped , and a rolling Head can terrorize a town. Here the power of sex both attracts and repels: lovers fall off a dizzy perch among branches, a plunge that alters the lives of others for decades; the accidental glancing touch of two strangers binds them to an increasingly disorderly life of physical pleasure; and the confluence of a cache of pornographic drawings and mistaken identity allow a man to escape his dreary life. Surprises appear at nearly every turn in these intriguing, original stories, and Marshall orchestrates them beautifully. —Philip Graham, author of How to Read an Unwritten Language and The Art of the Knock Amidst the known and predictable elements of this world, A.W. Marshall’s fictions open up uncanny new spaces, ruled by the unexpected, the inexplicable. Thanks to mysterious encounters and turns of event, the very human characters in Simple Pleasures come to experience life as “weirder and full of more possibility” than before. I feel that way too after reading these stories, which startled and moved me with their mix of marvelous strangeness and genuine heartache. After a boy proves his claim that he can touch a girl’s heart—literally reach in and touch it—he muses, “‘Imagine if I can do this now, what I can do later.’” It’s hard not to wonder the same about Marshall himself, given the dark powers and brilliant promise he shows in this scary-good first collection. —Ellen Lesser, author of The Shoplifter’s Apprentice and The Blue Streak Simple Pleasures is a mysterium tremendum of stories like little boxes with secret drawers and hidden latches the reader opens with glee, trepidation, and increasing recognition that the great mysteries of existence are best mined in the small moments between humans. —Mary Rickert, author of The Memory Garden and Map of Dreams A.W. Marshall has lived in Oklahoma for the last eight years, but grew up on the beaches of Southern California. His work is published or forthcoming in Red Wheelbarrow , TheNewerYork , Fiction Attic , Austin Review , and Vestal Review . In 2005, he wrote and directed the professional theater production of his play, Pan, with Long Beach Shakespeare Company. In 2003, his play, Emptier, was produced at the Hudson Theater in Hollywood and directed by Kristin Hanggi. He received his MFA in playwriting from University of Southern California and a MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is co-editor of Piece Meal, an online magazine that exclusively reviews poems and short stories from literary magazines. For the last four years, he has been writing a novel about a half man, half rabbit in 1850’s California called Hendo.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
Episode 26: A Grand Movement of the Mind and #SaveUAkronPressStaff On this episode we begin with a call to friend of the show, Poet Emilia Phillips, where fills us in on some unfortunate events that have taken place with University of Akron Press and the University’s President Scott Scarborough. Then in the regular show we turn the podcast over to newly appointed and devastatingly brilliant, coconspirator, co-pilot across the sonic inter webs of space, time and words, co host extraordinaire Tatiana Ryckman! Tatiana sits down with writers John Proctor and Kate Senecal at the Young’s Residency and discuss finding space to write, the grand movements of the mind, 80s movies, the allowance of bad writing and creating the space of possibility for the written word. Several links follow also for where you can sign the petition and also let President Scarborough know what you think of his recent decision. So simmer down, keep it up, relax, let your voice be heard and give us a listen. https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/episode-26-73115-11-34-pm.mp3 Sign the petition to save University of Akron Press and staff here. @PresScarborough the official Twitter of President Scott Scarborough and here’s a link to his office webpage. Feel free to hashtag it up #SaveUAkronPressstaff University of Akron Press Located in central Ohio, The Young’s residency is an interdisciplinary opportunity for artists to create without the distractions of daily life. Information can be found on Tatiana’s website. Tatiana Ryckman was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She is the author of the chapbook, Twenty-Something, and assistant editor at sunnyoutside press. Learn more at Tatianaryckman.com John Proctor lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, two daughters, and Chihuahua. His work has been published in The Weeklings, Essay Daily, The Normal School, The Austin Review, DIAGRAM, Superstition Review, Underwater New York, Defunct, New Madrid, Numero Cinq, McSweeney’s, Trouser Press, and New York Cool, and is forthcoming in Atlas & Alice and an international anthology of microfiction. He serves as Online Editor for Hunger Mountain Journal of the Arts and Dad for All Seasons columnist for the blog A Child Grows in Brooklyn. He completed his MFA in nonfiction writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and teaches academic writing, media studies, and communication theory at Manhattanville College. You can find him online at NotThatJohnProctor.com/ . Kate Senecal is a writer and copy-editor based in Northampton, MA. Her fiction has been published in The Foundling Review and storychord. She completed her MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts in July of 2013.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
Episode 25: The Act of Making and Unmaking. So we’re back it would seem for reals this time. For those just joining us welcome, for those returning thanks for coming back! For the next few months we’ll be giving an insight into dearly kept Ozark secret, The River Pretty Writers Retreat! And in this episode we hit the ground running with a wonderful discussion with Lawrence Sutin, Mary Ruefle and Cole Closer! Essentially the masters of the universe give or take. We discuss all our own quarks and amoebas of writing and none of us really agree with one another, I mean we do, but we differentiate and this is what I always wanted the podcast to be. So if you’re new, this is what we’re doing from here on out, for veteran listeners this is the talk I always wanted. Um, oh god I say that a lot on the panel, but um is just a short arc from Om, and if we don’t get there in the panel we get close. So sit back or sit forward, unlace your shoes and tie them up again, and again, then take a breath wink at totem of your being and give a listen because it’ll be all right and alright. Enjoy now! https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/episode-25-for-reals.mp3 Mary Ruefle was born in Pennsylvania in 1952. She is the author of many books. Her website has been designed to allow readers to experience her erasure books, which can otherwise not be seen as they are old, friable, one-of-kind things. It is also a way for prospective collectors and buyers to preview the books without handling. The books will be changed eventually. Mary is a writer, or to use the parlance of our times, an artist. Lawrence Sutin was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on October 12, 1951. His parents, Jack and Rochelle Sutin, were Holocaust survivors who fought as Jewish partisans in Poland during World War Two. He graduated from St. Louis Park High School in Minnesota and then earned an undergraduate degree in psychology and English from the University of Michigan and a law degree from Harvard University. Since 1984 he has been a full-time writer and teacher, publishing books in multiple genres including biography, memoir, history and the novel. He is also currently working in the field of text-and-collage erasure books. He currently is a professor in the Creative Writing and Liberal Studies Programs of Hamline University and teaches in the low-residency program of the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He has been married to Mab Nulty, a psychologist, since 1990. He has three children, Ceallaigh Anderson (stepdaughter), Brennan Vance (stepson), and Sarah Sutin (daughter). He also has a part-beagle part-German shepherd dog, Murphy. He tries to lead a quiet life devoted to writing, family, friends, reading and listening to music. It doesn’t always work out quietly but he does the best he can. Cole Closser holds an MFA in Sequential Art from the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. His first graphic novel, Little Tommy Lost (Koyama Press), was named one of the ten best graphic novels of 2013 by A.V. Club (the Onion), and nominated for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award in the category of Best Publication Design at the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con. Cole is an Assistant Professor of Art & Design at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri—and is a regular guest faculty member at the River Pretty Writers Retreat in Tecumseh, Missouri, where he leads a workshop in sequential art/graphic narrative. Cole’s work has been featured in such publications as Regular Show from Boom Studios, Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream from Locust Moon Press, and The Dreadfuls from Rotland Press. Cole’s forthcoming graphic novel Black Rat will debut this September at the Small Press Expo, from Koyama Press. Cole is generally a nice guy, but don’t jive talk him. He enjoys reading books with funny pictures, watching old cartoons, and wrestling alligators. Cole likes cats.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
Episode 24 And who shall wear the starry crown? This is the beginning of a special series of episodes with readings and talks recorded at the River Pretty Writers Retreat. The first of these was recorded last spring during River Pretty 6, and then recently when I was able to attend during River Pretty 7. They are unruly, they are bucolic, they are full of passion and rivers and mountains and verve. I have told you before, you need to get your self to River Pretty Writers Retreat . Whether you’re a novice, an old hand, a passerby or dyed in the wool, LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE and then go check out Riverpretty.org sign up for the retreat, donate some money, be kind. For now check out these readings from Chaz Miller, Steve Rucker and D Gilson. https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/rp-6-1-ep-24.mp3 Chaz Miller has an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work has appeared in Moon City Review, Ozarks Watch, Bayou Magazine, and The Southern Review. Steve Rucker received his M.F.A in Writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and his M.A. in Writing from Missouri State University, where he taught creative writing. He has published his work in Numro Cinq, Elder Mountain, and Upstreet (“A Terminal Chord” was listed as a notable essay in The Best American Essays of 2013 anthology), and his essay regarding the life and work of Raymond Carver appears in Research Guide to American Literature: Contemporary Literature 1970 Present. Steve writes from a well-lit front room in Springfield, Missouri. D Gilson is an Ozark boy whose poetry, essays, and scholarship explore the relationship between popular culture, sex, and literature. In the past year he’s published Crush , a collection of poems and essays with Will Stockton. His first chapbook Catch & Release , won the Robin Becker Prize from Seven Kitchens, and his second, Brit Lit , is now available from Sibling Rivalry. A graduate of the MFA program at Chatam University, he is currently a PhD student in American Literature & Culture at the George Washington University.…
Back like your monthly paycheck, check out Episode 23: The Effects of a Tandem Kayak with the indomitable poet and editor extraordinaire Caitlyn Paley. We discuss Misty, the art of knuckling, confronting the zeitgeist, women in small press publishing, submission as art as process, the needs of the magazine when the work has its own suspense, looking fear in the face so you can get all Caitlyn Paley about it, and generally how readers destroy the words that they read. And in What’s On My Desk, I get all fifth generation immigrant Chuck Norford on Lee Busby’s ” The Origin’s of Blackbird.” So clip your toenails, dry out your moist clothing line, engage the bottle and the class, but either way give us a listen without end. https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/caitlyn-91514-10-26-am.mp3 Caitlyn Paley is the founder and editor-in-chief of 491 Magazine . Her work has appeared in The Austin Review, Metazen, Moria Poetry Journal, Shampoo, and Otoliths , among others. Caitlyn received her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Also check out the work of Lee Busby, order now, 5th Generation Immigrant.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
Holy Hiatus Batman! We’re back! Come check out Episode 22: a universe in every heart with Sarah Certa! We discuss the impression of the image on the page, poetry, hip hop dance inspiration, writing through the noise, workings of the human body, objectification, and making brash statements that will hopefully turn out to be untrue, maybe. So welcome back everybody, come on in, pour a glass of something, anything, and give a listen: https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/episode-22.m4a Sarah Certa was born in Germany in 1987. She is the author of RED PAPER HEART, a limited-edition chapbook from Zoo Cake Press (2013, free e-version now available). Her poems have been published in Narrative Magazine, B O D Y, Connotation Press, smoking glue gun, PANK, and many other journals. Her second chapbook JULIET (I) is forthcoming from H_NGM_N this fall. She lives in Minnesota. You can find her online at sarahcerta.tumblr.com . Check out the pdf of Red Paper Heart Here . Also check out Vent , http://noapologies-vent.com…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
Check out Episode 21: Where Have You Been? we got some announcements, predictions for the future with the amazing Rimas Blekaitis, we talk about the Second Generation, establishing roots, finding a home, the beauty of art in words and film, if nothing else Rimas just takes us on a wonderful ride. In What’s On my Desk this week, I briefly discuss the terrifying work that is Tampa by Alissa Nutting. So keep wandering around the gate, I’m sure the Caribou Coffee will be open soon, God knows they should have kept the Sam Adams bar open longer, or maybe winter’s making a last stand and you’re just sitting at home. Please. Enjoy: https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/episode-21.mp3 Rimas Blekaitis is adrift in the wide, shallow sea of his “crappy novel” project, constantly on the lookout for pieces of debris on which he can stay afloat, the better to see the migrations of efflorescent sea-horses and gauge his progress in the currents. He thus also gains insight into the movements of certain characters’ minds. As he also has aspirations as a contemplative, he’s mindful of the fact that the drifting itself can be quite addictive. He is a graduate of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and has produced seven reviews for the Washington Independent Review of Books.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
“In an infinite number of universes there are some just like our own…save for one or two significant differences” so someone once said. In this week’s episode we go all Earth 2 with our amazing host Tatiana Ryckman as she sits down with the poet Ian Bodkin to discuss his debut collection, Every Word was Once Drunk , from ELJ publications. They talk about persona, the creation of Drunk, finding his name, quantum physics, what happens when moving on from such a voice in your head to the next bit of inspiration and preparing for the birth of a real boy. In preparing the space Tatiana discusses what type of shoes a writer should wear or the verisimilitude between training for a race and getting limber for the page. Then in What I’ve Been Reading Lately , Tatiana reads “Cristin’s a Bitter Bitchasaurus Rex” from Hot Teen Slut a new collection poems by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz from Write Bloody publishing. So cut out some paper hearts, open up a mason jar, hold your body pillow tight and enjoy! https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/episode-20.mp3 Be sure to get copy of Ian Bodkin’s Book, Every Word Was Once Drunk , here. And also while you’re at it how about Hot Teen Slut by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz. And Check out one of Tatiana Ryckman’s day jobs over at the Austin Review.…
Join us for Episode 19: Of Poetry & Pinball Machines with our guest the fantastic and incredibly talented poet, Emilia Phillips. We discuss writing away from the self, the art of pinball, the ins & outs of using tilt in competitive pinball, knowing how to accept the poem, experiencing the process of writing both from pen to page to the key beneath the finger, as well as discussing the finer points of conceiving the poem on the page. Also, in preparing the space, I discuss the work of ee cummings, “next to of course god america i” in particular. So please put down the snow shovels, curl up in a snuggy, or pop another quarter into the machine, turn it up to 11 and enjoy! https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/episode-19.mp3 Emilia Phillips is a poet. She is the author of Signaletics (University of Akron Press, 2013) and two chapbooks including Bestiary of Gall (Sundress Publications, 2013). Her poetry appears in Agni, Beloit Poetry Journal, Gulf Coast, Harvard Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Kenyon Review, Narrative, Poetry Magazine, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of the 2012 Poetry Prize from The Journal, 2nd Place in Narrative’s 2012 30 Below Contest, and fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, U.S. Poets in Mexico, and Vermont Studio Center. She is the 2013–2014 Emerging Writer Lecturer at Gettysburg College, the prose editor for 32 Poems, and a staff member at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
1 Episode 18: On the Non-Livable Place of the Road with Barbara Siegel Carlson…with some poets “After 1am”
Finally a legal citizen, check out Episode 18: On the Non-Livable Place of the Road with our guest the incredibly talented and inspiring Barbara Siegel Carlson. She discusses culling the poem together from the moment she wakes up with works of philosophy to poetry to what’s in the news to a hidden copy of the Brothers Karamazov. From there she takes us down the road of discovery, where no one can find a home, and explains the process of writing her first collection Fire Road from Dream Horse Press. She also sheds some light on her work with co-translator Ana Jelnikar in Look Back, Look Ahead, Selected Poems of Srečko Kosovel from Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010. Then in What’s on my Desk , I share a recently published collaborative poem, “After 1am,” that I wrote with the poet Lee Busby. So toss the coin, get out your bean dips and nachos, and please enjoy! https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/episode-18.mp3 Barbara Siegel Carlson is the author Fire Road (Dream Horse Press, 2013). She is a co-translator with Ana Jelnikar of Look Back, Look Ahead, Selected Poems of Srečko Kosovel (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010). Her poetry has appeared in The Carolina Quarterly, New Ohio Review, Agni, Asheville Poetry Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Poetry Porch and Cutthroat, where she was a Discovery Poet in 2010. She is the author of a chapbook Between this Quivering (Coreopsis Press). Her translations and essays have appeared in Artful Dodge, Mid-American Review, Nimrod, Hunger Mountain, The Literary Review, International Poetry Review and Metamorphosis. Other translations are in Ljubljana Tales (New Europe Writers, 2012) and Apokalipsa (Ljubljana, 2013). A portfolio of translations is forthcoming in Verse. Carlson grew up in Cranford, NJ and graduated from University of Rhode Island and Vermont College MFA Program. She has given readings and led poetry and translation workshops in the US and Europe as well as participated in the Golden Boat International Poetry Translation workshops in Slovenia. She lives in Carver, MA. “After 1am” is available in the most recent issue of scissors & scpackle , which you can find here.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
We’re here again with Episode 17: When Truth Goes Snikt with writer and generally awesome human being, Steve Rucker. We discuss the characteristics of Wolverine, the art of truthiness, streamlining the story, writing as punishment, making the discoveries, being a Dad and knowing when the work is second. Finally, in what’s on my desk this week I take a look at “Goat Caitlyn” by the incredibly talented and amazing Caitlyn Paley up at Metazen. So button down the hatches, blend up some words or a nice banana smoothie, put your feet in the bath and give us a listen! https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/episode-17.mp3 Steve Rucker Steve received his M.F.A in Writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts where he worked alongside writers such as Sue William Silverman, Robert Vivian, Abby Frucht, and Larry Sutin. He has also received his M.A. in Writing from Missouri State University, where he taught creative writing for two years. He has published his work in Numéro Cinq, Elder Mountain, and Upstreet, and his essay regarding the life and work of Raymond Carver appears in Research Guide to American Literature: Contemporary Literature 1970 – Present. He is currently developing a collection of essays about his experience in the Air Force, entitled Fraud, Waste, and Abuse. Go sign up for River Pretty Writer’s Retreat! Check out “Goat Caitlyn” by Caitlyn Paley here. Also, get a copy of Every Word Was Once Drunk, here.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
Welcome to Episode 16: The Hunk of Stone with our lovely guest the poet, Pamela L. Taylor. She discusses writing between Willy and Wally, living the double life of a poet, in her own words a data guru by day and a poet by night. She describes her process of carving down “The Hunk of Stone,” picking publications, and really knowing when the poem is right. In Preparing the Space , I discuss the eternal question of the artistic form, “Are We Dead Yet?” And in What’s on My Desk , I take a look at the wonderful poem, “Disguising Weapons, Everyday Objects” by the poet Erica Wright in the latest issue of Gulf Coast. So do a few mountain poses, maybe a downward dog or two and give us a listen! https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/episode-16.mp3 Pamela L. Taylor is a data guru by day and a poet by night. She has a doctorate in Social Psychology from UCLA, an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is a Cave Canem Fellow. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Backbone Press , Blackberry Literary Magazine , Construction Literary Magazine, Pedestal Magazine , Sou’wester Literary Journa l and When Women Waken . For the past five years, she has been a co-organizer of Living Poetry, a group that organizes and promotes poetry events throughout the Triangle area of North Carolina. When Pamela is not working or writing, she’s dancing Argentinean tango. Her blog, www.poetsdoublelife.com , is geared toward poets with non-literary careers. You can check out “Disguising Weapons, Everyday Objects” by Erica Wright here . “Are we Dead Yet?” I’ve been thinking about the state of the art this past week. The state of poetry to be precise, but also the state of words and writing. Maybe it’s the new year, for me a new decade, maybe I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and just now I got this itch to put it into words. I don’t know, but it does make me think of a quote from the great prose writer F Scott Fitzgerald, “Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I’ll tell you a story.” Now at first, the whole statement dares the reader. The artist will not commit the act unless the reader is willing to take a similar risk. But the words that get me have always been edge and precipice. They are the boundary, extremity, fringe, margin, side; lip, rim, brim, brink, verge; perimeter, circumference, periphery, limits, and bounds. I know them both from the chair of the audience and writing with a gall to welcome strangers into my words. And of course, then there’s a poem: For Guillaume Apollinaire Come to the edge. We might fall. Come to the edge. It’s too high! COME TO THE EDGE! And they came, and he pushed, and they flew. -Christopher Logue It is here, dear friends, I begin. It is a difficult task, only because I too am afraid to fall. These words feel tarnished. So many willing to play, so few willing to clean. Over the course of our humanity we’ve perfected the scalpel once stone, once bronze; we’ve even gone and gilded us the handle; tried silver a generation or two after that. But then what precious metal do we apply to the task? Platinum? No, that’s too rare and too flashy. Titanium? At first no, as there are the stories of wedding bands that can only be released if the finger is severed. Then again, there’s that word—synthetic—beyond the polyester, nylon and high-fructose, it ain’t all that bad. And yet, if it’s purity we’re looking for it ain’t found, no, it’s touched by a raised hand stained in earth. So, ok. In this the Titanium Age? Or Titanic? We’ve given up our household gods, I mean the ones that look like you and me. We’ve even made an alloy that’s exiled us, scorched and flooded our lands only to come down here as flesh so we could cut it, stab it, hang it to watch the blood trickle, and then believe that it couldn’t die. All points bulletin as went the Town-Crier, “He will come again, he will come again…” Now some milleniae later, we still don’t know. But there is always Metallica: And I was going to pepper my statement here with clips from the song “No Leaf Clover,” but given the band’s penchant for people using their songs without permission, I rerain; I don’t need my podcast to be that popular. I digress. I mean to say that all of us have that moment whether infantile or even pragmatic where we know that this word, this line, this sentence, these cells will stand alone. They will emerge from the medium. Out in the light of day or wandering home in twilight, the art will take on a theater of the mad all its own. And yet, the problem, as with all parents, is guidance. We want it to be all these dreams, wishes, and hopes. Unfortunately, our deepest desires often amount to nothing more than a memory of adolescent provocations. In terms of modern poetry, yes, there was the time of Yeats and Elliot. Not so much Whitman and Dickinson, but yes, cummings again and again, all over the place for years. What I mean to say is yes, each art has there moment in the sun, when the world bends an ear, or tunes in “to use the parlance of our times” (Lebowski). But too many lament, too many hope for the grave and lay their flowers prematurely. Every once in a while and I imagine in almost every form, though it seems to occur most often when discussing words and letters and such, there is the question, are we dying? Has the written word lived out its usefulness? No. And Speaking of metals, yes, we live in the golden age of television, like the seventies were for film or was it the forties that will always “be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!”? Regardless, every form loses sight of the world. A page has become far less interesting to the eye or so we might think. Again, our approach to this opinion has more than one walk. There is the audience ready for the shiny object in the room and in the blue light of the television what page or shelf can offer a better distraction? So we grow frightened and look out upon the audience with fear that if lights are turned down, then we might see the empty chairs, and feel forced to ask, “Am I dead?” Again, no. In many ways we are the most alive as artists when the world has turned its back to us. Many and dare I say all of us begin out of a need to express something that we cannot achieve in our everyday discourse. And due to technology, everyday discourse is more complicated and nuanced than it has ever been, and to the point of distraction. When the zeitgeist is not staring us down, monitoring our likes and dislikes, trying to define the a community of artists under one umbrella, like what age this is, we are free to go about our work without the added distraction of populist belief. Think how much work our politicians might get done if we did not have a twenty-four hour news cycle. Now is the time when we can experiment. Dylan should have waited till now to go electric. We are a fringe community. Last year over 110,000 books were published. Thousands of poetry books, and out of those thousands, the majority probably only sold 100-200 copies each. My point is this, we write in a time when we need not worry about the size of our audience. None of us are popular, and especially in poetry, the age of the rock-star poet is gone, for now. Sure there are a few names out there, but honestly, how many will stand the test of time? Regardless, we do not need to worry about the audience, because somewhere there’s a few hundred people waiting to read our work, we just have to find them. We are all on the edge, and the best thing we can do is come closer to fall and fly away.…
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Podcasts – Written In Small Spaces
Give a listen to Episode 15: Making the Choices with our guest the essayist John Proctor, we talk about revising being true to the work and to the family we might find ourselves writing about. In “Preparing the Space,” I discuss John Berryman’s poem “On Suicide,” which of course allows me to share some happy news. Then in “What’s On My Desk” I take a look at a piece from The Common online by Kurt Caswell, “At the Phillips 66.” So bundle up, start steeping some spiced cider, get out those ginger snaps, and enjoy! https://writteninsmallspaces.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/episode-15.mp3 John Proctor lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, two daughters, and Chihuahua. An active reader on the New York City open mike scene, he’s written memoir, fiction, poetry, criticism, and just about everything in the space between them. His work has been published in DIAGRAM, Superstition Review , Underwater New York , Defunct, New Madrid , Numero Cinq , McSweeney’s , Trouser Press , New York Cool , and the Gotham Gazette , and is forthcoming in The Normal School and Austin Review . He serves as Online Editor for Hunger Mountain Journal of the Arts and Resident Dad columnist for the blog A Child Grows in Brooklyn . He completed his MFA in nonfiction writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and teaches academic writing, media studies, and communication theory at Manhattanville College. You can find him online (including links to his work) at NotThatJohnProctor.com/ . Check out Kurt Caswell’s piece: “At the Phillips 66” up at The Common . Preparing the Space: Committing Suicide for Tum Tum Of Suicide Reflexions on suicide, & on my father, possess me. I drink too much. My wife threatens separation. She won’t ‘nurse’ me. She feels ‘inadequate.’ We don’t mix together. It’s an hour later in the East. I could call up Mother in Washington, D.C. But could she help me? And all this postal adulation & reproach? A basis rock-like of love & friendship for all this world-wide madness seems to be needed. Epicetus is in some ways my favourite philosopher. Happy men have died earlier. I still plan to go to Mexico this summer. The Olmec images! Chichèn Itzài! D. H. Lawrence has a wild dream of it. Malcolm Lowry’s book when it came out I taught to my precept at Princeton. I don’t entirely resign. I may teach the Third Gospel this afternoon. I haven’t made up my mind. It seems to me sometimes that others have easier jobs & do them worse. Well, we must labour & dream. Gogol was impotent, somebody in Pittsburgh told me. I said: At what age? They couldn’t answer. That is a damned serious matter. Rembrandt was sober. There we differ. Sober. Terrors came on him. To us too they come. Of suicide I continually think. Apparently he didn’t. I’ll teach Luke. –John Berryman When I was young my thoughts were Epicedian—no, I mean to say this is not a dirge—I could understand the work of Epicetus before I read him. There has always been the image and the subterfuge of the word. “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” To commit the act is to lie. In a field tonight or next year—the storm—lightning has struck and in time we may stumble across the split boughs or singed field. The leftovers of the event. And we will know, this is not the event. It is the aftermath. Perhaps this is where we get on our knees with Magritte and write, “this is not the strike.” But how do we commit to an act of art and in that very process acknowledge that this is all an act? What becomes of the matter we affect in our hands when set out for all these denizens who lately pass by ever so late? It is the creation or destruction we leave on the page, on the stand, in the gutter, beneath the fingers, passed the eye, in the ear, or by the nose where we wish to be the object. Being that the remnant will remind the audience of the act. The mark becomes totem and testament to the event. And those of us in the stands often nod as though this is the fact into an accusative end of motion; the matter. Over time & language we continue to create a series or group of words—an established communication—of meaning that cannot be deduced by the words together or alone; idioms pepper every interaction. Some two thousand years ago upon the rostra to utter “Novis Rebus” would be today’s red ticker on the bottom of the screen with “Breaking News” in some strobe-lit-pixel-effect. The most accurate translation of this idiom is “revolution.” Our phrase for re—again, and volvo, volvere, volui, volitum—to roll or turn over. To the Romans new ideas were revolutions, to us etymologically we look for the past turned over again. Each year Berryman said he committed suicide. In his art he was Henry, so each year meant a phoenix, he could kill Henry & write him again. In his poetry, he exercised ; what fools went and named confession. What I say next…This is hard. I have slit my wrists, thrown a belt over my closet door & slammed it shut without masturbating; I’ve sawed my radius. I’ve jumped from steps, stairs & balconies. I’ve thrown the front wheel of my bicycle down a dirt road, jumped off the mountain & careened into the valley. I’ve broken my tibia through the fibula with a cracked femur; my humerus went left as the body went right; I broke my radius and the ulna on both arms at the same time; in a home improvement store I tagged my sister six years older than me for the first time & turned around to split my skull in two on the corner of a basket of bolts. I jumped out of or ran across the road to kneel before a series of swerving motor vehicles. Even when I was first married, my wife hid the kitchen knives. I thought I could die. The night before my fifteenth birthday I remember being really high; smoking one last bowl before bed; the stars were beautiful. That night in my dreams, what I would later name my shadow over my Id, told me that I had lived half of my life; I had fifteen years to be the fruit of the fuck of it. Even in my twenties, a year after meeting my tribe, I staggered out into the alley with a chef’s knife and fell to fillet my wrist beneath the city lights; amber and blood. Four days ago, Berryman jumped off a bridge in 1972. Coke annoys me. Pot sets all the doors I have known some 20,000 leagues away, and leaves me anxious. A pint of vodka is a circus I can dance under. Whiskey steals the keys and has an inkling to drive the car off the bridge. And while nicotine soothes me, it clogs my arteries; swallows me in smoke. I reach across the table and my hands tremble. Kate Donahue, Berryman’s third wife said that poetry kept him alive and when he was done with his Dream Songs there was nothing left in his way. Again, Berryman said that each year he committed suicide; he killed the self to begin again; he wrote more. I spent almost thirty years fascinated by Achilles and death. Horus and Rimbaud and Joan of Arc and Hendrix and Shelley and Joplin and Cobain and Morrison and good old Jesus. The god made flesh that had to die. But now I’m thirty and days running. I’m tired of trying to die, let alone the return of Saturn. I’m ready to live. Berryman attempted the reinvent himself every year; he changed his name from Smith; he left Oklahoma for New England; he went off to Cambridge and grew an accent; in The Dispossessed he chose to become Yeats; he married Eileen and then found Chris and later Kate; he met Henry Bones; his life became that gyre in “Second Coming,” his center could not hold. Berryman could never leave that stoop where his father fired a bolt through the temple. I understand being obsessed with my childhood, the breaks, bruises & cuts. And maybe this is just the manic upswing where I deem the world beautiful. But with all do respect, I don’t think Mr. Berryman found any new matters , I think of his suicides and rebirths as merely the matter turning over. I say this as someone who reads Berryman almost daily. I find it interesting that he mentions Gogol, for me it’s like mentioning Paul Valery. Both are writers that survived the long haul. They did not burn brightly only to be snuffed out by their obsessions. They survived. Valery going as far as giving up poetry for decades, only to come back swinging. Gogol only realizing that writing might be his salvation toward the end. Both with a lasting effect on the literature of their countrymen, which means that each is integral to the last century of Western Writing. Berryman is also a poet that in time will not be dismissed as a Pound or Elliot; simply a point without legacy. His writings may have merely turned over, but a lifetime of reading Dream Songs , I think would be well read. Add some Whitman, Cummings, Emily Dickinson & William Carlos Williams, then you got yourself a library. So what am I saying? After six days of being thirty, I can finally say that I am not going to kill myself; sooner or later. I’m turning over; my revolution is one of new matters. I wish to be a dance of fire like my buddy Nataraja burning the world so that it can be born again. Yesterday, I found out that in about 12 to 14 weeks I’ll have a boy coming into this world. Aiden Bodkin. One day if you’re listening, son, know that in the womb I saw you dancing & at the moment I was ready to begin again. You were the little fire that made me write this. I will write my tragedies, errors, obsessions, and what your mother will think are my ill attempts at humor. But I will be here as long as my body allows Tum Tum. My students think you’re going to burst from the womb with a full beard—no pressure—I’ll teach you the art. And unlike me, your mother’s father has a full head of hair, so you can expect a fine quaff well into your golden years. After Uncle Joel, Aunt Meghan, Uncle Rafael and Aunt Victoria, just wait until you meet the tribe—Charlie, Caitlyn, Andrew, Tatiana, Lee, Liz, Summar, Steve, this next fellow John, and David and Judy Savage, they’re sure to keep you wild; which is exactly what your mother and I want. All I ask is that you read Berryman on your own because I’ll probably mention him and Batman from time to time. You are the event, even if I etch “this is Aiden” into your crib.…
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