Monthly Archives: May 2012

Richard Ford

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At the risk of stating the obvious, we live in a good town for book lovers. A strong, rich literary history… multiple independent bookstores… three of the country’s premier independent publishing houses… major universities with diverse and thriving writing programs… benefactors who value and support the arts… But one of the most compelling indicators of the Twin Cities’s literary vitality is the breadth and diversity of its literary events. The sheer number of readings on any given day is astounding; more to the point, we have the option of seeing and hearing emerging writers as well as witnessing the seasoned mastery of Pulitzer winners. How and why we choose which events to attend is a curious matter to me, and it was in the forefront of my mind last night.

RIchard Ford reads from Canada.

About 200 of the Twin Cities’s most refined literary enthusiasts took a seat in the Minneapolis Central Library‘s luxurious Pohland Hall on Tuesday, May 29th 2012, to hear Richard Ford (author of Independence Day and, most recently, Canada) kick off this year’s Talk of the Stacks series, a program sponsored by the Friends of the Hennepin County Library. As the start time neared, the lights dimmed, the ten-foot projection screen (twelve? fifteen? I don’t know, it’s pretty big) retracted into the ceiling, and the spotlights amped their beams on the podium, lone and central on the stage before the plush red curtains along the back wall. If the Twin Cities’s diverse literary programming falls on a spectrum, this was the end marked “big-time.”

Talk of the Stacks reaches a lot of readers through its library affiliation, and Ford, of course, sells a lot of books, has a vast readership, and writes really well. So it’s no surprise that a lot of folks came out to see him. But the demographics of this audience struck me instantly: middle aged or older, dressed conservatively–significantly different from, say, the attendees of Super Super Tuesday. Where are the angular haircuts, the just-out-of-college, giddy-about-the-performer audience members? Where are the stylish glasses? Those enthusiastic, young literary types driving much of our literary identity? In my mind, Richard Ford is an icon of contemporary literature: I expected more of a cross-section of the Twin Cities’s literary spectrum to be in attendance. But maybe his appeal is more limited,ore focused than I’d imagined.

Maybe it’s that Ford has already accomplished his greatness, while the younger generation tends to look at and support those who still gleam with the potential to do so. Perhaps its that Ford’s subject matter (typically baby-boomer fare) doesn’t appeal to younger audiences. Or perhaps it’s the very grandeur of the event: the glorification of one man’s work, rather than that of a collective or a community. After a brief introduction, Richard Ford came out and read a forty-five-minute excerpt of his new book. There was no formatting, no performer changes, no intermissions for mingling. No new voice to renew your tired attention span, just a writer and some words in the air.

Fancy! Richard Ford at the downtown Minneapolis library…

This was an evening devoted to one author reading one work–and boy did he.

Beginning on page one of Canada, Richard Ford delivered some of the most expert exposition I’ve ever heard. Physical descriptions that continued for pages, and yet delivered information somehow both necessary and intimate. A master of voice in his writing, Ford also gave a masterly reading, his Southern/Montana/Midwest/Northeast lilt carrying a wide range of simultaneous inflections. It was the kind of pure, good writing that made me want to run home and pick up a pen. It was the kind of prose that every good writer has tried and failed to imitate. It is iconic prose.

If the reading was fantastic, so was the Q&A. At one point, an astute audience member asked directly about Ford’s multifaceted dialect: “Do you try to supply the reader with a sense of your distinct cadence?” Ford mulled for a moment, then answered, “I try to confer the freedom to read my sentences however the reader wants, by making the sentences as good as possible.”This line of thinking eventually led him to expound, “A novel’s success depends on two things: 1) that the reader gets to the end of the book, and 2) that there’s no great discrepancy between what I think the book is about and what the reader thinks the book is about.” The highlight of the night, though, came in response to a question about the thematic content of Canada–the book and the country–and what drew Ford to write about it.

“I just like the word: a dactyl, those three soft a’s… I like the look of it on the page. Most books are composed of words that the author simply likes to see on the page,” Ford said. His discussion turned briefly into the nature of language, the behavior of semiotics. He offered a quote from Donald Hall, who was quoting sculptor Henry Moore, to explain the power of a word as both a physical and an aural object: “Never think of a surface but as the extension of a volume,” he said, drawing oohs and ahs from the audience, perfectly receptive to and appreciative of the sentiment. (An interview with Donald Hall from the Paris Review in which this quotation is referenced can be found here). Moore, a sculptor, was talking about surfaces and volumes in terms of physical materials, but for Ford and his audience, words are materials every bit as much as granite. And each of us felt that intuitive distance within each word, the volume of a language there in that room with us, floating in the air among the 200 individuals in attendance. These are the moments that literary events offer: moments that change us all at once, over and over.

Here’s hoping that the next time a literary giant graces our presence, a few more of this community’s diverse participants recognize it for the opportunity it is: an opportunity to grow, to learn, to be inspired and made better.

Have a different take on this event? Chime in on the comments below! Be sure to check the schedule to the right and the Twin Cities Literary Calendar and be at the next LitSeen attended event. See you around!

Tracy K. Smith, Jane Loechler, & Liza Allen

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There was a buzz in the building.  There was a buzz all week, ever since the news broke that Tracy K. Smith’s newest book of poems, Life on Mars, had won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.  There was a buzz in the bookstores, on literary websites, on the sidewalks… or maybe it was just me: ever since the first time I picked up a book of her poems, Smith has held a place in my mind reserved for a select group: really, really, really, good poets.  So it was no surprise that my anticipation for her reading on Friday, May 18 seemed to be shared by the crowd of chatty, lively attendees in the lobby prior to the reading, or that the Target Performance Hall at Open Book was standing-room only.  It was no surprise that nearly all of Graywolf Press‘s top brass–including Senior Editor Jeffrey Shotts and Publisher Fiona McCrae–had turned out, nor that fellow buzz-inducing poets Mark Doty (another Graywolf poet, on loan from Rutgers University) and Ed Bok Lee (see our review of Lee’s Birchbark Reading Series performance here) were on hand.  What was surprising was how surprised the audience seemed when Loft’s Program Director and the evening’s emcee Jerod Santek announced that Smith had recently won the Pulitzer.

Tracy K. Smith reads from Life on Mars. Photo courtesy of the Loft’s facebook page.

Wait a second–isn’t that why everyone was here?

This was about when it dawned on me that much of this audience was here to support the Mentor Series, which Smith was a part of this year, and not just to hear one of the few really, really, really, good poets writing today.  No, most of this enthusiastic and buzzing audience was here to support a really, really, really, amazing local literary program.  I love this town.

Every year, the Loft brings six acclaimed writers to Minneapolis to work with twelve emerging writers selected through an anonymous competition.  It’s an MFA program without the student loans (I’m not sure about cost, though… you can le

arn more about the program here. Visiting authors give a reading while they’re in town, and each time a pair of the particpating emerging writers also share their work.On Friday, the final reading of the 2012 Mentor series, the first writer to take the stage was poet Jane Loechler, who read a series of poems about a world inspired by a historical account of “vegetable lambs” (an actual misclassification of cotton plants), which are shepherded by young boys, while the young girls build materials out of the miniature shorn fleeces.  Loechler rendered this fantastical world with a tender realism, reading deliberately and with obvious commitment to her language. That is to say, she seemed to handle the capacity crowd well, and appeared quite at home behind the microphone. Nonfiction writer Liza Allen followed Loechler with an introverted passage about the transmission of trauma from a holocaust-surviving generation to the next.  Her prose, like her subject matter dutifully navigated the historical context, which was weighted with significance and brought something of a pall over the crowd–the writing’s intended effect.

The atmosphere was quickly lifted when Smith took the stage, a bright yellow dress and poofs of hair like twin moons around her youthful face.  (I learned after the show that Smith is forty years old–she could pass for fourteen if she weren’t so poised).  ”I’ve only been here about 24 hours,” Smith said to an already-smitten audience, “but it feels like coming home.”  This sentiment was in part because her publisher and editor are based here, but Smith also pointed out how she was “inspired by a community with such an earnest and intense passion for writing.” We were buttered up, giddy, ready to approve of whatever she offered.Then she read her poems.

The thing about really, really, really good poetry is that it’s really, really, really good.  If I could describe why it was so good, it wouldn’t be as good… Tracy K. Smith’s poems explain aspects of the world that I didn’t know I understood. She doesn’t make sense of the world; she reveals the sense that the world already makes.  There is a lack of self to her poetry, a focused appreciation of her subjects, a brave exploration of des

tabilizing concepts and precarious perceptions.  It is poetry of a different breed that takes on the entire universe (literally, much of her collection is about outer space) and yet seems humble, delicate, unobtrusive.  This is precisely the persona that came across as she read: a woman who could feasibly go overlooked in a middle-school class photo, yet who commands with precise and genuine language the attention, awe, and respect of her audience.In a brief Q&A session that followed, all three readers returned to the stage and answered queries about balancing motherhood, professions, and the writing life (“it’s always a balance, you procrastinate less”); about how to handle writer’s block (“if you can’t write well, write bad, but try to read stuff you normally wouldn’t and learn something”); about advice they had for young writers (“write and have fun”). One audience member asked Smith to explain the meaning of Duende, the title of Smith’s second collection.  She took a breath and aimed her big eyes upward for a second.  She then pointed to her stomach and said, “Duende is an inner unrest that’s allowed to participate in the creative process.  Not a muse, or an angel of inspiration, but a mischievous, messy force inside of all of us.”Not just inside the artist, or the poet, but inside all of us… Maybe it’s permitting this universality that makes for really, really, really good poetry–or in Tracy K. Smith’s case, maybe it’s the rare ability to balance the universe with the universal.

-RHM

To read an interview the Loft conducted with Tracy K. Smith, click here.

Do you have a different take on this event?  Chime in on the comments below! Be sure to check the schedule to the right and the Twin Cities Literary Calendar and be at the next LitSeen attended event. See you around!

Ed Bok Lee & Bao Phi

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The third season of the Birchbark Reading Series came to a close on Wednesday night, May 9 2012 with impassioned readings by Ed Bok Lee and Bao Phi.  Each poet read from multiple sources: Ed Bok Lee primarily from his Minnesota Book Award-winning new collection Whorled (Coffee House Press), but also from his earlier collection Real Karaoke People (Coffee House Press).  Bao Phi, a slam poetry champion, showed off the literary finesse of his debut collection Song I Sing (also Coffee House Press), but he also gave the audience a peek behind the curtain by performing a piece not included in the book.  Toward the end of the reading, the poets took turns reading each other’s work, with Phi reading one of Lee’s more devastating narrative poems, and Lee, in turn, reading an anthemic rally of Phi’s.

The poets read with a good deal of showmanship, comfortable behind a microphone and in front of audiences, and it gave the reading an intimate, friendly atmosphere despite some rather peculiar circumstances.  The reading took place in the St. Paul Episcopal Church near Birchbark Books—a temporary home since the cafe that used to host the series shut down—in a downstairs community room with windows overlooking Kenwood Park on a beautiful evening.  In what must have been a scheduling conflict, the church’s choir was upstairs rehearsing at the same time as the reading, so that snippets of organ and pretty decent sounding chorus flooded periodically through the hallways and into the room. ”I’ll try and time my poems so they crescendo at the right spot,” Ed Bok Lee joked.

Ed Bok Lee reads from Whorled

This wrinkle added to the already peculiar tone of the night established by curator Michael Kiesow Moore‘s odd decision to hijack the reading before it began, reading a few of his own poems to a captive audience, “Because it’s my birthday and I can read if I want.”  Each of Moore’s three poems begged for increased awareness about teen bullying, and as such his determination to share them with an audience both made sense and was received graciously.  (Moore will be a scheduled reader this friday at the Soap Factory as part of “FLO(WE){U}R POWER.”) Still, it was a little strange.

Not as strange, though, as when the choir wrapped up their practice and decided to head home, exiting the church through the room where the reading was taking place.  Rather than waiting for the event to conclude, or even for the poem in progress to come to an end, a few individuals milled around and squeezed past the audience on their way toward the door. One pushed a softly-clicking bicycle down the aisle; another, for inscrutable reasons, felt this would be a good time to transport a two-foot cactus from one side of the room to the other.

All this couldn’t detract from the power of the work, thankfully, as each poet showed why he’s earned so much esteem from the community. Both writers deserve their status as important artists in the larger world of letters, as each gives voice to a new perspective on the multicultural experience. Ed Bok Lee read poems that explored his South Korean heritage, and Phi read several from a series about fictional Vietnamese-American characters.  And though these poems highlighted subtlety and craft, artfully voicing the injustice in racial identifications, while humbly acknowledging the historical complexity of the racial tableau they chided, there were several instances of powerful, intoxicating anger in this poetry. For instance when one of Phi’s fictional characters declared that he would (and I rampantly misquote), “let the rich dine on the delicacy of your eyeballs directly from your skull.”

The distinct racial themes voiced by Lee and Phi didn’t seem to upset anyone in the audience (poetry reading attendees are generally on the open-minded side of the spectrum, no?), but I couldn’t help but notice that this audience, as most audiences in Minnesota, was predominately caucasian. Those skulls that Phi’s character wanted to cook, after all, belonged to the people that buy his books, that attended his reading, belonged to people like me.

Bao Phi reads from Song I Sing

I’ll be clear and state that I do not feel in any way that Bao Phi wants to eat my eyeballs; I did spend my ride home, though, ruminating on my conception of race, and more importantly, on how little race factors into my life. I am a white male, and as such I have the peculiar dilemma of owning a history of privilege and oppression, of violence and prejudice. My heritage unfolded for centuries overtop of other cultures and it spat me out here in Minnesota, pale and quivering and translucent, so that when I look in the mirror I don’t see a color, or a race, or an identity that depends on my skin.  I recalled scholar and rhetorician Krista Ratcliffe‘s thinking on the subject—that “white” is an invisible racial category, a zero race—and wondered just what my “whiteness” means to me, what it means to Minnesota, what it means to literature…

Ed Bok Lee and Bao Phi sparked in me, at least, the beginnings of something I hope they’d be pleased to inspire—consciousness, empathy, accountability… which are things one should feel when leaving a church, I suppose. Even if it wasn’t the choir that got through to me.

Have a different take on this event?  Chime in on the comments below! Be sure to check the schedule to the right and the Twin Cities Literary Calendar and be at the next LitSeen attended event. See you around!

Amanda Nadelberg

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Amanda Nadelberg reads from Bright Brave Phenomena at the Soap Factory

Around seventy-five friends, colleagues, and fans of poet Amanda Nadelberg showed up at The Soap Factory on Friday, April 27, to celebrate her second collection of poetry, Bright Brave Phenomena. In fact, a good amount of the audience remained standing at the back and off to the sides of the organized folding chairs during Nadelberg’s reading. The event was my first time attending anything at The Soap Factory, best known for its Haunted Basement every Halloween, and it was a pretty great introduction to the historic National Purity Soap Company building turned artworks laboratory.

Eric Lorberer of Rain Taxi, who co-sponsored the event with Nadelberg’s publisher Coffee House Press, welcomed and thanked everyone for their support. Lorberer was also sure to emphasize the importance of collaboration and supporting each other’s organizations as a way of strengthening the Twin Cities literary community. Fellow Coffee House poets Greg Hewett and Sarah Fox each read a short poem written in honor of Nadelberg. However, the best part of the introduction was Coffee House publisher Chris Fischbach’s homage—the first poem Nadelberg ever sent to him. Unsurprisingly, Nadelberg was charmingly mortified.

(from left) Chris Fischbach, Sarah Fox, and Greg Hewett read to introduce Amanda Nadelberg

Actually, Nadelberg was just plain charming. The Carleton College and University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop alumna was refreshingly unassuming, and her poems were striking . . . and fun. She engaged the audience as if she was just hanging out on a, well, on a Friday night. She even prefaced one poem by asking if anyone else had heard the news that Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon just renewed their vows. Nadelberg’s unpretentious demeanor would have made the newest newcomer to poetry feel comfortable, while her distinct form and style would have satisfied an avid poetry reader and poet alike, such as Coffee House’s Lightsey Darst and Ed Bok Lee and Graywolf Press’s Dobby Gibson, all of whom were there Friday to cheer on Nadelberg.

The reading was followed by ice cream from Cafe Crema, where Nadelberg was once employed, and a book signing by the author. Like most everything else that fine evening, the signing was simple and very informal—Nadelberg floated between the small groups of clustered fans with a smile, laugh, and signature. Nadelberg’s approachable yet challenging poems warmed the coolness of the stripped-down Soap Factory. I’d say the night was a perfect example of the energetic “litster” scene in the Twin Cities and a success for all involved—poet, publisher, sponsor, and audience. A very solid end to the week/start to the weekend.

For more on Amanda Nadelberg and Bright Brave Phenomena, check out her author page (with interview!) at http://www.coffeehousepress.org/authors/amanda-nadelberg/#author-books.

Have a different take on this event?  Chime in on the comments below! Be sure to check the schedule to the right and the Twin Cities Literary Calendar and be at the next LitSeen attended event. See you around!

-SMS

Guy Delisle

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Guy Delisle's Jerusalem (Drawn and Quarterly)

The globetrotting comics-journalist Guy DeLisle stopped by Magers & Quinn Booksellers on Tuesday, May 1 2012 to share some of his life expeirences, provide insight into his drawing process, and to promote his new book Jerusalem: Chronicles of the Holy City (Drawn & Quarterly).

How does an author read from a graphic novel? Do they describe the image in words, or does an audience member need to have a copy of the book to follow along? Also, what if the author writes in French, as Delisle does?  Though some of his work has been translated into as many as twelve different languages (and Drawn & Quarterly’s new edition of Jerusalem is in English), most of the work Delisle discussed included dialogue penned in French.  Fortunately, he’d developed a format that overcame both of these obstacles, and Delisle turned in one of the more charming, entertaining, and impressive readings I’ve attended.

Using a multimedia layout, Guy Delisle (pronounced, adorably, “Gee De-Lee”) didn’t read an excerpt from the book, as readers typically will. Instead, he gave a decades-spanning recount of how he became the specific artist he is today: from his beginnings as an animator, which required him to travel all over the world for short-term contracts, to his daily habit of sketching notes, which developed into the autobiographical travelogues eventually published by L’Association in Quebec, such as Shenzen, Pyongyang, and Chroniques Birmanes.  For each of these publications, Delisle showed slides of sketches and final images from the books, discussing his experience of drawing them, and focusing their biographical significance rather than the narrative within the book.

Guy Delisle discusses his ridiculous life.

The question of biography vs. journalism was a prominent theme of his talk.  As he explained, “For journalists, when there is an explosion, they go there to write because this is the hot story.  For me, when there is an explosion, I don’t go there!” He is a visitor to these places, and his work simply describes the experience of being a foreigner in a new place—more specifically, it describes the experience of being a Canadian-born, French-speaking, infant-toting, comics-authoring foreigner consciously creating a travelogue about the place he is visiting.  One panel from Jerusalem is a drawing of his own hand holding a sketchbook on which the illustrated version of himself considers a half-finished image.  His work is by no means objective: it is a lesson in subjectivity.

The reading was set up in Magers & Quinn‘s smaller location, tucked between the poetry and popular fiction sections.  Were it not for the space needed by the projector screen, the audience was large enough that it would have justified use of the room’s main space, where larger audiences have a better chance of finding a sight-line.  The bookstore is one of the Twin Cities’s most consistent and valuable venues for readings, but it has been my experience that their events are often hindered by the lack of a devoted reading space. This one was no different, as people had to line up between aisles and crane their necks to see.

Delisle’s talk lasted about 45 minutes, during which the capacity crowd sat attentively, responding to his charming humor and rapt by his French accent. (“I am from Quebec but I am more French,” he explained.  ”I have the French accent now.  When I go home, they explain to me what is maple syrup.”)  As an artist, his work is intriguing, but as a person, his life is fascinating: in that 45 minutes he casually mentioned living and/or working in Canada, France, Germany, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Burma, Ethiopia, Rio De Janeiro, and, of course, Jerusalem.  Though, he did admit he might be slowing down as far as travel goes.  ”Jerusalem will be my last book of this sort,” he declared in the Q+A session.  ”The kids are too big now, and I want to do something new.  Four books like this, it’s the same themes… culture differences, politics, the children, humanitarian work.”  Next, Delisle plans to turn his attention homeward, both in the sense that he’s working on a project about his relationship with his son, as well as in the sense that he’s looking forward to getting back to Quebec, to seeing his home city as an outsider.  Maple syrup, anyone?

-RHM

For a nice little video of Delisle’s method, check out this video.  Were you at this event? Have a different take on this event?  Chime in on the comments below! Be sure to check the schedule to the right and the Twin Cities Literary Calendar and be at the next LitSeen attended event. See you around!