Continua

I make it no secret that my book is pow­ered by con­tinua. Though as a pos­ses­sor of opin­ions, and a left-​​of-​​leftist when pol­i­tics come up, I’m invested in con­clu­sions – when I’m work­ing with process, I’m much more inter­ested in ques­tions. And con­tinua – gra­di­ents – turn ques­tions into lit­er­ary mechanics.

The Purpose of Stories, 3

Let’s take this dis­cus­sion back to the book. I’ve thought a lot about porta­bil­ity lately, and even about own­er­ship of words. Maybe the only way the story I’m writ­ing will sur­vive its book­ness is for me to release it entirely. My ver­sion of the story is just one. Yours will be next.

Dredge Poetics (Full Text)

Well, it’s been deliv­ered. The mighty Bren­dan Con­stan­tine also deliv­ered a deli­cious lit­tle lec­ture, and it was an honor to open this new com­mu­nity series with him. Here’s the full text. If you like or if you don’t, please say so!

Mother Culture Croons All Night

This week­end I began recov­ery from read­ing Ish­mael. It’s hard not to won­der how we’re sup­posed to move for­ward from this damn book. Quinn him­self, in an author’s note at the back, refers to it as much more than a book.

Breakthroughs

Every­thing the speaker of Estu­ary writes is in present tense. Every­thing. Do you real­ize how creepy that is? Really. Try it. This has the ring of a strong styl­iz­ing that will lead to some­thing more pre­cise, but for now, creepy. Also, she appears to speak in two-​​columned prose. This comes on the heels of another major breakthrough…

Criminal Elistism

How many times has this hap­pened? You want to deepen your under­stand­ing of some­thing. You get a book. You start read­ing. The writ­ing is so dense, or need­lessly com­plex, you can’t get through it, much less enjoy it. This is crim­i­nal elit­ism. Shit’s gotta stop.

Buoyed

Tues­day after­noon I went over to Pat’s place and dug through boxes-​​and-​​boxes-​​and-​​boxes of books with her hus­band, John. To give a sense of the rar­ity and qual­ity there, a good deal of her col­lec­tion will be donated to UNM’s library archives, and prob­a­bly another university’s.

Snowday!

Let’s see if there ain’t a poem under these city-​​debilitating 2″.

There ain’t. Look­out, week­end. Shit’s on.

Convergence

Some­thing big is hap­pen­ing in the sister’s sec­tion, bol­stered by events described in her broth­ers’ ver­sions. In a way, it’s mir­ror­ing what I was talk­ing about last week. A con­ver­gence of the most sur­real, faith-​​​​requiring moments in all three texts. This is trans­form­ing from merely fun to write into nec­es­sary in the larger web of events. And fuck, if that’s not a relief. Next time you read some­thing that seems to require you over­haul your dis­be­lief, remem­ber: the author may have engaged the same faith, won­der­ing for months  –  or years  –  where the story was lead­ing her. In other news, the other night I real­ized what each of the speak­ers rep­re­sents, the­mat­i­cally. (That came entirely out of the recent dis­cus­sion of…

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

Toward the end of Pat’s book, Wee­t­a­moo has some hard con­cerns about writ­ing, itself. Young Meta­com has learned to write the fig­ure A. He pro­nounces it for her, and explains the white men’s util­ity in writ­ing  –  and the Indian need, there­fore, to be con­ver­sant in it. I had to stop read­ing a while after I saw her response: …What if, when­ever we wanted a story, we could just reach out and read it from a paper, instead of wait­ing for the right time and place and the right sto­ry­teller to tell it to us? As it is with us now, when we learn a story, we must hear it again and and again, and repeat it to…