Barely South Blog

The New Blog for Barely South Review

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Review of Sand Opera

by Amanda Huynh 

Philip Metres’ poetry book, Sand Opera, is the Winner of the 2013 Beatrice Hawley Award; a bold and unforgettable collection that vividly explores the perils of war and the rippling effects it has on our culture. The collection can be viewed as an extension of his previous 2011 chapbook, Abu Ghraid Arias, as this chapbook is included in Sand Opera as a section. Sand Opera continues to explore the voices of Iraqi prisoners’ testimonies, American guards’ testimonies, the Bible, and the military Standard Operating Procedure manual. Metres writes from the center of being an Arab-American and unearths the raw aftereffects of the War on Terror; the injustice and humanity of war in a raw and emotional medium that historical facts lack. He also weaves his experience becoming a new father as well as coming to terms of what it means to be an Arab-American in a post 9/11 America.

Sand Opera contains a handful of lyrical and traditional pieces, but the collection is mainly a compilation of more experimental poems. Even the title of this collection is, in itself, a redaction of Standard Operating Procedure: Standard Operating Procedure. From the beginning, Metres sets his readers up for a very different poetic experience.

The poems that fall under experimental include elements such as redactions, caesuras, diagrams, strikeouts, overlays, and gray/faded text. In addition to a poetic essence, these craft decisions make his collection stand out as a visual artwork. Metres manipulates a prison room layout as an overlay and embeds text underneath. The result amalgamates a visual and textual reading, a rare sighting in poetry, but effective nonetheless. Metres does this a handful of times while orchestrating other stylistic choices. He presents the same poem, but dissects the piece by subtracting words, inserting caesuras, and redacting. All of these variations allow for a new reading in each interaction while building upon the previous one. Metres gains momentum by building devastating images and it creates a type of haunting that is carried throughout the book. While Sand Opera is very provocative in its presentation the content does not suffer from the risks Metres takes.

At the end, the reader is left with the hard truths that took place during the War on Terror as well as what follows in its wake. There are moments when the reader cannot turn away from the page which echoes the narrators’ situations in each poem. The collection creates a lasting impression of what it means to be a prisoner of war and highlights the tragedies that humans can inflict upon each other. It will leave any reader uncomfortable and vulnerable. Metres does infuse hope in learning from the past, and moving forward. Overall, Sand Opera offers a new approach to crating political poetry. For political poetry, Metres does stunning work that would be difficult to replicate. Any writer striving to write about current events or who want to take a political stance in poetry needs to read this book.

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Review of Invisible Republic

by Kevin Norris

A while back, I wrote a blog titled, “Graphic Novels in the Classroom.” The idea of teaching a Graphic Novel sounded intriguing. Of course students would love them. They are, I assumed, full of stimulating graphic and engaging text.   I mean, what does a teacher want? He or she wants his or her students to be engaged in the text. As teachers, we want our students to love to read.

I have never been one to like comic books. Yes, I pretended to like them as a child because my friends did. And yes, I did dress up like Superman and Aquaman . However, they failed to really engross me into the text. I liked books like Charolotte’s Web, The Outsiders, and The Hobbit. Nevertheless, being the “Curious George” that I am, I had to find out what the buzz was surrounding graphic novels.

Walking in the isle of Barnes and Nobles, I noticed a copious amount of Graphic Novels.  Surprisingly, old classic stories filled the shelves: Batman and Superman. I didn’t care that much to look at them when I was I kid, so I wasn’t motivated to view them now. Then, my eyes fixated on Invisible Republic, written by Gabriel Hardman, Corinna Bechko and Jordan Boyd. Its cover was dark with only a glimpse of the sun, as if in a cave.

At the mouth of the cave there stands a man in a dark overcoat. His eyes are glowing. There is a woman next to him. Both are holding a sword which reminds me of Darth Maul’s two edged light saber.  However, looking closer, it’s easy to see that it is not a cave, but a passageway to perhaps another dimension. There are flickers of light that resemble stars.  There is a moon that resembles Star Wars’ Death Star and space ships that look like it is attacking the moon. Being a devoted Star Wars fan and since it resembles Star Wars, I bought it for $9.99, hoping it would be a good reason to sacrifice a green tea latte and spinach and artichoke quiche lunch.

The setting begins on a moon called Avalon, located in the Gliese System.  The plot combines politics and science fiction. One Regime, Malory Regime, has ended; therefore, another regime must take its place.

The plot centers on a writer who is given secret documents from someone that resembles a homeless person.  Then the narration goes back 40 years. The reader finds out that the moon was once called Maidstone.  The document describes the events of mainly two characters: Arthur McBride and Maia. It turns out the writer of the manuscript is Maia. She tells how she was deceived by Arthur McBride and the events that follow.

Personally, I found the narrative difficult to follow. I need clear transitions from the present to the past and vice-versa. The transitions are not clear.  Perhaps, this is a learned skill.  By one who is raised reading comic books.

Nevertheless, the pictures are well illustrated, giving awesome details of the landscape. The colors are dark, mirroring the dark, corrupted characters in the book.  The detailed illustrations of the characters give the characters life.

However, I don’t think it’s for me. I like to visualize the landscape and characters in my mind, often imagining that I am a character in the book. That’s why a book is unique to each person. Since the characters were drawn out for me, my imagination was not stimulated.

Furthermore, I was unable to lose myself within the fictional dream. I love to lose myself to a book, having the characters and plots form inside my head, having time slip by without even knowing how long I’ve been reading until I’ve stopped at the end of a chapter to check the time.

I couldn’t do that with this Graphic Novel. I found myself staring at the pictures, not engages with the narrative. I also found myself going back and forth trying to figure out what was going on. I guess the novel would help students learn inference skills.

However, as far a Graphic Novels are concerned, it does have an appealing plot and the visuals are good. So, if you like comic books with curse words in it, the Invisible Public would probably be for you.

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Review of Melissa Harrison’s At Hawthorn Time

by Tyler Beckett

Melissa Harrison’s At Hawthorn Time is only the author’s second novel but is an outstanding work for its deep engagement with the residents and natural world that make up her fictional village Lodeshill. Harrison draws on a small cast of narrators to witness how a changing world affects even remote British towns, perhaps these towns especially. This focus was particularly appealing for the way familiar problems (generational divides, struggling economies, a church in decline) apply to unfamiliar places, and as Hawthorn cycles between characters Harold, Kitty, Jamie, and Jack, the town and its challenges become familiar to the reader.

Part of how Harrison establishes the character of Lodeshill is through the beautiful descriptions of local nature, especially the flora that has always served as its backdrop. It is appropriate that the novel’s prologue features a retrospective to a time prior to the Roman occupation; when interacting with the natural features of the village, the characters are often impressed with a sense of the eternal in the wildlife. Though the fields and forests of Lodeshill are shaped by human industry it is still springtime, and each chapter begins with Jack’s terse but descriptive field notes detailing the ongoing cycle of flowering and growth.

The characters are also written in great detail and with compelling flaws, and their foibles are certainly part of why we keep reading. It is worth mentioning, however, that the characters aren’t given much to struggle against. Harold and Kitty’s marriage is failing, sure, but there’s no particular impetus, and both Jack and Jamie’s storylines are guilty of meandering a good deal. We are aware that the characters have major shortcomings, and we are even aware that some of them will be involved in a fatal car crash, as revealed in the prologue.

But the details of the crash are only given in summary in the prologue and epilogue, and none of the actions between make the crash particularly inevitable or likely. It is an event that the reader must look forward to but ultimately be disappointed by, and the moment I realized the crash would occur offstage was a moment of incredible frustration with the novel. What had I been reading for? Hardly any choices had been made by the characters, so all that tension, however finely crafted, felt like it had gone to waste.

Though it is beautifully-written and taut as a wire, At Hawthorn Time feels like a novel in wait for a story. Events occur and the characters react, sometimes dramatically, but the crisis action is deliberately cut out, so all of the rising action seems to be tension with nowhere to go. The characters have moments of insight and eventually intend to act, but the accident cuts off their actions, and even the epilogue refuses to reveal anything but one character’s death. This frayed ending does not negate the quality of the text of course: moment-by-moment this is an excellent read, with many passages worth returning to again and again. But if the reader hopes to find some reward from the text as a whole, they ought to prepare themselves for a deliberately frustrating end.

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Review of Carly Simon’s Boys in Trees

by Emily Howell 

When I heard Carly Simon was writing her memoir I was skeptical, but curious—I’m not usually a fan of memoirs written by pop culture icons, so when I opened Boys in the Trees my expectations were low but I decided to give it a chance nonetheless.

The book, which is split into three parts, focuses on Simon’s relationship with the men in her life and how they have affected her both psychologically and emotionally. Her father—a depressing figure to say the least—ignored her and from a young age she was made to feel inadequate. “After two daughters he’d been counting on a son, a male successor to be named Carl. When I was born, he and mommy simply added a y to the word, like an accusing chromosome: Carly.” Her adolescence was also marked by sexual abuse, her mother’s infidelity, an obsession with the way the family was perceived, and a late-onset stammer that shattered her self-confidence through high school.

Simon spouts off a laundry list of the men she’s encountered (both flirtatiously and sexually) and dishes all the dirty details—like airing entries from her diary (literally and figuratively). Sean Connery, Marvin Gaye, Mick Jaggar, Jack Nicholson, Kris Kristofferson, Cat Stevens and of course the infamous womanizer, Warren Beatty (who Simon admits the second verse of “You’re So Vain” is about) all make an appearance. Perhaps she wants payback for being made to feel like a “notch on the bedpost.”

The final third of the book recounts Simon’s decade long marriage to James Taylor. She overly-romanticizes their relationship and often idolizes him; when she describes their first (adulthood) encounter she says: “Everything about him communicated that he was, in fact, the center of something – the core of an apple, the center of a note.” But her adoration is countered by a dark look into life with Taylor and a decade of drug abuse, infidelity and the extreme highs and lows that defined their relationship.

Although the book does touch upon Simon’s career as a musician it’s often as more of an afterthought—always supplementary to an anecdote about one man or another: how the meeting of Sean Connery lead to the end of the Simon Sisters, the writing of a verse of “You’re So Vain” about Warren Beatty, or “Anticipation” in response to Cat Stevens late arrival to dinner. One thing is very clear: Carly Simon’s life has revolved around men, not music.  

I enjoyed reading Simon’s memoir—for the story more so than the prose. Simon’s flowery, lyrical wording can be less than enjoyable and sometimes even worthy of an elongated eye-roll. I felt that she was trying to mimic the classic voice of Austin (who she admittedly admires). As always, I enjoyed the inclusion of photographs at the beginning/end of chapters—a choice I believe more memoirists should make. Despite my initial low expectations and the quips I had with her voice Boys in the Trees was an engaging, brutally honest look into the life of an American icon.

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On Self-Publishing: To Publish or Not To Publish

               The other day, a 9th grade Honor English student of mine approached me, asking me publishing advice. As one who has never been published, I wasn’t quite sure of how to come up with an appropriate response. However, common sense told me that the best response would be, “I think you have to be 18 to legally sign a contract, so I don’t know if you will be able to get published without your parents being involved.”

               “I know. They are involved. We are thinking about IUniverse. They said they want to publish my book,” she said. At first, I was confused as to what company would want to publish her book. I’m not an expert critic by any means, but I did read part of it, and though it did have good potential, my good senses would tell me that no legitimate company would publish it as it stood.

Then I thought back to the first book I wrote about 13- years ago. Thinking it was the best thing since Goosebumps, I sent query letter after query letter to agents and publishing companies. After filling up a shoe box with prewritten rejection letters (AKA form letters), I came across a non-traditional publishing company: PublishAmerica and after getting warm praises from my family and friends, I was just about to publish it with that company.

However, I started reading about the publishing industries along with reviews of self-publishing experiences. Most of the literature on the publishing industry states that a writer should never have to pay a fee for anything, not even for a publisher or agent to read your writing samples.

As stated, this was about 13- years ago. My student made me curious about what is out there now. When googling the topic, I saw several familiar sites: Authorhouse, OutskirtPress, and IUniverse.

Authorhouse’s website attempts to draw the author in by using the pathos approach, stating how hard he or she worked on his or her book. The author feels as though he or she deserves to be  published and for the price range, according the website, of $899 to $11, 899, the author can see his or her book in print.

OutskirtPress prices fair a little better. For as low as $399, according to their website, an author can become a published author.  Of course, if the author wants the book edited, there are additional fees.

As far as my search goes, there is no published pricing information with regards to IUniverse publishing. An author has to fill out a request form, so the information can be mail to him or her.

So, what’s the point of self-publishing? When I first contemplated the idea of self-publishing with one of the mentioned companies, my hope was for a big publishing company to read my book and want to publish it, thus, paying me the big bucks. It has been rumored (I can’t find a respectful confirmation) that such authors as Poe, James Joyce and Steven King once self-published.

So as to whether not one should self- publish, hey, if you think that your work will be discovered that way, go ahead. If you want to have your family and friends read your manuscript in a nice shiny book jacket, go ahead. As for me, I will continue to try the tradition route of going through an agent (though I probably won’t become famous until, like Edgar Allen Poe, I’m dead). And, if I want my family and friends to read my books, I will just print them out. They will love them no matter what.

 Kevin Norris is a second year MFA in Creative Nonfiction candidate at Old Dominion University. He also teaches High School English; therefore, he has a strong interest in the current trends of public education.  He lives in Virginia Beach with his wife of 22 years and three children.

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Review of 13 Ways of Looking

by Maggie Libby Davis 

“In the end, though, every word we write is autobiographical, perhaps most especially when we attempt to avoid the autobiographical.”

--Colum McCann

Colum McCann suggests that his newest short story collection Thirteen Ways of Looking, published in November 2015, has autobiographical components. This leads me to suspect that the voices in the stories will have some commonality that is uniquely McCann. However, the voices in each story were so unique that the only commonality I could find was that each story compelled me to read further – pulled deep into the narrative and wishing for a fifth story in this collection of four.

The book begins with the title story about the last day in the life of a retired judge, told from his perspective and that of the detectives and suspects following the events after judge’s murder. The reader is never lost in the jumping between time and point of view. The juxtaposition of the witty, entertaining style of the judge versus the almost journalistic style of writing while the murder is investigated somehow creates a deeper relationship between the reader and the judge. While McCann grants no easy resolution to end the suspense built from the judicial process, in the end the reader must come to realize that the truth exists as it exists, regardless of how many different ways there are to view it.

The second story “What Time Is It Now, Where You Are?” is a complicated crush of what is and what could be. The form cannot be described in any meaningful way here; one must simply read it. The story is short, seemingly lacking in complexity and even possibly plot, but I promise it’s worth the read and lacking in nothing.

“Sh’khol” is the third story telling of a mother who has to let go of her adopted son in a way that is completely unexpected. McCann’s ability to pull the reader into the details, the emotions, the darkness and light of love, is strong enough to force this reader to take time between the stories to recover.

While it’s been said that a writer should avoid the mistake of saving the best story for last, I do believe McCann did this by ending his collection with “Treaty.” And it was the right choice. The story tells of a nun on a journey to confront her past. I’ll admit there were moments when I thought, “That’s quite a coincidence.” or “Who paid for that?” but the writing was so beautiful that I no sooner had those thoughts that they were forgotten as I was submerged back into the swiftly moving story.

The last story, and the collection of course, ends with “an agreement of faith with a man whose name she does not even know,” wherein any questions on how we ended up in that place, or questions about humanity, are dissolved in a sigh of relief so badly needed mixed with a little bit of melancholy at reaching the end.

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Writing to Know Ourselves

Karen Russell’s 2015 keynote address was published in the December issue of “The Writer’s Chronicle”. I decided to read it because the title lead me to believe it was going to be about “Play,” a concept I’ve done a lot of research on in the past year (primarily about how play can be used in Writing Centers to more successfully aid students). Despite the fact that this wasn’t at all with Russell’s address entailed, I pulled a lot of quotations from it that spoke to me:

“The novelist Porochista Kharkpour has written that great literature, “merges escape and confrontation.” When we read, we are fugitives from our everyday anxieties; we are liberated from the droning of our own voices.” We simulate other mind’s experience of reality.

“Inside the “safe” world of a book, we can move dangerously, thinking and feeling beyond the boundaries set by our self-preserving instincts.

“Lost in a book, I often find myself facing over-whelming truths that I might otherwise flee, or that would be invisible to me from my perch in ordinary time.”

“Under the spell of our own names, I think we often go numb. Blind, deaf, dumb to the reality of others--I speak for myself here, but often what I’m fighting at my writing desk is my own paralysis.”  

“Humans are extraordinary virtual reality simulators. Our brains are always predicting and simulating the actions of others.”

I was reminded of these a few days ago while scrolling through my Facebook feed. A friend of mine had shared, “Explaining My Depression to my Mother: A Conversation,” a spoken word piece by Sabrina Benaim.

I wanted to share these, because I connected to both of them--they speak to the way writing, reading and creative expression allows us to tap into the inexplicable parts of ourselves.

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A Brief Review of Duotrope

By Amanda Huynh

The idea of submitting my work to different journals was far off in the distance, and I associated submitting work as a huge tedious, mind-sucking task. I had heard horror stories of complex excel sheets, thirty- paged Word documents, accidentally applying to a journal that did not accept simultaneous submissions, or forgetting to withdraw simultaneous submissions from journals once a piece was accepted.

In 2014, I was introduced to Duotrope by a fellow writer. Duotrope serves as a database that contains over 5200 online literary journals, print literary journals, chapbook contests, book contests, book publishers, and more. Now, Duotrope does not list everything as the system relies on users/journals inputting data on two levels.

The first level involves information on the journals. Typically, a journal’s staff members would be updating the information on Duotrope, but sometimes individual writers can contact Duotrope to update a journal’s information.

The following screenshot shows what the format of journal’s pages are presented. There is a quick “About” section, a snapshot picture of the journal’s website, “Submission Periods” (lists what genres they accept: fiction, non-fiction, poetry), “Genres,” “Audience, Poetry Forms, Styles & Topics,” “Types & Lengths,” “Media & Publication Frequency,” “Payscale,” and “Submission Types.” All of these vary from journal to journal. Here is an example of the page (taken from my logged in member view:

The second level of information comes from writers (users). If I submit something to Barely South Review, Duotrope tracks my submission (based on my data that I input – when I submitted, when I heard back from them, accepted or rejected, and so on) in order to create the “Response Statistics” tab. Now, these responses can be filtered by fiction, poetry, non-fiction or can include all of the above. Below, I have included another screenshot of the “Response Statistics.”  Again, there is the “Filter options:” bar which I have set to “All.” The statistics on Barely South Review are broken down into Accuracy, Resonses, Acceptances, Rejections, and so forth. One thing that has been very helpful has been the average day per rejections/acceptances. When writers view this page, they can look at the percentage of Acceptances: 1.97% (52.7 avg. days per acceptance). This helps me keep a timeline. If I have not heard back from Barely South Review (or any other journal with similar statistics) in eighty days then I know either my work is being considered or something is stalling the staff.  Another helpful tool, would be the “Pending” statistic toward the bottom. Right now, 43 responses are pending. However, this does not include the submissions that are unreported. I usually double this number to give me a better overview.  If you click “View Report of recent Responses from this Market” in blue, under “Other Information,” a user can see how active the journal has been (e.g. a timestamp of when someone was rejected or accepted). Again, all of this is dependent upon users reporting. However, the “Response Statistics” are only available to members, and is very helpful in the submission process.

Honestly, I was dreading the submissions process until I signed up for Duotrope. Of course, you need to be a member of Duotrope in order to access all of this information. There are two options for payment: pay five dollars per month or pay a one-time annual fee of fifty dollars. For the potential headache the process could be, I think this is definitely worth.

The biggest complaint I have is how quickly my session is timed out. While I have Duotrope open, I may click on a journal link to read about their submissions, and in the meantime I will be kicked out of Duotrope and prompted to log back in. When you are researching journals for a couple of hours, this can become very annoying. Duotrope has so many more functions that I have not even touched: searching genres, being able to see other related projects, searching by word counts, keeping track of your submissions, and so on. There are so many possibilities and things Duotrope can do that I have yet to discover myself (and I have been using this system for about a year). 

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A Literary Journal Called Me Sexy

Getting Intimate with your Favorite Publications

by Tyler Beckett

A simple compliment to a writer whose story I admired resulted in a bold declaration of amorous admiration.

(See the exchange here)

“Sexy.” There’s no category on Duotrope for that kind of response. It’s personal but not a rejection; is this how you go about soliciting? I gave them a flustered Favorite and hoped that would be enough, but Timber stayed on my mind. Did they want a response? Were they thinking of me?

We’re in an age where publishing houses have silly Twitter feuds and literary magazines can hit on writers (and you bet your ass I submitted something to Timber). Maybe that’s not “professional.” Maybe that would be seen as “inappropriate” in polite society. But it’s sexy as hell, and it shows that the journal knows the power of irreverent, forceful, and well-chosen language.

The Timber Journal probably did not look through my photos before sending me that message, and it did not know me as a writer. What it did know was that we shared a love of language and an appreciation of a short story. I’ve flirted with people based on less of a connection than that, and for that boldness I would gladly take Timber home.

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Retreats for Writers of Color

By Amanda Huynh

The MFA Communities are trying to become more diverse with faculty, but being able to draw diverse students has been a constant struggle. While I have not had the chance to attend a retreat dedicated to supporting Latino/a writers, I understand the importance of having a community of Latino/a (Asian American, African American) peers.

When I read alongside other Latino/a writers in Austin, Texas, the atmosphere was entirely difference from readings I have done in Virginia. I saw my family, my home, my friends embedded in the poems and stories read.

While summer is six months away, the deadlines for three writers’ retreats are quickly approaching. Cave Canem and CantoMundo are geared toward poets while Kundiman offers a retreat for fiction writers and poets. Whether you are currently in an MFA Program or contemplating about applying, I encourage you to attend one of these wonderful retreats.

Cave Canem

Deadline: December 4, 2015

Cave Canem 2016 will be held June 12-19, 2016 at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The faculty will include Cornelius Eady, Willie Perdomo, Amber Flora Thomas & Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon. This year the Guest Poet will be Major Jackson.

Cave Canem was founded in 1996 by Toi Derricottee and Cornelius Eady. Cave Canem’s mission statement: “Cave Canem is home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.”

Each year, the Cave Canem committee selects 24 new participants to attend the retreat (must be 21 and over to apply). In addition, 30 fellows will return for their second or third time.

Click here for more information/application: https://cavecanem.submittable.com/submit/46638

Kundiman

Deadline: December 31, 2015

Kundiman 2016 will be held June 15-19, 2016 at Fordham University, Rose Hill New York City.

The poetry faculty will include Kimiko Hahn, Lee Herrick, and Jaswinder Bolina. The fiction faculty will include R. Zamora Linmark, Bich Minh Nguyen, and the third fiction faculty is still to be decided.

Kundiman was founded in 2004 by Sarah Gambito and Joseph Legaspi. The retreat caters to Asian American writers, poetry and fiction, who are encouraged to explore and grow within the Asian American community of writers. Kundiman’s mission statement: “Kundiman is dedicated to the creation and cultivation of Asian American literature.”

The retreat has had more than 170 writers attend the Kundiman Retreat. Many of the fellows have gone on to be published in respected journals, accepted into MFA and doctoral programs, and have had books/chapbooks published.

For more information: http://kundiman.org/retreat

CantoMundo

Deadline: December 31, 2015

CantoMundo 2016 will take place July 21-24, 2016 at the University of Texas at Austin. This year the faculty will include the current U.S. Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Texas Poet Laureate, Dr. Carmen Tafolla. The featured Guest Lecturer will be the 19th U.S. Poet Laureate, Natasha Trethewey.

CantoMundo was inspired by Cave Canem and Kundiman, and founded in 2009 by Norma E. Cantú, Celeste Mendoza, Pablo Miguel Martínez, Deborah Paredez, and Carmen Tafolla. The purpose of the annual poetry workshop is to help support and grow the Latino/a community of poets.

Each year, the CantoMundo committee selects 10 -12 new fellows to attend and return to the writing retreat up to three times.

For more information/application: http://www.cantomundo.org/submit-poetry

Best of luck!

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Review of George Saunders’ Tenth of December

by Tyler Beckett

George Saunders’ Tenth of December is as close to a sure pick as you can get. There isn’t even really a question here; no one is going to pick up the book, read the glowing reviews and the flattering comparisons to Mark Twain, and ask their friend, “What do you think, has this Saunders guy got any talent?” The question is answered. And of course he is a short story writer and this is a short story collection. So you’re reading a review of a book by a sacred literary figure doing what he does best, blessing the masses with his stories that come to us like mana from above, and somehow we’re still facing this central question: is the book good?

Yes. Tenth of December is a good book. It is a good collection of short stories any way you look at it, whether in terms of literary merit or entertainment value or the credibility it will lend your personal library. These are tried and true stories, published in places like Harper’s Magazine and McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, so they’ve faced scrutiny before. And yes, I did enjoy the book, so now that it is thoroughly established that this is a good book, let’s get to the only original reflections I can offer: what in this book is truly great?

First story that comes to mind is “Escape from Spiderhead,” a sci-fi tale with a concept so suited to its themes that I am still angry I hadn’t written it myself. The narrator is a dull-minded jail inmate who can hardly put together sentences without the use of powerful drugs, but through this man’s descriptive language we get a story that is troubling in how straightforward it is, in how effectively it upends our understanding of human experience through the words of a placid inmate. This story ought to be on required reading lists; it’s the kind of tale that engages you no matter the reading level or interest in literature.

Then there are two stories, “Victory Lap” and “Al Roosten,” which mirror one another in such a way that to read them together troubles and relieves in turns. “Victory Lap” had me in anguish for a great deal of the story before it offered any reward while “Al Roosten” taunted me with the tangential daydreams of a middle class loser who practically taunted me with his ignored opportunities. These stories almost seemed exhortations to the reader for a kinder, more considerate lives, which perhaps makes the story “Puppy” all the more troubling. Its exploration of the way the two main characters can be so unintentionally terrible to each other is a quick devastating read. “Home” similarly agitates the reader with the dangerous mental state of a veteran returned from the war, a story that is almost too tense, almost too dark in its humor, and Saunders forces the reader to walk with his protagonist on a razor-thin line of humor and bleak despair. The fact that such a story is not a source for despair but instead close introspection on the part of the reader is a testament to the author’s careful handling.

And of course there is the story for which the collection is named, “Tenth of December.” A kid interrupts a man’s suicidal plan by nearly drowning out on a frozen lake, which is certainly an interesting enough plot hook for most writers. But here we see much of what sets a George Saunders’s story apart, the ability to bring voice and character into a story with such precision and care that a plot description is completely inadequate. The boy in this story imagines tiny aliens that battle him and prove his heroism; the man has a degenerative disease and a desire to slip away quietly. They are on journeys of their own, unrelated and important, entertaining and terrifying. Everything hangs in the balance and is explored with brevity and clear eyes. This story is an example of its kind, a sample of some of what the book Tenth of December has to offer. It’s undeniably good, unquestionably skillfully-written. But in this collection there are stories that are great, and these are more than worth reading.

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Review of Vessel

by Amanda Huynh 

In her debut poetry collection, Parneshia Jones leads her readers through a young black girl’s coming-of-age journey, and describes the transformation of her ties between family members, lovers, and society. Jones organizes the book into a five-sectioned quintet, where each section sings a distinct melody, but one that harmonizes as a collective whole.

The first section revolves around the discovery period in a child’s life, where questions of identity are confronted and wrestled with, like the brief desire of a friend’s name. In this section, there are a handful of poems that call upon childhood memories. For example, the opening poem, “Definition,” reveals the origin of Parneshia’s name. She draws a line between her name and that of the Greek mountain Parnassus; her action, to define one’s self, resonates with our tendencies to do the same even at a young age. Jones sets the foundation in this first poem because the succeeding ones focus on specific childhood memories. The poems transition into claiming one’s name, a grandmother’s warmth, a snippet from faded YMCA basement parties, and ends with “Bra Shopping” in Marshall Fields.

The sections in Vessel sail into each other flawlessly; while Jones ends with a girl’s inevitable experience with puberty, or bra shopping, it ties into the next section with an awkward experience in “French Kiss.” While the poems deal with the narrator’s community of friends, Jones also builds the familial community. Jones executes this with skill as it takes a closer read to see how her poetic mind is at work. The communities built in the second section, expand in the third as step-fathers, death, abuse, sickness, and “rows of unfinished dreams” find their way to the surface.

While another layer of the narrator’s foundational world is built, Jones proceeds to placing her narrator in a contrasting setting, Chicago. The previous poems were set in a warm immediate community (i.e. around family, childhood friends, etc.). The woman Jones portrays in Chicago is independent, a thinker, a poet, and very aware of her surroundings. These poems exude the essence of being aware, and what one’s responsibility becomes when residing in this awareness.

Of course, Jones brings her readers back in a full circle in the last section. She expands on one’s responsibility as a witness, as a poet, to society. The themes involve civil rights, Barack Obama, being black, and being a woman. The last poem, “Lesson Plan,” can be seen as an instructional piece for all women, as the narrator is told:

You are meant to have a daughter.

You are meant to pass on all of your women.

Speak all the women of you loudly—speak them with purpose.

As one moves through the collection, the poems and the voice grows. There is beautiful music within her poems. This poetry collection is the song of a woman’s plight. The epigraph, by Muriel Rukeyser, reads: “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” This quote is a testament to the Jones’s craftsmanship attempts to capture in her debut collection.

[barelysouthblog]

Twenty Isn’t Enough

By Gregory Chandler

In “Twenty Poems That Could Save America,” featured in a 2014 collection of essays under the same name, Tony Hoagland tells us that the current canon of poets is failing to accurately represent the poetry community and is helping students to reinforce the idea that poetry is confusing, outdated, and unimportant. Hoagland calls for primary and secondary school curriculums across the nation to rethink the way they teach poetry, specifically by removing inaccessible or long-dead poets like Emily Dickinson, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, and W.B. Yeats, replacing them with poets that students are more likely to understand, be interested in, and connect with. Hoagland tells us that many teachers choose the nearly inaccessible classic poets because they feel that they have the knowledge to teach their students about poetry, and want to show that knowledge off. This creates problems because it puts poetry that needs someone to explain it in the spotlight. Students begin to feel that all poetry is only accessible when someone who already understands the work is there to explain it, which is not at all true.

Hoagland, never one to point out a problem without a well-devised solution, offers twenty poems with which teachers can replace the current curriculum, and he’s created quite the diverse list. Almost all of the poets chosen on Hoagland’s list are from the Twentieth Century, the exception being Walt Whitman, with “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” and many of the poets Hoagland selected are still living and writing. On the other hand, to leave students across the country with twenty poems selected to showcase the many functions of poetry leaves much to be desired. Students on the East Coast are not going to be fully engaged by the same poems that students on the West Coast might. The same goes for students who grew up in a city like Philadelphia or Baltimore and children who grew up in rural Mississippi. Hoagland’s selected poems are certainly a good jumping point for teachers who have little experience with teaching poetry, but I think the real work is going to fall on the teachers to decipher the interests of their students and select poems that she feels are going to connect on the deepest level with those students.

I didn’t really discover poetry until my senior year of high school, when my AP English teacher spent a week going over sonnets, villanelles, and “The Red Wheelbarrow,” though I’d surrounded myself through poetic language through songwriting as early as 6th grade. Even then, I loved the power that words could have on my emotions, whether it be in a song, a particularly strong piece of prose, or, on rare occasions, a good poem. I spent my middle and high school years using my growing knowledge of literary devices to bolster my songwriting techniques, progressing from writing shitty ripoffs of shallow rock hits from the seventies and eighties to writing well-crafted ripoffs of shallow rock hits from the seventies and eighties (and nineties). I started college majoring in theater at Temple University in Philadelphia with a goal to become a playwright, having never really immersed myself in poetry. That spring I changed my major to English with the intention of teaching high school, and in my literary theories class we read “The Wasteland,” and I totally didn’t get it.

When I transferred to the University of Mary Washington my sophomore year, I took another literary theories course, where the professor began every class with a reading and discussion from two short American poetry anthologies. It was in that class I fell in love with language again, but, just like Hoagland warned, we primarily read poems from the traditional canon, which held little meaning to most of the students in our class. Even so, I decided to change my focus, again, to creative writing, primarily to bolster my songwriting skills even further. It was another three semesters before I finally fell in love with poetry for poetry’s sake.

Spring semester my senior year of undergraduate, I took a course on contemporary American poetry, as well as the capstone poetry workshop. Finally, in the contemporary poetry class, I found poets that I could relate to on a personal level, who I felt shared some experiences and worldviews with me, rather than general feelings. Poets like A. Van Jordan and Dan Beachy-Quick captured my attention in ways that Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg had failed to do at that point (though I’ve since come around to their works). We were assigned Best American Poetry 2013, which hadn’t even come out when textbooks were announced. Nearly every poem in that collection felt more intimate to me than years of Emily Dickinson’s writing (though I also adore her work). The range of topics, of forms, of poets in that collection made sure that there was something in the collection for every student in the class.

That’s the kind of excitement I think a broader range of contemporary poetry selections could bring to high school, and even middle school, classrooms. There are poems that students from all backgrounds can draw connections to, and it’s up to individual teachers in each classroom across America to be able to find those poems for each individual student in their classes. Hoagland’s “Twenty Poems That Could Save America” is a fantastic jumping point and a great way for teachers to open the dialogue of poetry to their students. But it’s just a starting point, and Hoagland knows that teachers are still going to have to do the bulk of the work if they want to bring poetry back to the American public. It’s too late to start teaching accessible poetry in upper-level undergraduate English courses. The process needs to be done as early as elementary school if we want it to have any sticking power. So let’s all take our favorite contemporary poems and share them with a child we care about, whether it’s a sibling, cousin, family friend, or a student you tutor. Make sure they know that poetry is out there, and it’s for them.

[barelysouthblog]

Review of Michael White’s Travels in Vermeer

by Emily Howell 

Longlisted for the National Book Award in Nonfiction, Michael White’s memoir Travels in Vermeer documents White’s journey to reconnect with the inner self through the paintings of Johannes Vermeer. In the middle of a divorce and custody battle that’s restricting his ability to see his daughter, Sophie, White takes a vacation to Amsterdam as an escape. One afternoon he stumbles into the Rijksmuseum and finds himself in a room displaying Vermeer. He’s struck by his work and upon learning there are 35 of his works displayed in the world he sets out to see them all. Over the course of a year he visits The Hague, Delft, Washington, London and New York.

White gets lost in Vermeer’s world and pulls the reader in with him. He puts each painting under the microscope and brings the beauty of each piece to life on the page. Similar to an art critic White is painstakingly observant in his portrayal of detail, from the quirks in a subject’s facial expression to the layering of paint on the canvas. Not only does he treat Vermeer’s art with such an eye, but also he treats the rooms in which they are held with an equal reverence. White makes the reader believe in the healing power of art as they experience his transformation from a man drowning in loss and pain to one reinvigorated with life.

Throughout the book I found myself lost in time. White uses lyrical prose to describe the places he visits. I was easily transported in time to the cities in the era of Vermeer only to be jolted back to reality by mention of iPhones and match.com dates. White was able to make me experience his emotions alongside him and although at times the storyline slowed I never found myself uninterested. My only frustration was with the lack of visuals included in the book. I wanted to see the paintings. I was constantly removing myself from the story as I felt the need to pull up the paintings on my computer as White discussed each one. It broke the rhythm of the prose, which could have easily been solved by placing the paintings within the text.

Overall, a worthwhile read. I’m ready to go on my own Vermeer driven pilgrimage if only to experience the beautiful clarity with which White now sees love. Toward the end, he talks about his daughter, Sophie, and the inexhaustible wonder in her gaze when she was in infant. “In those first few months, the child is on a mission, it seems, to memorize the face of love.” He goes on to ask, “What if a painter painted virtually nothing but such moments? What if he held his immense gifts in reverse, solely for such states of recognition?” This, he says, “is what Vermeer did.” It’s a beautiful example of the impact art can have on the soul.

[barelysouthblog]

Review of Kent Haruf’s Our Souls at Night

by Maggie Libby Davis 

For the last two years since my father passed, I’ve been looking for a sweet laid-back book for my mother as she simply doesn’t have the stomach for much drama, particularly of the heart-breaking variety. I came across Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf, his last novel published posthumously earlier this year. I finished reading it while flying home for my mother’s 69th birthday, and I think I may have finally found a book for her.

The story starts when seventy-something Addie approaches seventy-something Louis with a plan, “We’ve been by ourselves for too long. For years. I’m lonely. I think you might be too. I wonder if you would come and sleep at night with me. And talk.”

Most of the story is told through the dialogue between the two widowers, Louis and Addie, as they share their life stories with each other in quiet conversations in the dark. The style of the novel is reflected in the style of the dialogue: simple, without the clutter of punctuation marks and with very few speaker tags. Haruf wastes little time with gestures and stage management, conveying tone and situation in their gentle exchanges.

The easy tone continues throughout this beautiful almost-love story. Even the tension that might be fizzles without much drama. When a few town folk react negatively to Louis and Addie’s nocturnal visits and when Louis’s daughter suggests the affair is unseemly, that detraction is quickly played out and all is well. When sex finally comes up (or doesn’t come up, as the case may be), that issue is also politely resolved. And when Addie’s young grandson comes to live with her, the couple easily accepts the addition of a child in their relationship. When the big crisis finally happens, it’s almost hard to believe, and maybe even harder to accept.

Haruf’s easy-going story telling is engaging, drawing the reader in. The dialogue is heavy with meaning and emotion, and the narrative never veers into sentimentality. Addie and Louis reflect humanity and the difficult choices people are often forced to make. We are reminded that people take comfort in what they know, with those they know, because, as Addie said of her late husband, “I took care of him. I don’t know what else I would’ve done. We had that long time of joined life, even if it wasn’t good for either one of us. That was our history.”

Haruf somehow managed to write a subtle story of loss. The tender depth of the writing won’t immediately knock your socks off, but as it seeps in, you may find yourself wondering who you will share the loneliness with if you make it that far. The underlying issue of being the last one standing, hoping that someone has the nerve to make a move like Addie or the courage to accept like Louis, carries this novel through to the last page. Louis and Addie never seem to be afraid of death; they just don’t want to be alone anymore. In the end though, Haruf takes away the comfort we think we’ve found in the his novel as the reality of living forces more difficult choices on Louis and Addie in a way that’s unexpected but also exactly right.

Now I’m reconsidering if this is the right book for my mother – it hits a little too close to home. Maybe I’ll sign her up for Match.com. If nothing else, she might find someone to talk to at night, even if it’s just electronically.

[barelysouthblog]

Review of Neil Gaiman’s Trigger Warning

by Tyler Beckett 

Neil Gaiman lets his novels take meandering paths, like the long road trips in American Gods, even as the stories move towards conflict and highly personal drama. The author’s wandering style lets him introduce many characters and topics, a generous approach that has contributed to my understanding the man primarily as a novelist. I was aware of the exceptions of course; Gaiman’s Sandman series and his children’s book Coraline have achieved enough critical and financial success to have entered the general consciousness. But when I began Gaiman’s newest collection of short stories, Trigger Warning, I assumed this book would be the work of a novelist who had made himself adapt to the short story’s constraints.

But of course Gaiman’s skill is not limited to the novel. The stories contained in Trigger Warning cover a period of seven to eight years’ worth of writing and put on display the author’s adept handling of genre and craft. Most of the work has been published elsewhere and therefore has been, in a sense, ‘proven’ elsewhere. In this collection, however, the reader goes through as if exploring Gaiman’s mind, discovering here and there familiar themes and all the while wondering how something so otherworldly can feel so familiar and true.

Stories like ‘The Thing About Cassandra’ are particularly exciting because, due to Gaiman’s speculative tendencies, you can never anticipate whether the supernatural is involved. A simple mystery springs out of a long-forgotten childhood lie, an old girlfriend asking to meet despite the fact the protagonist made her up. In another collection there may be no chance of supernatural events or, with a lesser author, the story would focus on the mystery rather than the lively cast of characters. But Gaiman’s prose works subtly enough that the reader can never quite convince themselves that they are reading about a simple misunderstanding, that there isn’t something marvelous at work here. The understated suspense and confusion propels the story forward, and by the time the young man sits down for a drink with Cassandra there is no doubt that the meeting ushers in a completely final, tender conclusion.

If ‘Cassandra’ is a display of quality craft and cautious storytelling then ‘Adventure Story’ and ‘Orange’ are examples of playful style and excellent sense of balance. Both read like concept pieces, something written to explore a fun idea. In the former an embarrassed old mother accidentally reveals her husband’s forgotten adventure days, fighting off pterodactyls and shapechangers to protect Oracles in true pulp fiction style. In the latter a teen puts on so much tanning lotion that she attracts an interdimensional entity, ‘the Orange,’ to her home. The concepts are perfectly suited for the short story and I found myself wishing I’d thought of ‘Adventure Story’ myself, it was such a well-executed idea. But the strength of the story came from the attention to the characters and the quick panache that Gaiman used to tell the story, and ‘Orange’ had at least one surprisingly touching moment from a brother who regretted his sister’s alien possession.

Trigger Warning is not perfect. The book contains a few poems that failed to engage me, even in one which dealt with a murderous and amorous landlady. The short story ‘The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains’ may treat its Celtic inspiration with all due respect but the human story completely outshines the supernatural one. I was left wondering why there was so much in the way of god-kings, wraiths, and cursed gold when the people were far more interesting. ‘Lunar Labyrinth’ starts with interesting characters and scene-setting and concludes with something of a twist, but one that doesn’t particularly thrill. None of these reading experiences were unpleasant, but they were let-downs.

It is perhaps the risk for the genre writer that, occasionally, the balance between realistic character and supernatural element is upset. But if these few deviations are less than excellent then it just highlights how high Gaiman’s art can reach. ‘The Man who Forgot Ray Bradbury’ is a terribly moving story that would appeal to anyone who has witnessed degenerative diseases or experienced the fear of death; it is a story I knew upon first reading that I would return to again. And Gaiman proves he does not exhaust his best ideas on single outings; Trigger Warning includes an attention-grabbing new follow-up to American Gods, titled ‘Black Dog’ that brings nonchalant hero Shadow back to the literary world. You’ll also find a new spin on Doctor Who with Gaiman’s ‘Nothing O’Clock’ and a Sherlock Holmes adventure, both of which deserve the credit they have received.

I only have one other suggestion to the reader, especially for one who enjoys the voice of Gaiman’s writing: consider hearing it in his speaking voice. Audible has an audiobook in which Mr. Gaiman reads each of the stories in ‘Trigger Warning,’ adding a new layer to the book he so lovingly crafted.

[barelysouthblog]

The State of Literature

What a New Interview between Obama and Marilynne Robinson Reveals

by Tyler Beckett

On September 14th in Des Moines, Iowa, a fairly common scene played out: a noted writer sat down with the President of the United States for an interview. The fact that President Obama himself interviewed author Marilynne Robinson for The New York Review of Books kept things interesting.

What does it take for this arrangement to occur? Granted, Ms. Robinson is no small-town author selling self-published novels at fall festivals; she teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Group, she’s won a Pulitzer and the National Humanities Medal for her writing, and this most recent interview is probably going on her highlight reel as well. She deserves her acclaim, and that is part of the how she got here.

Of course another part of the answer may lie with this season of Obama’s life. He’s still working hard, but the biggest moments of his presidency are probably behind him. And his public persona has always included a few charming eccentricities, like his Buzzfeed video or SNL appearances. So hey, if the President wants to interview an author, who’s going to tell him no?

But we know presidents don’t tend to do things “just because,” not without careful consideration. And so Obama conducting an interview with a major author deserves some scrutiny (at least as much as a Tumblr post can provide), and choosing to interview Marilynne Robinson specifically carries some important messages.

Robinson fans are all geniuses. Every single one of them. Old fans, new fans, anyone who’s employed her or awarded her, every one of them can say they were right to choose her. They are all validated by the President of the United States, and Ms. Robinson as a writer is affirmed as well. Which leads us to our second point:

Robinson is part of the zeitgeist. You can make a list of themes from Robinson’s novels and they’re all confronting the major themes of our day. Faith and the loss of faith, isolation and family, race and identity. It’s odd for a novelist whose stories are set in mid-century America to be so timely, but Marilynne Robinson’s stories are broadly appealing for the way they engage with important questions.

Obama sticks to his moderate guns, and Robinson is the right kind of moderate. The President has consistently tried to accommodate many demographics, not just his core constituency, and so it makes sense that he should select Robinson for this interview. A big part of that is that she doesn’t fit any particular stereotype. She’s religious, she’s intellectual, she’s a woman, she’s white, she’s an author, she’s a part of an institution. She strikes the right balance of identity that allows her to gain respect in virtually any circle, and she’s not inflammatory enough to alienate or galvanize anyone.

Literature wins big. Obama could have selected any number of respected figures to interview; he’s got a few connections here and there. But instead of a musician or a researcher or a head of state, he elevated an author, largely on the virtue of her work. Novels and essays grab the attention of people and won’t let go, even to the point where the President of the United States can interview an author without it feeling forced or weirdly ironic. Novels like Housekeeping, Gilead, Home, and Lila can have vast cultural impact, and that happens with or without the recognition of the powers-that-be.