I got too much tsundoku.
So beautiful.
I DON'T "GET" POETRY READINGS | HTMLGIANT
Breaking news, person in MFA program doesn’t “get” poetry, is being paid to teach the next generation about literature.
God save us.
A very important, and much anticipated book of poems, Night is Simply a Shadow by Greta Wrolstad was published this week by the small independent local Portland poetry press, Tavern Books. I was lucky enough to meet Greta while I was living in Montana, when she was going to the University of Montana for her MFA. I only had a handful of conversations with her, the last of which was one where we were both tucked into the corner of a dark booth in Vancouver, BC, during AWP, with all our other Montana friends surrounding us. In 2005, Greta died from injuries sustained in a car crash. I didn’t know her very well, but some of the people I love most in this world have been deeply affected by her, and for that, and for this, her first and last full-length book of poems, I am thankful for her.
NPM Daily: Jenny Zhang
I read Kanye’s book of advice on how to be more like him, and how he became the best version of himself. It’s called “THANK YOU AND YOU’RE WELCOME.” On page 33, he says “Never complain without offering a solution!” No poem I have ever loved has ever offered a solution. But I feel resolved when I read Lorine Niedecker on the train. I feel saluted. I want to befriend the child she aborted at Zukofsky’s “urging.” I feel resolved when Nat shows me a small chapbook of elegies for Niedecker written by her friends. At brunch, he reads me a short essay her publisher wrote about her. I can’t focus on what Nat is saying of what Niedecker’s publisher once said. I am already imagining myself as the fallen, lonely, misunderstood heroine. The “poetess” being referred to with such contempt and admiration. Her “restraint,” and how that sets her apart. Her formality. Her discipline. No one refers explicitly to gender and yet the boundaries are being drawn without anyone necessarily participating. I am already fantasizing about my small, unimportant life becoming so mind-bogglingly important to a few, select people. I have selected to be part of this. I feel as if I have nothing to say. Whatevs.
ilu jenny zhang.
