Anecdotal Evidence (Free subscription) | 11/20/2009
Two seventh-grade boys, one of them my student, vie for possession of the long-handled magnet in shop class. True to their age and sex, both are loud, bossy and competitive. The magnet is intended for picking up screws, bolts and stray bits of sheet metal snipped from pencil boxes and pooper-scoopers. Part of their rivalry is turf. Both want to police, in however trivial a fashion, the vast concrete...
42 Challenge (Free subscription) | 11/07/2009
I've finished the challenge. Since 42 is the perfect number for this challenge I won't add any extras to my list. I will be back when the next challenge launches in December. I had loads of fun doing the 42 Challenge. It ended up being one of my favorites. My completed list is: The Perfect Infestation by Carol Emshwiller Seafarer's Blood by Albert E. Cowdrey Dance of Shadows by Fred Chappell All in...
badgerblog (Free subscription) | 10/23/2009
While talking about _The Raw Shark Texts_ yesterday I remembered a short story about the Necronomicon corrupting texts it was stored with - put it with a copy of Milton and *all* copies everywhere of Paradise Lost are permanently corrupted. That story I couldn't remember the name of at the time is "The Adder" by Fred Chappell, which I had in the Chaosium trade paperback anthology of Necronomicon-related...
The Jackdaw's Nest (Free subscription) | 09/11/2009
For reasons that entirely elude me, the first and second installments of "Twelve 12-Line Poems" continue to be the most accessed threads of The Jackdaw's Nest . So, in response, here is Round 3. Enjoy. * * * "Still Life" Still Life the artist called \these pears and apricots placed on a blue tablecloth next to the leather pouch of hares, tied by their slender ears like so many vegetables....
Blogging Along Tobacco Road (Free subscription) | 09/07/2009
I had the pleasure of recording a unique and splendid poetry reading last Saturday. Former Poet Laureate of North Carolina, Fred Chappell, and his lovely wife Susan read a number of nested or embedded poems (a poem within a poem) from shadow box, Mr. Chappell's new book.Kathryn Stripling Byer, another Poet Laureate of North Carolina, has a blog post and an excellent example of a nested poem on
Gerry Canavan (Free subscription) | 08/12/2009
Two book reviews from my household in the Indy this week: my review of Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War and Jaimee's review of Fred Chappell's latest book of poems, Shadow Box. In a related sidebar, Lisa Sorg asks: "What's the difference between Daniel Boyd and Blackwater's Erik Prince?"
The Gentlemen's Book Club (Free subscription) | 08/09/2009
Fred Chappell - 228 pps. The third entry in the Kirkman saga concerns a group of people largely absent in the first two books; women. The structure of Farewell is much more similar to I Am One of You Forever (You haven't read it yet') than to Brighten the Corner Where You Are ; it is a collection of short stories concerning life and death, music, and the fairer sex. Except for a few chapters, these...
SF Signal (Free subscription) | 08/04/2009
Here are the contents of The Library of America's upcoming anthology, American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940's Until Now edited by Peter Straub: "Evening Primrose" by John Collier (1940) "Smoke Ghost" by Fritz Leiber (1941) "Mysteries of the Joy Rio" by Tennessee Williams (1941) "The Refugee" by Jane Rice (1943) "Mr. Lupescu"...
Proof of Blog (Free subscription) | 08/02/2009
Results for Best New Poets 2009 have been announced. Congrats to Sewanee pal, Adam, and to online writing group friend Sally! I had such a great experience with BNP last year, so I'm excited to see what this year's edition will hold. Write on, writers. ************** Really digging the first of my Sewanee books, July 7th by Jill McCorkle. A death scene from early in the book, a convenience store is...
Gerry Canavan (Free subscription) | 07/31/2009
There have been some interesting Infinite Summer posts about whether Infinite Jest "counts" as science fiction—see, for instance, these two at Infinite Tasks and this from Chris Forster)—so I thought it might be interesting to run through some of my standard classroom definitions of science fiction and see how the book shapes up. (My notes on this are older than the Wikipedia...
Proof of Blog (Free subscription) | 07/30/2009
This one is a quickie. But a way to shout-out new Sewanee friend and amazing poet Frank Giampietro's brand-spanking-new website: Poems By Heart ( http://www.poemsbyheart.org/ ). It's really a great idea (I think) and I'm thrilled to be a part of the first wave of poem memorizers, among such august company as Claudia Emerson and Alan Shapiro. It made me want to memorize more poems, and no, not just...
西儒 ─ The Western Confucian (Free subscription) | 07/13/2009
Bill Kauffman is "greeted by the most appallingly 'We’re not really Southern!' New South slogan [he has] ever seen: 'Charlotte USA'" in that city's airport — Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte . My fellow Western New Yorker reminds North Carolinians that "our two states were among the Anti-Federalist strongholds in 1788." Noting that "the Great Depression was the last...
Anecdotal Evidence (Free subscription) | 07/11/2009
In an e-mail Bill Sigler refers to Fred Chappell as “the literary version of my uncle in the hills of Western North Carolina,” and quotes a passage from one of my favorite poems, Chappell’s book-length Midquest : “These are the flower-worlds with all the visionary petals shriveled away. “Please hold my hand, may we go down now, home? Where booklight and kitchen light furrow...
Anecdotal Evidence (Free subscription) | 07/10/2009
The garden at my kids’ school is remarkably tidy and secure. It’s surrounded by a chain-link fence and the vegetables, fruits and flowers, except for squash and grapes, grow in horse troughs of galvanized steel. The paths are covered with crushed gravel, and there’s even a portable outhouse. Next to it is a coffin-shaped plastic chest for storing the hose, shears and other supplies,...
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