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"We have Art in order that we may not perish from Truth" —Nietzsche |
MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage Soapstone The Arvon Foundation This website was designed by |
Appointed Author in Residence, University Club, Portland, OR. ON THE WEB Poetry.us.com click here Oregon Authors click here Oregon ArtBeat, Poetry in Motion, Oregon Public Broadcasting click here WHAT I'M WORKING ON Mad Heart Collaboration with Steve Tilden A collaborative project with sculptor and artist, Steve Tilden. Steve is a member of Blackfish Gallery which, in December, will put up an exhibition of work focused on horses. He and I are doing a genuine collaboration where I offer some words, a poem, or just a phrase, and Steve replies with a piece, or pieces, of metal, which are gradually coming together into…well, I won’t reveal what it looks like because it might still turn a corner into something I haven’t anticipated. That’s the joy of collaboration: you never know exactly where it’s going. WHAT I'VE BEEN READING Taking My Life The late Jane Rule was something of a hero to me—very early lesbian writer of short stories and novels. I even once wrote her a fan letter, revealing that I, like her, was more than six feet tall. She replied very graciously. This book is a memoir, or perhaps more like an autobiography up to the age of 21, the manuscript having been discovered by Linda Morra among Rule’s papers at the University of British Columbia’s Archives, even though it was not cited in the catalogue of her papers. It was handwritten on yellow paper, possibly a very early draft. In addition to being a fascinating chronicle of a large extended family moving all over the United States, it faithfully chronicles the once-common experience of fighting the knowledge that one is lesbian or gay. This description, when the author was in college, nails my own experience exactly: “I’m sure I was confused at the time. I seemed to hold two mutually exclusive views, that my love represented what was best in me and that it was a sin. Or more ambiguously and truly put, what was specifically good and generally bad.” (And readers who ever attended “The Flight of the Mind” workshop for women will enjoy the photograph of a young Roussel Sargent, Rule’s early lover and a well-loved regular into her eighties at the summer event in Oregon.) Indian Summer This is history in its most palatable and beguiling form. The author gives the story of the time leading up to, and including, the British withdrawal from India and the partition of the country into India and Pakistan. The main characters (Ghandi, Nehru, Jinna, Mountbatten and especially Edwina Mountbatten) are portrayed in amazing detail, based on much research. The wide and intelligent political perspective blends with the extraordinary story of the affair between Edwina and Jawaharlal Nehru. This early division of land based on religious identities—primarily Hindu and Moslem—gives a fascinating background to what would follow right up to the current Afghan war and Pakistan’s policies. As usual when the personalities are revealed in such detail, political decisions are seen to be somewhat haphazard, made out of all-too-human impulses. Wolf Hall This big book is a wonderful slice of sixteenth century history seen from the perspective of Thomas Cromwell. Covering the period when Henry VIII is trying to get rid of his first wife, Katharine, so he can marry Ann Boleyn, the book pulled me right into that world. Much history is told at a distance, important events overwhelming personal life, but this novel gives us access to the intimate family life of Cromwell, his losses, his ambitions, and his remarkable successes (at least up to the point where the novel ends). There has been some criticism of Mantel’s use of the close third person: “he” almost always refers to Cromwell, even when there is another “he” in the scene or conversation. This can occasionally be confusing, but I got used to it quickly and found that it made me see the action through the eyes of Cromwell, even without the use of first person “I”. It’s a substantial, engaging read. |