tumblr thursday

my favourite tumblr posts of the moment.

on words in two translations of sappho

The Poetry of Sappho, translated by Willis Barnstone and Anne Carson

These two volumes actually cover the same expanse of work by Sappho (namely all of it that is left), but they have very different approaches. Whereas Carson emphasizes the fragmentary nature of the surviving texts by structuring them on the page with their missing lines displayed as blank space, Barnestone writes out each piece as if it had been completed, as if Sappho had structured them the way that we have them now. Both are important for my poetics. I cannot think of a poet who has inspired me more than Sappho. Fragments have a power that so called “complete” poems do not. Their words hang in the air, and you are forced to think about their language from every conceivable direction and angle. Take Sappho fragment six, as translated by Anne Carson for example:

“Go

so we may see

lady

of gold arms

doom” 

Each word lives within itself as well as within the poem. Each word must be digested by the reader on its own. What does “doom” mean here? Is the lady of gold arms doom incarnate? Does she foretell some kind of impending doom? There are possibilities in each word and line, which is something I actively try to bring over to my own work.  When a word is by itself, but still in a larger context endless possibilities spring up. 

a playlist & a reading list

I decided to make a sad hipster playlist last night... here's what I came up with:




& my reading list for spring 2013 is pretty rad:

• Life on Mars - Tracy K. Smith
• My Emily Dickinson - Susan Howe
• The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
• The MS of M Y Kin - Janet Holmes
• The Guardians - Sarah Manguso
• Threads - Jill Magi
• The Book of Beginnings & Endings - Jenny Boully
• Near to the Wild Heart - Clarice Lispector
• Autoportrait - Edouard Leve
• Humaninal - Bhanu Kapil
• The Red Parts: A Memoir - Maggie Nelson
• Walking Through Clear Water in A Pool Painted Black - Cookie Mueller
• My Life - Lyn Hejinian
• Everybody's Autonomy: Connective Reading & Collective Identity - Juliana Spahr
• The Quest for Christa T - Christa Wolf (trans. by Christopher Middleton

You can follow me on goodreads if you're interested in what I'm reading. 

instant (return)

After a week in the wild frozen tundra of northern Vermont, it takes a little gettin' used to to be in the wild dank city again. My second residency at Goddard was all I could have hoped. It wasn't even that cold.

I jumped in a snow bank, exchanged energy with classmates, listened to poems, chilled wine in snow drifts, ate my weight in tofu scramble & home fries, talked about ethics & equality in education, explored creating a hybrid from the body, was blessed with rose water, told & listened to ghost stories, sifted through library books, lost an earring, read poems, wrote poems, submitted some things to a magazine, & talked talked talked. A good way to spend several days.

missoula

 Currently in the wilds of snowy Vermont, I'm enjoying my second graduate school residency so far. Today I was in a workshop about writing a blurb for your book, & this is what I came up with.....

Through expanding the intersection of science and emotion, missoula traces the ice-age floods responsible for the geography of the Pacific Northwest, and outlines a woman’s struggle with identity after an abusive childhood. Juxtaposing the findings of J Harlen Bretz—the rebel geologist whose 1928 explorations led to the development of a catastrophic flood theory—with stunning moments of sparse imagistic poetry missoula asks how fathers can shape their daughters in the same way these catastrophic natural disasters once carved the physical landscape. 

Tracy K. Smith on Studio 360

via: studio360.org

Happy New Year!!

Hope everyone had a stunning new years eve!! I spent it with some friends in the lower east side, where we rang in 2013 at the Motor City Bar in true Detroit style. Here's to 2013 being exponentially better than 2012.

Stormy spent her NYE doing the same thing she always does,
napping. 

n