So all, looks like all of us will be in J. Osherow's poetry workshop. I've talked to her and she is ecstatic, and so excited to have us and have us participate.

Anyway
We have been talking a bit about the poet Cole Swensen, and about flash fiction so here is a flash fiction piece by Cole Swensen.

Also there is a Swensen Essay entitled "Poetry City" in which she delineates how poetry is like a city (making prose like the country). It deals with several poetic techniques, juxtaposition, collage, etc, in a very clear way. And how both the poem and the city are organized around the idea of Labyrinth. (See even Borges is connected—Ha.)    The link! If you are interested. 

Okay, so it's Monday.  Looks like Madame Macfarlane had a show opening last Friday.  Drat.  Friday nights collect way too many commitments.  Hope we hear more about the show. Please, pretty please....

Things we talked across last Monday....

David Sedaris' New Yorker essay on wearing his Fitbit.  Can be accessed at the NEW New Yorker site, and as the magazine is opening up all its archives for free for the rest of the summer, try it out. Supposedly the website has been revamped and here's hoping it's a bit easier to use.

The New York Times article on Ira Glass and This American Life; on Ira Glass and his love of dancing....Hmm Sedaris loves walking, Glass loves dancing, perhaps there is a theme developing.... anyway.

Oh, and just for the curious, once upon a time Ira Glass had a girlfriend, graphic novelist Lynda Barry.  Her ONE HUNDRED DEMONS depicts our favorite public radio host (unnamed) as one of the demons in a not-too-flattering ("he had a freaky pony tail") way.

Blogger makes it easy to embed links but I haven't figured out a way to attach files.  I'll work on that.

Feminine Writing?

Dear Fellow Crones,

What a great discussion!

I got stuck on the notion of feminine writing, which led me back to a brief essay we read in Lance's undergrad class, "The Newly Born Woman."  In 4 pages, she describes ecriture feminine: ". . . her writing also can only go on and on, without ever inscribing or distinguishing contours." She emphasizes the collapse of hierarchies; the "gift of changeability;" the "spacious singing Flesh;" and, of course, the unconscious. A commentator describes this writing as "paratactic." I think of it as non-linear, sensual, perhaps irrational, with women present as more than counterpoint.

Not really Borges's project,but interesting nonetheless...

On to Cervantes, who arrived from the Amazon today in full paperback splendor.

See you later,
Amanda