Thanks to Suzanne for this link:
http://bookcritics.org/blog/archive/to_the_whiting_award_winners_2009/
to Margaret Atwood’s speech at the Whiting Awards. My favorite bit was this, because yes, I went pre-med for my first degree, and yes, my parents – even though I am 36, had a decade-long career in business before I devoted my time to writing, and am currently teaching poetry at the university level – still tell me to go get my MD:
“Be vigilant – there are ambushes everywhere. On one side lurk the critics, getting ready to sneer and denounce, or worse, to praise for the wrong reasons; on the other side your parent figures, who always wanted you to be doctors, and who have furnished themselves with a list of writers such as Checkhov who were writers, yes, but doctors too: why can’t YOU do that? This is not helpful.”
I was also happy to see Jericho Brown on the list of recipients. Congrats, Jericho! But also interested to read at Steve Fellner’s that unfortunately, the Whiting Awards haven’t been that kind to women lately…Come on, Whiting Award mystery list of nominee-makers! Isn’t it about time women writers earned one half of the big, money-granting awards?
Did you know there’s going to be a panel on superheroes and poetry at AWP – I would love to be there! If any of you go, please give me a full report!
(Of course, this is the first AWP I actually planned not to go to – I was supposed to be giving a reading up in Pasco, Washington instead – which my broken foot/sprained hand combo have thwarted. And they have a superhero poetry panel!! Maybe they’ll have a similar thing next year, one hopes?)
Steve Schroeder is on Verse Daily today! And Jericho Brown was up yesterday – check them both out! I’m going to try to do a quickie review of Steve’s Torched Verse ends here soon…
Quick PS: Does anyone know how to interpret this? I got a SASE back but the envelope hadn’t been sealed, so it’s empty, and the post office never stamped the stamp. Ah, sometimes I love the poetry game and the post office SO MUCH!
Had a lot of fun last night at the Poetry International reading at DG Wills bookstore in La Jolla. The MFA students working for SDSU’s literary magazine were bright and interesting, and Ilya Kaminsky is always a kick. Got to meet the next New Issues poet on the rise, I think – Jericho Brown, whose first book, Please, is passionate and bluesy, plus, chock-full of persona poems! He read one last night in the voice of Janis Joplin that was terrific.
I read a poem from issue 12 about Amaterasu, the Shinto sun goddess, and a couple of others. (Even sold a book – to a couple of fellow Buffy fans 🙂 One of the other readers had a few poems about translating Japanese, which I thought was fascinating. In fact, I was genuinely impressed with nearly every reader, and besides that, the people just had what I think California people might call “good energy.” It feels like perhaps I’m finally finding the literary folks of the San Diego area, slowly, maybe, but getting there. Still, there’s no Open Books substitute.
Also, a health note: a bit of constant sore throat and cough, it seems, is par for the course in October, even for die-hard San Diegans, because of the Santa Ana winds, so at least I’m not alone in that. A couple of people last night, my ultrasound tech, and countless others have told me that locals always get sick in October. I had to fire Dr. Botox Barbie (which means another round of paperwork and records fun, sigh) but found a very good doctor at the urgent care office next to my apartment complex, and thanks to my best-ever-Seattle-hematologist, the hardest working doctor ever, have an appointment with a new GP recommended by the head of UCSD Medicine. How’s that for a referral? I’m ready for a health boost!
