Nisha, Feb. 25, 2014

A friend and coworker of mine passed away yesterday. I wrote this as a way to let out some of my thoughts and emotions, but also as a way to honor her. We worked together at the University Journal student newspaper, and she was one of our news editors. This poem, along with other thoughts by people on staff, is going to appear in the newspaper tomorrow. Yes, we still put out a paper. After all, the world of news doesn't pause, even for those times when a person's world stops turning. So here's to you, Nisha.


Nisha, Feb. 25, 2014

She had a way of making me forget

she was a smoker. Electronic cigarette,

a pen-like object she used in the office

to become a dragon lazily breathing out fumes.

Naturally curly hair pulled away from her face,

feet propped up on the counter,

she showed me the reason why smoking

was once seen as sophisticated and classy.

She used to laugh about how she

was the only person here who spoke Farsi,

a language she learned in the military

but had no civilian use for, except

to write in that Persian alphabet

from time to time, letters that were

nothing more than pictures to me,

intricate doodles on a sheet of paper.

I heard the news last night —

Nisha Hood died today.

I can’t seem to remember when I last saw her,

or what we talked about.

Work, school, plans, no idea.

So I choose her final impression:

An exquisite, confident woman

in a cream peacoat and black boots,

laughing and smiling with her eyes.

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Best American Poetry 2013

I'm not really sure how to talk about an entire book of poetry, and I'll admit that up front.

I've recently discovered, thanks to an exercise I did in a class, that I prefer poetry that either portrays an experience or a snapshot of memory/life or explores an idea. With that said, there were some poems in The Best American Poetry 2013 that I enjoyed and some I did not. My least favorite was "Joe Adamczyk" by Mitch Sisskind, and I think my favorite was "Wintering" by Kevin Young, though "George W. Bush" by Mark Jarman had the ideas I found to be most intriguing. There are 75 poems in this collection, each by a different poet and each following its own style. Most are contemporary in tone and language--for instance, the first poem compares sex to a sandwich with mayonnaise and the second poem is a numbered list of 101 one- to two-line statements, usually incomplete, that tell a story (example: "54. The dirt was gone. 55. Except for a few grains that had embedded themselves into his palm.").

The poems are mostly in either free-verse or in some form the poet made up to suit their own purposes (Exhibit A: That second poem. It's titled "Pachyderm," by the way, and is by Sherman Alexie). I don't know what that says about American poetry these days compared with poetry from other places throughout history, but there you go.

This is not a book for those who . . . how to put this. It isn't porn, but it hints at porn from time to time. One poem is about an exotic dancer, for example. But what do you expect from a book of poetry that starts out with a poem that compares sex to a sandwich? No, it isn't being sexist with that comparison, though there are poems in there about being sexist.

This collection is the 2013 installment of The Best American Poetry, and I think that series title deserves a pause. Did this collection represent America? Was it supposed to? I don't know, to be honest. I didn't travel throughout America in 2013. I feel like the collection was a mix of ideas and morals, scenes and voices, and that is what makes up America. Mixing pot, you know. In the introduction, Denise Duhamel, the guest editor for this collection, mentions that she had problems trying to portray "American": "I understood the basic concept - I was to choose work written by poets living in or from America, most likely from magazines published in the United States, though I was able to consider American poets published abroad. How was I able to get in as much of America as possible?" Add to the usual problems of diverse cultures and walks of life the problem that not every sector of America has great poets, and also, that she was not able to consider all types of poetry. I'm not sure about other types, but I know there were no sound bites in this book allowing me to listen to a spoken-word poem, something that isn't meant to be read at all, but heard. Songs are also a form of poetry, and they were not represented. So the series is inherently flawed, but maybe I see it that way because of my more-liberal definition of "poetry."

I did something new and made a pinboard for this book on Pinterest. Only rarely am I a Pinterest user, but I thought it would be an interesting experiment to pin one image per poem. I'm not sure it helped with my comprehension of the poems, but it did force me to pay attention to the imagery and the central ideas or themes used. I was sometimes (okay, more than sometimes) saucy in my captions, so be warned. Click here to visit the board. Note: There is no nudity or crude imagery on the board, though the comments may make mention of sex (never graphically).

P.S. - I just submitted my first-ever piece of feedback to Google. My request? I told them I want to be able to type em dashes into blog posts. There is no way to do that now without copying one from another website. I consider this request both extremely practical and nerdy.

Finished a 4x6" Notebook

I keep notes all over the place. On my phone, on my computer, in a 4x6 spiral notebook, on random scraps of paper. I carry the 4x6 notebook with me, and it's where I put things that do not have a home in a current project. They're just observations, wordings, things I've heard people say, stuff. The idea is that by writing them down, I'll actually remember them and be able to use them later. Since I just finished filling one notebook up and am moving onto a new one (the old one looks quite beat up in comparison, by the way), I thought I'd share some of the things I've written down in the one I just finished.

Write so well, the reader forgets they are reading! This is the first thing I have written down. It's in big letters and takes up the entire page. Obviously, it isn't something I'm going to use in my writing, but it is something I try to keep in mind. A goal, you might say. I have a few things like this--ideas and reminders about writing itself--that I have written down.

Waterfall made up of puddles going down stairs.

Cookies 'n' Cream snow - To see how I put this to use, read my poem "Spears of Grass."

"I felt like I'd finally entered the twent ... the twent ... what century is this?" -Dr. Spencer (one of my fiction professors)

The need to be treated as an adult by one's parents

My shadow has swag

Clouds forming mountains in the sky, raising the horizon

Just this side of Styx

Fog shampoo

"Skyler." (Pause) "Skyler." (Pause) "Like, Mitch's friend."

Everything is normal, and the weirdos in your dreams will go away if you melt them in your hands.

"I packed myself a sandwich today, and as soon as I had eaten it, I wished I had packed two sandwiches."

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible ... I'm not sure exactly where to start. It was published in 1998, and centers around a family from Georgia, U.S.A. who move to the Congo in 1959 with the goal of converting the Congoese people to Christianity. The star characters include Nathan Price, the patriarch of the family and a Baptist minister with a condescending attitude; Orleanna, matriarch of the family who is not so religious as her husband and feels overwhelmed; Rachel, the oldest daughter and a materialistic-minded teenager; Leah, one of the twins and the child who most wants to gain her father's approval and love; Adah, the other twin and a crippled, yet incredibly intelligent, girl who refuses to talk; and Ruth May, the youngest and, as such, the most innocent and openly curious. The book chronicles their life in the Congo and after, including a good amount of history.

The thing that sets this book apart, in my opinion, is the narrative strategy Kingsolver used. I'm doing this part of the blog post with the help of a peer-reviewed essay by Anne Marie Austenfield, by the way, called, "The Revelatory Narrative Circle in Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible." The book is told from the points of view of each female in the family. The sections are started by Orleanna, who focuses on the motivations and reasons behind both the events of the larger history going on and their own story. After Orleanna's introduction, the girls take over, each taking up the story wherever the last one left off. This leaves the reader with multiple perspectives on a single story. It's a great idea--though it must have been an immense project to write--because it takes the bias of narrators into account. No one character can tell an entire story, so Kingsolver is doing what must be the next best thing (minus third-person omniscient, which is not in vogue right now). So you can get an idea of how this works, here is a list of what the girls each focus on in their chapters:

Rachel - relationships, material details, conversations, emotions, recognizable behaviors (anything that appears "normal")
Leah - historical/cultural details, relationships and emotional connections, integration of prior knowledge
Adah - wonders of nature, absurdity of the human-made world, language, biology, politics, qualities of truth vs. falsity when it comes to human thought and behavior

Picture I found of the Price family -
From top left: Nathan, Orleanna, Rachel,
From bottom left: Leah, Adah, Ruth May

Ruth May - observations based from five senses and her dreams/desires

The interesting side effect of this style of narration is that this novel has no main character. Each of the narrators are, by turns, both the main character and secondary characters.

When I finished this book, I reread Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, partially because I own it and so it was a simple thing to do and partially because both books are concerned with the white presence in Africa, so I wanted to compare. Biggest difference? Conrad only has one black character who talks; that black person is basically a white person's lapdog, and he only gets one line: "Mistah Kurtz--he dead." This line coming from a white black man makes sense, since it's both Africa saying farewell and the Europeans. Also, Kurtz himself was a black white man. In Poisonwood, black people are talking all the time, starting from page 25 (when they get to the Congoese village) and running through the end of the book. Kingsolver's Africans are real people; Conrad's Africans are a personification of Africa. Looking at them side by side, I feel like Darkness is not about Africa at all. There simply isn't enough Africa in it for it to be about Africa. It is about colonialism, and the story could have taken place anywhere. Poisonwood is undoubtedly about Africa, its people, and the effect of Africa on others. If it were placed anywhere else, the story would necessarily change.

All that said, this book fell short about halfway through. Doing a little more research revealed why: Kingsolver did not write this book to tell a story; she wrote this book to make a point, and that was her entire purpose. It feels like, and is, a message with a story, instead of a story with a message. Like having so much marinara sauce it's tomato soup instead of a nice plate of spaghetti, the message makes this fall flat as a fiction book. According to Austenfield, Kingsolver wrote this as a fictional story because she wasn't able to actually travel to the Congo at the time (she's spent time living there previously, however), so she could not just record the memoirs of those who live there and produce a nonfiction text. Fiction was the next best thing.

I'm a little too fiction-minded to be happy at that discovery.

I like this book enough that I find myself trying to think of someone I can loan the book to, though I haven't thought of anyone yet. If you're reading this book, and just want a story and not a history lesson, I would suggest reading it up until page 414 and then call it quits. The story is pretty much over at that point, and after page 375, it feels like a giant, 168-page epilogue. It isn't downright bad, it just isn't nearly as good after page 375. I'm saying read until 414 because I think that gives more closure, a sort of resolution.

Today

Today, a rejection email from my college's literary journal. Saddened, but I'll get over it. Rejection happens, people. They don't call this a subjective discipline for nothing.

15 Books I've Read That Have Stuck With Me

I saw something on Facebook about coming up with a list of the 15 books that have stuck with you/me/whoever. I thought it intriguing, so here's my list. I didn't read all the rules, because I don't care enough about them, but I did see that I was supposed to not spend a ton of time thinking about it. It's possible, then, that this list is flawed. Also, I know it will change over time. Also, it's out of order. I don't want to bother figuring out an order, because it would make me choose favorites.

15 Books I've Read That Have Stuck With Me

1. The Little Prince This is a book I carry in my purse, partially because it's small enough to fit, partially because it is comprised largely of episodes and so is good for reading from randomly, partially because it helps me practice my French, and partially because I love it so much. There are a lot of lessons in there, and I am always seeing something new.
2. The Giver I don't know that this would be on my list if it weren't for that recent post of mine that mentioned it. So maybe it doesn't belong on this list. Either way, it is a well-done book and is one of the ones I've read in school through the years that I would actually say is in my personal canon.
3. The Book Thief I read this for the first time just this past year, so maybe it won't be on this list in years to come, but I thought it was one of the best books I have ever read. I blogged about this book, too. It is the only war/Holocaust-themed book I have ever read that I did not need to take a break from while reading. It doesn't ignore the Holocaust, but somehow, it feels both real and holy. I'm not sure about holy, but that's the closest word I can think of right now. Death does not seem like the end, and it feels like death is more of a passage into something better. I think it's that perspective that makes this such a good book.
4. Ariana This is a trilogy, I think, but my copy of these books is all in one book, so I'm cheating a little. The first book of the trilogy is the one that has stayed with me, though, if I have to pick. It's by Rachel Ann Nunes and follows a girl's struggle to raise a baby while trying to put her life in order (she was into the drug and party scene before pregnancy, a pregnancy that led to marriage to a terrible husband). It's a beautiful story, and I love it every time I read it. It's one book I can read over and over again; I think all the books on this list are, actually. This book taught me about forgiveness, mourning, and continuing with life even when you have barely any strength to do so.
5. Pride and Prejudice This was a hard book to add to this list, mostly because it's representing Jane Austen in general. This story is an incredible read. The story and characters (which are the real brilliant part of all of it) are just spot-on. I don't know if it has taught me anything, specifically, but it has stuck with me anyway, as an icon in the world of books.
6. Work and the Glory This is a series, so I'm cheating again. It's by Gerald N. Lund, and tells the story of a Mormon pioneer family beginning with Joseph Smith working for their father soon after his marriage to Emma. The characters are well-done and the history helped me learn a lot about the early history of the LDS church. There are little lessons in it, though, that have stuck with me even more than that. Lessons like doing something before gaining a testimony of it, to name just one off the top of my head.
7. Emily This is a book by Jack Weyland, who, admittedly, is not an absolutely brilliant writer. What is great about Jack Weyland's books are the stories. Emily is about a girl (named Emily! No way.) who dreams of being a news anchor, but then she is severely burned in a fire and has to undergo skin graft treatments to her face and upper body . . . maybe her legs, too. I can't remember. This is another LDS book (so was the Ariana thing, but neither Emily nor Ariana are preachy books. Work and the Glory is intense on the church front), but what I love about it and what has stuck with me is the story of a girl becoming a woman.
8. The Secret Journal of Brett Colton Another LDS book. My religion is a big part of who I am, what can I say? I'm not sure if this book will be on this list in years to come, but it is one that I can read and reread with pleasure. It's about a girl whose older brother died while she was still so young she has no memories of him, and now she is trying to navigate high school. Her brother left a journal behind for her, and she reads it and, of course, her life is changed. I guess I like life-changing stories. Never realized that until now.
9. The scriptures I really don't think this needs much explanation.
10. Waiting for Godot This is a play, actually, by Samuel Beckett, and I've only ever read it in French. Setting that aside, it's an absurdist play wherein Beckett pretty much did his best to erase plot altogether. So the second act mirrors the first act, except for a few changes here and there. I once wrote an essay for a class that examined plot, and I used this play as well as something else I can't remember. But whenever I think about plot, I think about Waiting for Godot.
11. Harry Potter This is a series that changed our culture. It's also a set of books that could probably still make me cry, even though I know what happens in them now. I love the ideas about family and support and love for others. This series deserves all the hype it got, hands-down.
12. Circle of Magic This is a quartet of books by Tamora Pierce. I think I've thrown the one-book-only rule out the window. Whoops. I don't know why, but whenever I think about fantasy, this is one of the series or books that comes to mind. It was a favorite, possibly my favorite, set of books while I was younger. I still love Tamora Pierce and would recommend her to any teenager who loves fantasy like that.
13. Elements of Style It feels so weird to include this book in this list, but it's true. I've read Elements of Style by Strunk and White from front to back one and a half times, as far as I recall. I thought it was entertaining, and pieces of it come to mind while I'm writing, telling me how to do so better.
14. Mere Christianity I adore this book, probably because it approaches Christianity from an angle I enjoy, that is, a logical and analytic angle. I learned so much about Christianity by reading this.
15. The Picture of Dorian Gray There are concepts from this book that pop up in my life, that I think about a lot. One of those concepts actually factors into a story I'm worldbuilding for right now. This is a book I think I've only read once (though I own it), but it has stayed inside my mind and comes to life now and again.

Other books I considered include: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Mistborn, and a whole troupe of others.

What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Russell (Part 2)

Since this book finally arrived in the mail, I was able to finish it this weekend. So here are my notes on the rest of the short stories in Karen Russell's Vampires in the Lemon Grove. Go here for the first couple stories.

The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach, 1979

In this story, I kept waiting for Nal to turn into a seagull, but it didn't happen. The first time I read it, when I was missing parts and only reading the bits I could find online, I thought I must have missed some crucial parts. It felt like something was missing. When I got to read the whole thing, I found out I hadn't missed out on too much. So I still feel like something is missing from this story.

What Makes This Story Work?
Aside from the fact that, for me, it doesn't? Maybe it works because it answers the universal question, "What if?" I feel like that question is the keystone of this story. The seagulls personify possibility that doesn't happen. Since at some point, everyone asks this question, I suppose that is how Russell is trying to connect with her reader.

Now Talk About the Writing, Elizabeth.
This story uses a lot of what one of my English professors calls "insignificant significant detail." The idea is to include details that do not matter to the story, but that help make it more concrete and believable. While it doesn't matter what items the seagulls collect, for instance, Russell includes concrete items in the story -- disconnected retainer wires, for instance. This concrete detail gives an unquestionable reality to what is, providing a subtle foil to all the possibility stuff happening in the plot. Russell always uses concrete detail, but this is more obvious and blatant than usual, so it clearly was no accident.


Proving Up

First off (SPOILER ALERT), I think he died midway through the story, in the blizzard. Everything gets surreal after that and he doesn't mention pain or cold. So there you go. (IF YOU AVOIDED THOSE SENTENCES BECAUSE OF THE SPOILER, YOU CAN LOOK BACK NOW) As for this story being about a crisis of faith, as my classmates asserted ... I can see that angle, but I'm not buying it, because I don't think the conclusion contributes fuel to it. I feel like it's a story about the "why" of motivation, which has some tie-ins with hope. The mother has lost hope, the father is blind to the possibility that there's been no purpose to his suffering (maybe a better way to say this is it's a story about purpose?), the dead sisters are a reminder of sacrifice in the name of success and purpose, and that crazed farmer only cares about his purpose and reaching it. The Window, then, symbolizes the success they are striving toward. It is in their grasp, but it just isn't in place yet.

What Makes This Story Work?
Creepy + Old West + Clear objective that leads the reader through (we are lead through just like the narrator himself -- again with the reader being in sync with the main character) = It Works. It uses the old and charges it with something new, which is always a good idea (unless the new is stupid). It gives the reader something to stand on, lets them get their bearings, then pulls that foundation out from under their feet, throwing them off-balance and making them admit, "That was cool."

Now Talk About the Writing, Elizabeth.
This story has a better sense of place than her others, but I'm still not feeling it. I did not wonder where my jacket was, for instance, when the blizzard hit. I also did not care about the characters or the plight they were in. Maybe if I'd had experience similar to theirs, it would be different; but how likely is it for someone to have been in any similar situation these days? Not one of Russell's better stories. I don't even feel like talking about the writing  it just wasn't splendid.


The Barn At the End of Our Term

The thing I'm learning about Karen Russell is she loves symbolism and puts it into her stories without much camouflage. She is clearly trying to teach something with every short story. In this one, it's about accepting reality with humility and grace. In my opinion, anyway.
Also, as my professor says, "I bet this is funny, but I'm too dumb!" I'm sure there are a lot of jokes in this story any American presidential history buff would find to be hilarious that I don't even recognize as a joke.

What Makes This Story Work?
Cultural familiarity with the characters helps a lot. It gives a strange story a solid foundation. We are also on the same page as the characters, which is, as I've said, characteristic of Russell. They don't know why this is going on, we don't know why this is going on. It's another transformation story, which the other stories have prepared the reader for. The sequence helps, though it is not necessary for understanding the stories -- after all, most of these were originally published elsewhere before being included in this collection. The placement of this story is nice because it is a break after the darkness of Proving Up.

Now Talk About the Writing, Elizabeth.
Third-person, free-indirect. She only uses details that further her plot and add some push. I feel like they are in a generic farm, though, which I don't like. Russell does not linger in this story; it makes me think it was probably not her favorite to write.


Dougbert Shackleton's Rules for Antarctic Tailgating
Honestly, I think Russell wrote this because she thought it was a fun idea. Maybe she was teasing sports fans. This could be read more seriously, as the narrative of someone dealing with divorce, but there is scarce evidence for that reading, so I"m going with the hyperbolic-sports-fan reading -- i.e., the obvious interpretation.

What Makes This Story Work?
It's taking something we are all familiar with and placing it in a different environment. Usually, the new is placed in a familiar environment or the familiar in a new, but rarely is that "new" also bizarre. In here, it's bizarre. Somehow, Russell's style makes that a positive thing that really makes this story a stand-out from other sports-themed stories.

Now Talk About the Writing, Elizabeth.
The format for this story is different, given as a list of explanations instead of a linear story. I've experimented with story arcs before, but it has yet to work this well. I think it's because Russell isn't focused on a story, just on explaining a situation. From where I'm standing, that is unique. Also: This is the first story in this collection that speaks directly to the reader. This helps it seem less like a story, too, I think. It is closer to a long blog post than a story. Reading it is not awkward, so that means all this format stuff works.


The New Veterans

What amazed me most about this story was how Beverly was so willing to collect harm to herself in order to help Derek. I think, though, after some reflection just now, that it is a story that highlights how caregivers also suffer from negative side effects via whatever the cared-for person is going through or went through. IN that sense, this is a realistic story. A desire to adopt the pain of others so they won't have to suffer is not unique to this fictional story. I'm glad this side of PTSD is being told. This is, to me, her most powerful story. With these stories, though, it's probably whatever we can relate best to that we see as being most powerful. That is the real beauty of this collection.

What Makes This Story Work?
I feel like this story takes what a lot of people feel and gives it physical representation, but it also gives a warning at the end, in a gentle way, as a suggestion: Is it right to carry others' burdens? What about after they have set them aside and moved on? See above.

Now Talk About the Writing, Elizabeth.
The concrete detail is there again and, as with all these stories, it is clear Russell did her research. The facts aren't included to show off; they are precisely placed to make us believe the narrator is a good masseuse and the vet really is a vet who served in Iraq. The story does not pretend to be anything but fiction (a courtesy to real vets?), but I can suspend enough belief to see the truth (or truth-questing) beneath the fiction. I do hope that makes sense.


The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis

When this story started, my automatic reaction was something along the lines of, "Oh no." I did not want to read a story about kids being turned into scarecrows then hung in trees in a creepy park. Luckily, that wasn't the story.

What Makes This Story Work?
By this point, the reader is prepared for the darkly bizarre. This story taps into childhood -- from the bully's point of view, which is not common. If you know the city, the place (well done in this piece) gives it an air of the disturbing familiar. If not, the scarecrow will. So Russell has played to audiences from both rural and urban backgrounds. The use of a pet also brought the story close to home for a lot of readers. It kind of felt like she was pulling all the stops: If nothing has hit home so far, Russell wants this story to (last-ditch effort?).

Now Talk About the Writing, Elizabeth.
As always, Russell's writing was rich in detail. Also characteristic of her, those details were not aimed to paint a picture, but to create a mood. I was creeped out, and so was the character. The cursing took me a little off-guard, since there was so much more of it in this piece, but it did fit the characters and place (doesn't mean I liked it, but I'll grant her that much). Her writing is rich with adjectives and adverbs -- "We stood on the dirty tarmac of the sidewalk, bathed in a deep-sea light. Even on a nonscarecrow day I dreaded this, the summative pressure of the good-bye moment." Definitely not minimalist; approaching maximalism while not making the narrator sound too old (probably helped by modern, coarse vocabulary). Still, his vocab use shows he's grown up because of the experience; since it is told in the past tense, we assume he's looking back and telling the story.

Also: I read something online about Russell being a concept writer -- her stories revolve around concepts more than story line or character. I completely agree with this, though the term is new to me. Maybe this is part of why she comes across as slightly didactic. I'm a bit of a concept writer, too. I've just never thought of it that way before. I hope I don't come across ... oh my gosh, my Mortal Angel story is probably just like one of these. Supernatural in a realistic world, aimed to get a concept across. I can't believe it took me this long to realize that.