Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Books in Bed, and then some

Last night's menu
Proofs and Theories, by Louise Gluck
     Trying to wrap my head around poetics. (But dear T., if so, why are you reading poets on their poetry, and not fictionists on their fiction? Hm?)
     Note to self: Now you know where some of M's comments came from. It's always enlightening when one turns over the sampler and examines the back stitching.  I like Gluck, and find some resonance with her adolescent anorexia (haha), her desire to move away from romanticism (therefore the simple words, therefore the insight, above all things, including the ubiquitous poetic power line). This makes her an ascetic; and although their writing styles are so different from each other, she reminds me too, of Annie Dillard. Both writers scare me, actually. But their devotion and asceticism is so attractive.
Postmodern American Fiction, A Norton Anthology, edited by Paula Geyh, Fred G. Leebron, and Andrew Levy
     Heavy stuff, reading also for poetics, and as some sort of propeller for the Book of Names project.
     Yesterday I also re-read short fiction: 
     Cesar Ruiz Aquino's 'Stories' (1989) and Butch Dalisay's 'Oldtimer' and 'Merlie'. Trying to work up some inspiration for my class assignment (the "realist" fiction workshop) due on the 30th and to be workshopped on the 6th.
     The good news is, I'm done with the other class (noir fiction) requirement (due first/second week January), which, I decided to have the feel of noir, but not all the elements thereof, aside from a kind of existentialism. Wagering a non-realist ending will be acceptable (to be sure, I did my research and came up with good realist underpinnings just in case, i.e., hunger = hallucination--though of course, I did not refer to this explanation in the text). Also used a device I used in cat story number 1; am hoping it works. But I don't want to think about the story for a bit.
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     In other news, quite happy that it seems like I know how to do line cuts properly now. Thank you, James Longenbach. :) <3 





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