Your Custom Text Here
Writing, Reading, Far to Go
A friend of mine invited me to join in on a poetry/literature exchange, in which we send an uplifting, inspirational line of poetry or prose to an email address included in the original message. Then I choose twenty friends to share this idea further, who then do the same, and so on.
This is the line I chose to send. At first, it may not seem uplifting, but to me, it makes sense. I am, after all, a child of dark humor, of finding the brightest light from the darkest places.
“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes, aww!” — Jack Kerouac
These are readings from the 2012 Kenyon Review Writing Workshop. I was there thanks to a Peter Taylor Fellowship. I read with the other fellows on Sunday, June 17th after a violent thunderstorm. Most of the audience was drenched. Only writers can listen to fellow writers read when they are soaking wet.
Reginald Dwayne Betts, an extraordinary and powerful poet, reads first. Listen to him and be moved. I'm the second read - so when the player reaches the nine minute mark, you'll hear the writing teacher I fellowed for, Lee K. Abbott, introducing me. And then there's me reading my story, "Eliza, in the Event of a Hurricane" much too softly and much too slowly. Oh, well. I'll remember for next time: a little louder, a little faster. Funny, at first, I think I sound a little like Claire Danes. I kind of like that.
All of the readings are incredible and all so very different. Tarfia Faizullah, Susanna J. Mishler, Amy Wright, Emanuel Martin, and more. I was deeply honored to be part of this amazing and talented array of writers.
Click on the link and then on the June 17th reading and listen in:
http://www.kenyonreview.org/workshops/writers/writers-workshop-readings/
There's so much I've been meaning to write, say, sing, dance that I've become overwhelmed and haven't written anything. Instead of veering away once again, I'll forgive myself and report less eloquently than I'd wished and simply list what I've been meaning to write, say, sing. Dancing will just have to stay in the kitchen, where it belongs.
And that list is long enough.
Readings
Head Off and Split – Nikky Finney
The Chameleon Couch – Yusef Komunyakaa
Here, Bullet & Phantom Noise – Brian Turner
You Know When the Men Are Gone – Siobhan Fallon
Back in the World & The Barracks Thief – Tobias Wolff
The Mrs. Dalloway Reader – Virginia Woolf/Francine Prose
The Half-Known World of Fiction – Robert Boswell
A Visit from the Goon Squad – Jennifer Egan
Going Away Shoes – Jill McCorkle
All the Living – C.E. Morgan
The Vietnam Reader – Stewart O’Nan
The Book of Salt – Monique Truong
Inside Out and Back Again – Thannha Lai
The Buddha in the Attic – Julie Otsuka
Long, Last, Happy – Barry Hannah
Blue Nights – Joan Didion
The Empty Family – Colm Tobin
The Family Fang – Kevin Wilson
Dirty One – Michael Graves
Bossypants – Tina Fey
Just Kids – Patti Smith
and more...
Re-readings
On Becoming a Novelist – John Gardner
Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf’s
Love Medicine – Louise Erdrich
Dien Cai Dau and Warhorses – Yusef Komunyakaa
The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
Monkeys – Susan Minot
and more...
And hundreds of short stories
in literary reviews, anthologies, contest queues, writing workshops, and story collections
Thunder & Lightning - Flora - Kauai, 2008 - by Karin Cecile Davidson
