"Aboriginal" by Willie Lin

~
Like guillotines, every lesson from childhood
taught me about precision and punishment. . . .

"Aboriginal," a poem by Willie Lin, was published on November 16, 2010, and is continued online in Linebreak.

Collections of short stories and novellas, and a poem

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No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July (Scribner, 2007).

(If you visit the website for the book, look for the tiny pink arrows at the bottom right of each page. The site is quirky, just like her writing.)

She does occasionally go off in a direction I don't love, but she's such an interesting writer. A few of my favorites:

"The Man on the Stairs" (originally published in Fence): "The man on the stairs pauses for such incredibly long periods of time, I almost wonder if he is having a problem. Like maybe he's disabled or very old. Or maybe just really tired. Maybe he's already killed everyone else on the block and now he's all worn out." (pp. 36-37)

"Something That Needs Nothing" (published in Bridge, The New Yorker, and My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead, edited by Jeffrey Eugenides, which I blogged about here).

"The Boy from Lam Kien" (published by Cloverfield Press)

"Birthmark" (published in The Paris Review, Spring 2003)

"How to Tell Stories to Children"

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Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror, a collection of three novellas by James Hynes (Picador USA, 1997).
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"Across a Great Wilderness Without You" by Keetje Kuipers, probably my favorite poem from her collection Beautiful in the Mouth (BOA Editions, 2010). "Across a Great Wilderness Without You" first appeared in 42opus and on p. 36 of Beautiful. (I think it goes without saying that I also liked "At Stanfield Reservoir and Wildlife Preserve," which first appeared in the Apple Valley Review and is on pp. 44-45 of the book.)

The Fall 2010 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Fall 2010 issue of the journal features poetry by Alana Ruprecht, Laura Merleau, Bernard Henrie, Chris Anderson, Laura Drell, M.J. Iuppa, Karen Schubert, and Margaret Rozga; prose poetry by Sarah Frost; fiction by William Grigg and Kimberly Long Cockroft; and artwork by Mary Erickson.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

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Angela's Ashes, a memoir by Frank McCourt (Scribner: New York, 1996).

Wrenching, but also funny and poignant and, at times, quite beautiful.

Unaccustomed Earth

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Jhumpa Lahiri's second collection of short stories is just phenomenal.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008).

A short story collection and a novel

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"An hour later, a couple lingered in front of a death mask that cost several hundred dollars. They both wore shorts and sandals and carried mesh tote bags. They spoke in a foreign language; the man kept touching the space between the woman's shoulders. Joyce watched them from behind the register. They were young, early twenties, and looked happy. She both envied and pitied them."

This segment is from "We Are Calling to Offer You a Fabulous Life," a short story by Laura van den Berg. It was first published in the Northwest Review and then in her first book, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us (Dzanc Books, 2009). The story collection also includes the title story (first printed in One Story), which I discussed in a previous post, and "Where We Must Be," about a failed actress who takes a job pretending to be Bigfoot.

I also recently read Jhumpa Lahiri's first published novel, The Namesake (Houghton Mifflin, 2003).

The Reader

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I read this novel (by Bernhard Schlink) many years ago, but I just watched the film a few days ago. The novel is an intelligent rendering of issues that are quite complicated, especially in a moral sense. Although I haven't read it again in the intervening years, I thought that the film captured the sense of the book quite well. I was particularly impressed with David Kross, who played the younger Michael.

The Reader, based on the novel The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, directed by Stephen Daldry, written for the screen by David Hare, and starring Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz, David Kross as a younger Michael Berg, and Ralph Fiennes as an older Michael Berg.

News of the Spirit (short stories by Lee Smith)

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Nice to reread out on the back porch on a lazy summer day (or an unseasonably warm spring evening).

"A Meditation in Tweets"

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I never, ever thought that I would print or in any way promote a poem written in such a distorted style. I admit, I was biased against this poem from the moment I read the title. But ultimately I was impressed by the language and the way the poet used the form to her advantage.

Pasted below is the last stanza of the poem (because, as mentioned in the addendum, the poem is intended to be read in reverse order, beginning with the last stanza).

"A Meditation in Tweets"
by Kimberly Grey

. . .
Birdbath out back but we r the birds of this tub, our little boat almost sunk & us beneath it;
necks smeared w/a pithy brightness. Let this

"A Meditation in Tweets," a poem by Kimberly Grey, was published on April 13, 2010, and is continued online in Linebreak.

Two from Knopf's Poem-A-Day (April 2010)

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"A Remedy for Insomnia"
by Vera Pavlova

Not sheep coming down the hills,
not cracks on the ceiling—
count the ones you loved,
. . .

"A Remedy for Insomnia," a poem by Vera Pavlova, from If There Is Something To Desire (translated from the Russian by her husband, Steven Seymour), was sent on April 9 and is continued at http://poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com/2010/04/09/remedy-for-insomnia-pavlova/.

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"Seven Horses" by Marge Piercy

When I was a pencil of a girl
I had seven horses, one
for each day of the week.
. . .

"Seven Horses," a poem by Marge Piercy, from The Crooked Inheritance (Middlemarsh, 2006), was sent on April 2 and is continued at http://poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com/2010/04/02/piercy-seven-horses/.

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Every day in April, in celebration of National Poetry Month, Knopf Poetry sends a free poem via e-mail. You can sign up for these mailings on the Knopf website at http://poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com/?ref=poemaday_poetrynl.

Happy Poetry Month!

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"Cat Love" by Lyn Lifshin

if you had a favorite
pillow or worn cotton
shirt it would be ok
about loving it. But
cat love is a risky
choice. It sounds so
sentimental and this
isn’t even a dead or
dying cat. Let’s say it
is not a cat but say
an old bathrobe you
feel comfortable in. . . .

"Cat Love," a poem by Lyn Lifshin, is continued in the Apple Valley Review (Fall 2006).

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"Jane Austen's Toes" by Rob Hardy

Jane Austen never mentions toes,
although she must sometimes
have thought about her own—
blistered, perhaps, and sore
from walking in pattens with wooden soles. . . .

"Jane Austen's Toes," a poem by Rob Hardy, is continued in the Apple Valley Review (Fall 2007).

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"This Morning" by Bonnie Bolling

Another morning and I wake
hungry for something I cannot name.
I walk out to the grass and everywhere
there are gifts—the tree hangs with
lemons. . . .

"This Morning," a poem by Bonnie Bolling, is continued in the Apple Valley Review (Fall 2007).

Madame Tutli-Putli

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This little gem, created using stop-motion animation, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short. (It also won a handful of other awards.) The animation is phenomenal in parts. One of the creators mentioned in the extras that they didn't intend it to be a novel, so to speak, but more of a little poem, and that they were really trying to create a certain mood. Nonetheless, there are some interesting theories about the meaning of the film on the message boards at IMDb.

Madame Tutli-Putli (17:21), without words, written and directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, with special visual effects by Jason Walker; puppets, sets, and animation by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski; choreography by Laurie Maher; and music direction by David Bryant and Jean-Frédéric Messier.

"Compassion and Mercy" (and other stories)

"Clare scrabbled in the bottom of her bag for the house key, furiously tossing tissues and pens and Chap Sticks and quarters onto the walk, and thinking with every toss, What's your hurry? This is your last moment of not knowing, stupid, slow down."

This is a section of "Compassion and Mercy," a short story by Amy Bloom, from her new collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Random House, 2010). The book includes four stories about William and Clare, four (three of them reprints from earlier collections) about Lionel and Julia, and four unlinked stories. "Between Here and Here" is a real standout, as was "By-and-By," originally published in Ms. in 2004.

The Spring 2010 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Spring 2010 issue of the journal features fiction by Wendy Fox and Courtney McLean; poetry by Vince Corvaia, Simon Perchik, Avra Wing, G. L. Grey, Darlene Pagán, Cal Freeman, Elizabeth Levinson, April Lindner, Jim Murdoch, Pat Daneman, Floyd Cheung, Linda King, Dan O’Brien, T. J. Jarrett, Anthony Liccione, Hal Sirowitz, and Joanne Lowery; essays by Jennifer A. Howard and J. W. Young; and artwork by Yevgenia Nayberg.

The Apple Valley Review is a semiannual online literary journal. The current issue, previous issues, subscription information, and complete submission guidelines are available at www.applevalleyreview.com.

"Erasures" by Sharon Bryan

"My best lover ever
is dead. . . ."

"Erasures," a poem by Sharon Bryan, is continued in The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor (October 8, 2009). It is reprinted from Sharon Bryan's book Sharp Stars (BOA Editions: Rochester, 2009).

"Between Here and Here" by Amy Bloom

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"I had always planned to kill my father. When I was ten, I drew a picture of a grave with 'Alvin Lowald' on the tombstone, on the wall behind my dresser. From time to time I would add a spray of weeds or a creeping vine. By the time I was in junior high, there were trees hung with kudzu, cracks in the granite, and a few dark daisies springing up. Once, when my mother wouldn’t let me ride my bike into town, I wrote 'Peggy Lowald is a fat stupid cow' behind the dresser, but I went back the same day and scribbled over it with black Magic Marker because most of the time I did love my mother and I knew she loved me. The whole family knew that my mother’s feelings were Sensitive and Easily Hurt. My father said so, all the time. My father’s feelings were also sensitive, but not in a way that I understood the word, at ten; it might be more accurate to say that he was extremely responsive. My brother, Andy, drew cartoon weather maps of my father’s feelings: dark clouds of I Hate You, giving way to the sleet of Who Are You, pierced by bolts of Black Rage.

Most of the mothers in our neighborhood were housewives, like my mother. But my mother was also a very good cook and a very accomplished hostess and even if the things she made and the way she entertained is not how I would have done it (red, white, and blue frilled toothpicks in lamb sausage pigs in blankets on the Fourth of July, trays of deviled eggs and oeufs en gelée—with tiny tulips of chive and egg yolk decorating each oeuf—to celebrate spring)."

"Between Here and Here," a short story by the incomparable Amy Bloom, is continued in Narrative Magazine (Winter 2010). The story is from Amy Bloom’s most recent story collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Random House, 2010).

"A Crossing" by George David Clark

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"Giant salamanders, blue-black and purple-black, lie
along the bottom of this stream in Northern China —

I cannot even balance the place’s name on my tongue.
They lie like bruises in the stone-strewn pools, . . ."

"A Crossing," a poem by George David Clark, is continued in Linebreak (January 12, 2010).

Two poems by Jason Heroux and a film by Woody Allen

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"Windows" and "Brief Case" by Jason Heroux (prose poems from his chapbook Leaving the Road, Mercutio Press, 2003)

Match Point, written and directed by Woody Allen and starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Chris Wilton, Emily Mortimer as Chloe Hewett Wilton, Matthew Goode as Tom Hewett, Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton as Alec and Eleanor Hewett, and Scarlett Johansson as Nola Rice.

(There are also some very talented supporting actors including Margaret Tyzack as Betty Eastby, Ewen Bremner as Inspector Dowd, James Nesbitt as Detective Banner, and Rupert Penry-Jones, who played Captain Wentworth in the BBC version of Persuasion, as Chris's friend and former tennis rival.)

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

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Bel Canto, a novel by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins: New York, 2001).

Cherry Blossoms

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Kirschblüten - Hanami (English title: Cherry Blossoms, French
title: Un Rêve japonais), in German, written and directed by
Doris Dörrie and starring Elmar Wepper and Hannelore Elsner as Rudi and Trudi Angermeier, Aya Irizuki as Yu, Maximilian Brückner as Karl Angermeier, Nadja Uhl as Franzi, Birgit Minichmayr as Karolin Angermeier, and Felix Eitner and Floriane Daniel as Klaus and Emma Angermeier.