Poem: "Gate C 22" by Ellen Bass

At gate C 22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after

the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like satin ribbons tying up a gift. . . .

[Continued on the website of The Missouri Review,
where "Gate C 22" by Ellen Bass was published in 2002.]

A Few Books, Mostly Memoirs

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Despite loving Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, I hadn't read any of her books that dealt more with religion than writing. Recently, though, I read all three of them, and found that, like Bird by Bird, each was at least as much memoir as how-to manual.

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Trust me when I say that this was the first time I'd ventured into the Religion section of a bookstore for some new reading material.
~
Also very late in the game, I finally read David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day. I'd had two of his books on my shelves for years; I'm now moving on to the second (more recent) one.

A few months ago, I bought a book of essays that was supposed to be witty and wonderful, and I don't know--it just didn't work for me. I plowed through the entire book trying unsuccessfully to understand what the reviewers were raving about. So I tried not to pay attention to all the hype about Me Talk Pretty One Day to avoid being similarly disappointed, but this book was terrific.
~
I meant to add this to one of my blog posts a long time ago: a chapbook from Dancing Girl Press called The Terrible Baby, a collection of poems by Rebecca Cook. The cover is what initially drew me to that particular chapbook; it's a painting by Lauren Matthews Levato called "Maternal." (The second draw was the tantalizingly provocative title of the chapbook.)

The Fall 2008 issue of the Apple Valley Review

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The Fall 2008 issue of the journal features fiction by Alex Myers and Rachel Ephraim; memoir by Panteha Sanati; prose poetry by Julie Babcock; poetry by Vince Corvaia, Keetje Kuipers, Philip Matthews, M.J. Iuppa, Miranda Steffens, Andrew Slattery, Richard Stolorow, Margaret Rozga, Naira Kuzmich, Jim Murdoch, Susan Culver, and Heather Mercer; and artwork by Rob Evans.

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.

A Short Collection of Poetry

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While I was at the conference in New York, I bought a copy of Late Wife by Claudia Emerson (from the Southern Messenger Poets series, Louisiana State University Press, 2005). This book also won The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2006, though I was (ever shallow) first drawn to its appearance.

These four were my favorites from the collection:

"Pitching Horseshoes" (originally published in Blackbird, Spring 2003, Volume 2, Number 1)

"The Practice Cage"

"Driving Glove"

"Buying the Painted Turtle" (originally published in Shenandoah)

Two Stories from One Story, One from Steve Almond, and a Novel

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Given the reasonable subscription price and the time-friendly format, it's not difficult to read everything published by One Story. The stories are also consistently excellent, so I feel like it's saying something that these two have stood out in my mind:

"Culottes" by Eileen FitzGerald (One Story, Issue Number 82, October 20, 2006)

"What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us" by Laura van den Berg (One Story, Issue Number 102, March 10, 2008)

I finally finished Steve Almond's The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005). Steve Almond's stories typically feature great beginnings and witty, acerbic observations. I'd read some of his other writing (e.g., the novel he co-wrote with Julianna and many of his dead-on essays for Poets and Writers) and admired his style. In The Evil B.B. Chow, though, he does use language and subject matter that are more graphic than he might use in, say, a P&W essay. At any rate, the story that really got me was one toward the end: "Wired for Life," which originally appeared in The Missouri Review.

And I'm going to add one other book here, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (first published in 1847). I just find it remarkable that this novel, comprised of plot points that make it seem almost impossibly dated, can still strike a chord.

"The Happy Memories Club"

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Best of the South: From the Second Decade of New Stories from the South (1996-2005), edited by Shannon Ravenel, with stories selected and introduced by Anne Tyler, has been on my nightstand for years now. It sounds silly, but there are certain books that I've looked forward to so much that I don't want to spoil the anticipation by actually reading them.

Anyway, I've read some real clunkers lately and needed something good. So I finally opened Best of the South yesterday, and immediately read a short story that I've read numerous times: "The Happy Memories Club" by Lee Smith. It was originally published in The Atlantic Monthly, and it's one of my all-time favorite stories.

The writing is good, of course--sharp, sometimes funny, perfectly wrought--but there is also something about this story that is just so poignant.

LINKS:

"The Happy Memories Club" at The Atlantic Monthly online

Lee Smith reading "The Happy Memories Club" in the audio archive for the WUNC 91.5 FM show "The State of Things"

News of the Spirit (a collection of short stories by Lee Smith), New Stories from the South (1996), and Best of the South (1996-2005), all of which include "The Happy Memories Club"

My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead

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It's taken several weeks, but I've finally finished every story in the anthology I've been reading: My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro edited by Jeffrey Eugenides (HarperCollins, 2008).

Intimidated by Eugenides's introductory description of Robert Musil's "difficult and rather punishing 'Tonka,'" I read it last, though I mainly found the story intriguing. There were quite a few familiar stories in the anthology (Chekhov's "The Lady with the Little Dog," Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Nabokov's "Spring in Fialta," Raymond Carver's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love") combined with several authors/stories which were refreshingly new, at least to me (Eileen Chang's "Red Rose, White Rose," David Bezmozgis's "Natasha," Richard Ford's "Fireworks," Milan Kundera's "The Hitchhiking Game").

This was a strong collection overall, but my two favorites were "Something That Needs Nothing" by Miranda July and "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" by Alice Munro. One other story that stood out in my mind was "Jon" by George Saunders.

Amazon's page for the book includes Q & A with Jeffrey Eugenides, including a note about a story he selected but wasn't able to include ("Brokeback Mountain" by Annie Proulx) and information about the student writing programs offered by 826 Chicago (which will receive all author proceeds from sales of the anthology).