Poetry. Juliana Spahr has lived in many places, including Chillicothe (Ohio), Buffalo (New York), Honolulu (Hawaii), and Brooklyn (New York). She h...
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Nov 10, 2008
khatch
rated it: 
i really really liked the parts about teaching and about teaching in hawaii and all that tricky sociopoloitcal stuff, the guilt and the vision.
the repetition kind of killed me. or maybe just too much. began to seem tricky. the book would be way less thick if she just chillaxed on the blahblah.
also, i was not sure what to take from the 9/11 narration, what bigger light.
this book kept appearing in conversations with people. maybe i get why they brought it up, More...
the repetition kind of killed me. or maybe just too much. began to seem tricky. the book would be way less thick if she just chillaxed on the blahblah.
also, i was not sure what to take from the 9/11 narration, what bigger light.
this book kept appearing in conversations with people. maybe i get why they brought it up, More...
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Oct 04, 2009
Rae
rated it: 
My friend Emily emailed me to ask if I'd read this one when Spahr was reading at U/Alabama a couple weeks ago - she said she recognized something of me in the open, malleable, almost vague (words as indefinite placeholders?) voice of this book, and she thought I needed to see what Spahr was doing here.
I'm thrilled to say that this work of Spahr's (which I hadn't even heard of previously, though I loved both Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You and This Connection of Everyone With Lungs) turned More...
I'm thrilled to say that this work of Spahr's (which I hadn't even heard of previously, though I loved both Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You and This Connection of Everyone With Lungs) turned More...
Mar 14, 2009
Shanxing
rated it:
I found reasons why I didn't want to enter a graduate program or the academic world in english or creative writing. I learned more about the colonial past of the islands in the Pacific and the unnamed continent. It made me think more about Chinese history from 1840 to 1949. The problematic of the expansionist language and culture. Also the burning question: how to live with snapping turtles, institutionalized or not? I like its frankness, prosaicness, attention to often neglected details of thin
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Aug 22, 2009
Drew
rated it:
The Transformation is part cultural history, part philosophical treatise, part political diatribe, part confessional lyric, and part poetic manifesto. This unflinching exploration of the inherently equivocal nature of the self, the community, and culture is filled with the best kind of doub – the kind that circles question after question, without becoming mired in hopelessness. There's a brilliant tenderness in the way that Spahr out the flaws in our human logic:
"...claiming More...
"...claiming More...
Sep 10, 2008
Ginger
rated it:
"The gray matter at the back of their brain told them to move to the islands in the Atlantic because the islands were known for their perversions and various sexualities and they wanted to live someplace known for its perversions and various sexualities. The gray matter at the back of the brain wanted to move to the place that self-identified as a place of complicated sexuality, a place for people who liked to be getting in and out of various beds in various different ways. A place that cel
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May 14, 2008
Andy
rated it:
Spahr's novel is intelligent, moving, thoughtful, crucial. It's the story of the change in her writing that led to This Connection of Everyone with Lungs. Told almost entirely in the third person plural, it's the story of a three-person relationship that moves to Hawaii in the late '90s. There "they" meet with a series of contradictions and absent places: their roles as low-grade pawns in the post-grad employment machine, which is at the same time a vast system reproducing cultural imp
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Aug 04, 2008
Lauren
rated it:
If I were going to write something, some thing about this book I would want to use "fragmentation, quotation, disruption, disjunction, agrammatical syntax, and so on" but I'm not sure. sure I'm sure. the surety I feel is beyond.
The repetitions of phrases that Spahr uses sometimes resemble incantations, sometimes make one dizzy because of the circular whirlpool directions they take.
It's hard to say that I like so so much this book but I do say it hard. It has lo More...
The repetitions of phrases that Spahr uses sometimes resemble incantations, sometimes make one dizzy because of the circular whirlpool directions they take.
It's hard to say that I like so so much this book but I do say it hard. It has lo More...
Mar 02, 2009
Erin
rated it: 
I loved this book - esp. how she layers repetitions in order to get at the constantly shifting, murky waters of ethnic politics in the islands.
Sep 17, 2009
Farren
rated it: 
UGH I don't want to talk about it.
5 comments
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Jul 06, 2008
cristiana
rated it:
a friend told me that there some notable female poets who are writing memoirs...another contemporary female poet's book is by jennifer moxley.
the opening chapter delves into spahr's "unusual" live-in relationship w/ two other poets. the writing is strong and clear and provocative, and idiosyncratically, spahr's "style."
so far, so good.
the opening chapter delves into spahr's "unusual" live-in relationship w/ two other poets. the writing is strong and clear and provocative, and idiosyncratically, spahr's "style."
so far, so good.
Jul 08, 2008
Tessa
rated it:
Spahr articulates her confusion in a clear way and methodically, readably unpacks the experience of trying to figure something out so large and interconnected with everything else that it is nearly impossible. A narrative of describing and cataloging the symptoms of racism, classism, sexism, and terrorism. Highly recommended.
May 07, 2008
Dan
rated it:
I read the first chapter on the plane. This is going to be an absolute treat, once I finish Little, Big by John Crowley. Who else besides Spahr has such a PRECISE thoughtful voice, trying so hard to get it right, and occasionally reminding you that it's all a lot of fun too.
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