James Dorr's Blog, page 30

The Goth Cat Triana Wishes for All A Joyous Bastille Day

Triana also wishes to use the occasion to show off her newest portrait (she would have done it on the 4th, except it was too noisy).

“Ryder” Poems Now at Revived Fourth Street Arts Fest?

Let us recall the question of what became of the reading for this summer’s RYDER poets (see June 29, 13)? That is to say, a reading of poems that appeared in the magazine — for which one may press here* — had been tentatively scheduled for a Bloomington Writers Guild sponsored reading at Morgenstern Books. But then June came and went, and as we progressed into July it seemed less and less likely for this month as well. . . .

But now there’s an answer — not carved in stone, maybe, in that it may depend on how many poets will still be available, but nevertheless that it may yet happen in early September.

In short, via today’s email from coordinator Tony Brewer: I was unable to get a reading together at Morgenstern Books and have had to turn my attention to other projects — one of those being the return of the spoken word stage at 4th Street Festival — and so I thought about trying to bring the two together.

I would like to have as many of you as are available to come read your poems(s) from the issue at 4th Street Festival, September 3-4 Labor Day weekend. Please let me know if you have a day/time preference. The stage runs 10am-6pm on Sat Sep 3, and 10am-5pm Sun Sep 4.

This would be Bloomington’s annual “Fourth Street Festival of the Arts and Crafts,” planned to be back from a several-year COVID 19 hiatus, including a two-day presentation of readings and other written-word features from the Writers Guild (cf. September 1, August 16 2019; September 1 2018; et al.), of which possibly more news will be coming too. But for now at least I emailed back to Tony that I’m game, with a possible Saturday afternoon preference.

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*Then go to the very very end to find mine.

https://online.flippingbook.com/view/909906235/

Vonnegut Reception Reading a Partial Washout?

A Gallery Walk in a raging rainstorm, not a combination for getting large crowds. But it would mean more snacks for those who did show, or, you win some, you lose some.

And one thing to the good already. Yesterday, Thursday, was the Goth Cat Triana’s Annual Visit To The Vet Day and, for various reasons, this involves a 30 to 40 minute walk with a heavy cat carrier, this year on a day with possible thunderstorms in the forecast. But the rains held off, the cat got a good bill of health; except this morning, Friday, the storms finally arrived, with possible flood warnings and all.

So I could stay indoors at least most of the day, and the Weather Channel did speak of a letup around 4 to 7 p.m., coincidentally the time I would have to be out for the Cook Arts Center “Vonnegut @ 100 Reception,” including my reading (cf. July 5, et al.). Another win maybe? As it happened, yes. By about 4:30, almost time to leave, the sky had turned sunny and dry and warm! The weather lovely. And so it was for the walk to the reception, and at destination meeting coordinator Natalia Almanza, a few others, Jenna Bowman with a table for Morgenstern Books . . . the Center director, though, scheduled to start the “Story Share” proper at 5:30 p.m. unable to make it.

But sunny or not, Bloomington is a college town in summer session, and with rain still falling while people were making their plans for the evening. So plenty of snacks (there was one family with children who came but soon disappeared into the exhibit itself) a very nice cheese dip with crackers, more cheese and salami, blackberries, miniature cupcakes. The cupcakes were good (I had about three).

Then 5:30 came and while, for those of us present, there was a collegial and pleasant vibe already established, it was time to begin. Thus being introduced by Natalia, I started it off with “Dead Girls, Dying Girls,” my own Vonnegutesque story of dancing bears and the perils of science fairs gone wild (c.f., again, July 5, et al.) with a reading time of about ten minutes, followed by Natalia, Jenna, Charles and one or two more gentlemen (one mainly there to take pictures, I think) reading selected passages from several novels, etc. Interesting and apt. But no new listeners coming in from the world outside. . . .

It wound down thus at about 6:30, half-way to its 8 p.m. scheduled ending, a nice enough time for the few of us there but with most drifted away by 6:45. At which point, when I was about halfway home, the rains did come — not raging thunderstorms, quite, but enough to get wet.

So it goes.

Dead Girls Reading Set for This Friday, 6 p.m.

That’s the reading for the “Vonnegut @ 100: A Century of Stories” closing reception originally scheduled for July 1, but since re-set for this Friday, the 8th, from 5 to 8 p.m. as noted below (June 29, 25). But why the dancing bear pictures on those posts? For that you’ll just have to read the story — or else, if you’re local, drop by the Cook Center for Public Arts & Humanities in Maxwell Hall at the appointed time.

The reason for the rescheduling is that this is part of a monthly “Bloomington Gallery Walk” — a multiple open house for several art galleries downtown and, in this case, on the near-downtown Indiana University campus — normally scheduled on first Fridays but, due to the Independence Day weekend, put back this month to the second. My part in this is to present a Vonnegut-inspired story, “Dead Girls, Dying Girls” (originally published in SO IT GOES: A TRIBUTE TO KURT VONNEGUT by Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, 2013, and reprinted in CAT’S BREAKFAST: KURT VONNEGUT TRIBUTE, Third Flatiron Anthologies, Summer 2017), the tale of a very clever young girl but, other than a knack for manipulation, with tragically little feeling for social relations.

Be it known, however, I do write horror and — with a hat tip to Vonnegut’s own delicious sense of the absurd — my humor may sometimes be black (which is to say, let the story’s title also stand as its “trigger warning,” or does that even make sense in a Vonnegut context).

In any event, the e-word came today from Coordinator Natalia Almanza, I having noted before that I might have to leave around 7: I’ll have you scheduled to read at 6pm if that’s alright with you? It’ll be fairly informal, community members interested in participating will sign-up as they arrive!

My rough timeline will be that our director will read first around 5:30pm, then you at 6pm and our staff and community members will go after.

And thus, so it goes. I’ve sent back my OK, and my story should take up only about ten minutes, so plenty of time for others who’d like to sign up too — sort of like “open mic” at Bloomington Writers Guild events, it would seem (I being actually scheduled mainly, I suspect, because I may have been the only one to respond to an invitation forwarded specifically to Writers Guild members, cf. June 25). So the more the merrier — and I will try to stay myself until maybe just past 7 (assuming, that is, they don’t throw me out when they hear my story).

Dead Girls Delayed (Maybe Poem Reading Too?)

Ducking the President’s flying lunch, another item showed up lateish Tuesday, this from Cook Center for Public Arts & Humanities Coordinator Natalia Almanza: I’m so sorry but, we got the Gallery Walk dates mixed up on our end! Due to the holiday, Gallery Walk will be postponed to July 8th from 5-8pm

Since this is where the bulk of our audience comes from, we’re going to postpone the story share to next week. Does this date work for you?

That is, the “Vonnegut @ 100: A Century of Stories” reception up-to-now scheduled for this Friday, June 1, from 5-8 p.m. at Maxwell Hall (see June 25) is part of a first Fridays monthly Bloomington Gallery Walk where a number of art installations take part, but this time, for July, because of the Independence Day weekend it’s been put back one week to Friday, June 8.

So more time to plan, eh? Except I already have something planned for Friday the 8th, although fortunately for a little bit later, so I emailed back, I could be there from 5 to about 7, but would have to leave by around 7 p.m. Would that be a problem? Also, will you be scheduling readers . . . or otherwise have an approximate program for when individuals would be sharing? So more to be here as it becomes known, but I’ve seen the exhibit and it’s fascinating and (most likely) I’ll still be there Friday, July 8, from 5 p.m. to maybe about 7.

Then one more thing, whisking us back to June 13, et al., THE RYDER is out with my poems, “Don’t Always Believe Everything You Read” and “The Vampiress’ Soliloquy,” on the very, very last page, but wasn’t there supposed to be a reading this month too at Morgenstern Books? Well yes, there was, but it’s been a busy month there thus far — and the issue is, technically, for June/July — so let’s keep our eyes open. And if it turns out it’s rescheduled for July, again news will be here as it becomes known.

June Third Sunday Write for Writers Guild Posted in June

Well, it’s almost July but, yes, this month’s Bloomington Writers Guild 3rd Sunday Write (cf. June 10, et al.) is actually being posted in June. The prompts for this month were 1. On the longest day I. . . ., 2. Use the following words in your piece (in any order) Blue, Shadows, Linger, Lilies, Turn, Horizon, Path, and 3. to comment on a linked interview with Tracy K. Smith on enslavement, freedom, and poetry. My selection was number 2, but with an understanding that forms of words (e.g. “turned” for “turn”) would be okay too.

Also that this was being written (still is!) Tuesday, June 28, with the TV news including details on the U.S. House Committee hearings on January 6 in the background. Could that possibly have influenced what I then wrote?

THE PRESIDENT’S LUNCH

Had it not been for the partition the path it took would have reached the horizon, ketchup spewing through blue shadows, the place the White House but one wall now turned red. Fear and anger lingered. “The President’s upset,” one staffer explained. The day, January 6, 2021, a plot (it now seems) thwarted, the life of a republic, the United States, at least for today saved.

No need yet for lilies.

Dead Girls to Take Bow at Kurt Vonnegut Fest

It started earlier in the week, Monday, with a forwarded message from IU Arts & Humanities Council Programming Coordinator Natalia Almanza via the Writing Guild’s Joan Hawkins: [W]e are hosting a closing reception on July 1st from 5-8pm for the exhibit currently on display in our gallery, Vonnegut @ 100: A Century of Stories. This exhibit is hosted in partnership with the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.

Alongside this closing reception, we are hoping to host a story share featuring local authors and thought members of the Bloomington Writers Guild would be great to highlight at this event!

Essentially, we’d like to invite your group to share original stories or any favorite selections members may have from Kurt Vonnegut’s novels.

Tuesday I responded, noting that I had an approximately 1600-word story that had been published in two Vonnegut tribute anthologies, “Dead Girls, Dying Girls,” about a rather spoiled school-aged girl far, far cleverer than she ought to be — but equally deficient in any sense in how one should relate to other people — and what happened that year at her school science fair. The reading time should be about ten minutes. And, having noted that I am a horror writer with a sometimes black sense of humor, if this would be the sort of thing you have in mind, I would be happy to read at the reception. Then yesterday, Friday afternoon, the answer came: This is exactly what we’re looking for! We’re excited to have you!

So if you’re in the local area, that’s Friday next week, the 1st of July at 5-8 p.m. in the Cook Center for Public Arts & Humanities (750 E. Kirkwood Ave., a.k.a. Maxwell Hall) on the Indiana University Bloomington campus. As for the books, for those keeping score, “Dead Girls, Dying Girls” has previously appeared in SO IT GOES: A TRIBUTE TO KURT VONNEGUT (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing, 2013) and as a reprint in CAT’S BREAKFAST: KURT VONNEGUT TRIBUTE (Third Flatiron Anthologies, Summer 2017), for more on which see below for April 24, 9 2013 et al., and June 15, May 17 2017, et al.

But for what the picture above has to do with all this, you’ll just have to read — or hear — the story.

Beowulf Beware: Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival Out by Year’s End?

How time doth fly. Let us take a trip now in the Wayback Machine with stops at February 5, March 28, and April 29, 2021 (cf., as appropriate, below). Not much more than a year back, actually (well, maybe closer to a year and a half for the first, but still). But time goes back farther, the first of these, headlined “Ancient” Poems May Be Re-Published In Scholarly Volume, being about a request from one Dennis Wilson Wise for (quoting myself) reprinting two poems published twenty and twenty-six years back, respectively, to use in a proposed academic anthology of speculative alliterative poetry in the late 20th century.

This is high class stuff, a recognition as it were of the worth of one’s work by actual scholars. For publication for other actual scholars to read! The poems in question, “The Westfarer” and “The Worm in the Wood,” go back a ways farther too, the latter more recent, published in STAR*LINE for May-June 2001, while “The Westfarer” first appeared in DARK DESTINY II: PROPRIETORS OF FATE (White Wolf, 1995). But both also are written using a technique with much older roots, “The Worm in the Wood” opening with quotes from Geoffrey of Monmouth and Sir Thomas Malory, both from the Middle Ages, on the fate of King Arthur, and written in a style “inspired” by the 14th century English poem GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT, and “The Westfarer,” on Norse explorations of the new world — and werewolves — taking after the Old English epic BEOWULF* from probably before the 10th century.

The book will be titled SPECULATIVE POETRY AND THE MODERN ALLITERATIVE REVIVAL: A CRITICAL ANTHOLOGY, to be published by Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, with the March and April entries cited having to do with “writing life” matters of contracts and okaying preliminary drafts. And today word has just come from Dennis Wise: ­All right! After a seven-month wait, I’ve now finally received the reader’s report on the manuscript . . . and it’s good news. Some reasonable revisions will be required on my end, but I hope to resubmit the final manuscript version . . . by the end of summer.

Then, if that weren’t enough, he quotes from the reader’s report, adding a note that as for actual publication, “within the year might not be too optimistic”: I do believe this is a very worthwhile project, and I am very pleased that it has been undertaken with such zeal. The material gathered here will no doubt appeal to those who are aware of some pieces herein, but the volume is also going to amaze readers and scholars who otherwise had little to no awareness of such poetic works in the past 30, 40, or 70 years.
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*No, BEOWULF is not about werewolves itself. But there is a dragon.

Poems Published in Ryder; Another Colossal Royalty Received

We may recall an April local poetry issue of local magazine THE RYDER that got postponed to June to make way for a special Ukraine edition, along with a reading morphed into a more general one in April (see March 19, 3). Well, June is here and, per email today from Writers Guild coordinator Tony Brewer: It’s on the street! If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, it is out there at the usual Ryder locations around Bloomington. With trembling fingers, I clicked the link to the electronic edition (which you may see too by pressing here) — poems galore! — and began to scroll through them to check out the two of mine that should be there. . . .

. . . and scrolled . . . and scrolled . . .

I remembered, there was one thing the email mentioned, almost in passing. I wanted to note, due to a printing error 3 poets were omitted from the issue but we’re working on printing them in the next issue.

. . . and scrolled. And scrolled. . . .

Forty-three poems I scrolled through, by rough count from the print issue I picked up later. And scrolled . . . and . . . wait! There they were! Tucked in at the very, very end (page 46 in the print edition, just before the inner back cover), poems number 44 and 45, “Don’t Always Believe Everything You Read” (sage advice from a zombie, perhaps all the more salient given the politics of today, although specifically about New Hampshire’s state motto) and “The Vampiress’ Soliloquy” (a biting satire — sorry, couldn’t resist — in Shakespearian language). By me!

And one more item, about a promised reading at Morgenstern Books by the poets, details may be announced later this week (so stay tuned to these pages. . . .).

Then a quick change of subject: June marking the start of summer, a royalty report arrived today of which, by custom to avoid embarrassment to the publisher and/or me, I give no details. Be assured, though, it was a positive if compact amount.

May Third Sunday Write, or, Late Again. . . .

Well yes, it’s Bloomington Writer’s Guild’s “3rd Sunday Write” time again (see May 15, et al.), and as it has been in the recent past, I’m late with it again (e.g., that “May 15” above was for April). In fact, I’m even another day late putting it up on the blog, since it went on the 3rd Sunday Facebook page Thursday. So everything runs late, mea culpa, but an advantage of this one quasi-virtual event, is that one can be late with no harm done. That one can approach the prompt at leisure, then finish it up as time provides.

In fact, this one was drafted at the bus station that afternoon, scrawled on a newspaper I had with me, groceries on the bench beside me. I’d noted the prompts at the library before: one on the statement “I am landlocked”; a second, “The Blood Moon was clouded over,” ostensibly relating to a recent lunar eclipse missed because of poor weather; the third to comment on an attached poem; and the fourth on a photograph of a river in wooded surroundings (calming and peaceful). As I sometimes do, I chose to give one a kind of sidewise twist — in this case Number 2 — but, instead of a prose essay, to write it out as a poem. Thus:

THE BLOOD MOON WAS CLOUDED OVER

The Blood Moon was clouded,
it said it was on strike,
it still served the vampire community, of course —
that was why it was originally hired —
but in other respects its workload had increased
but with no boost in pay.
It wasn’t the werewolves it complained about,
that was seasonal work,
but instead the increased press of violent crime
among ordinary humans —
a clandestine knifing at times was okay,
that was to be expected,
people got on people’s nerves every night
the same as the monsters whose job it was to murder,
but mass killings with guns — there was no excuse for that!
Even the vampires and werewolves agreed.

(So okay, I didn’t say a good poem.)