Jennifer Perrine's Blog - Posts Tagged "vsc"
People I Know, Places I Go, Make Me Feel Tongue-Tied
As I wave adieu to a year that was both terrible and colorful, the books that I read are, as always, the little souvenirs that I'm happy to be carrying with me into 2017. (Well, books and a mental soundtrack that includes The Sundays, apparently.) I read a little less than usual this year, but most of the books that I did read wowed me. My favorite discoveries of 2016 include:
...And those were just the highlights of my year in books.
I've got to thank Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge for pushing me to read outside of my usual boundaries. I only heard about it in September, so didn't quite complete all the challenges, but it's a new year, and they've announced the 2017 challenge. I am, of course, digging all the encouragement to read more books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, but for me, the biggest challenge on the list is the first one: Read a book about sports. (I just picked up Forward: A Memoir, though, so maybe not so tough after all...)
As for the writing in 2016, most of my attention was focused on fiction, and I just started sending out short stories. One of them, "Grief Sequence," was an honorable mention for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, which is encouraging, although it feels strange to be a "new writer" all over again. But in truth, when it comes to fiction, that's what I am.
I'm happy to say that as the year came to a close, the poetry bug bit me again--or, more accurately, poetry started kicking me in the ass and reminding me to get back to where my real work is. I've embarked on a long sonnet sequence that I'm hoping to finish in February, thanks to a residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
But before that wraps up, I'll be starting another writing project. Like so many other writers, I've been trying to find ever more ways to respond to and resist white supremacy and sexism, especially as they've manifested themselves in Trump's campaign and election. As we head into these next four years, I want to make sure not to lose hope, to remember the power that rests in the reclamation of language that's been used to oppress. So, each day for the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, I'll be writing an "Inaugury," a poem or essay that attempts to scry the signs of the times, to reinterpret language that's been misused, and to remember that this period is a new beginning for all of us. I'll be posting the poems on my website starting on January 20th.
Until then: Here's to the end of the story that was 2016 and to cracking the spine on 2017.
Poetry
For Love of Common Words: Poems, Steve Scafidi
Late Wife, Claudia Emerson
Seam, Tarfia Faizullah
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay
Dear Leader, Damian Rogers
Lost Alphabet, Lisa Olstein
lore, Davis McCombs
Look, Solmaz Sharif
Nonfiction
M Train, Patti Smith
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, Carrie Brownstein
H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
On the Move: A Life, Oliver Sacks
The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction, Neil Gaiman
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Mary Roach
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality, Julie Sondra Decker
In the Darkroom, Susan Faludi
The Joy of Swimming: A Celebration of Our Love for Getting in the Water, Lisa Congdon
Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton
Comics
Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection, Kate Beaton
Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton
The Absolute Sandman, Volume Four, Neil Gaiman
Fiction
The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson
The Brides of Rollrock Island, Margo Lanagan
I Sailed with Magellan, Stuart Dybek
LaRose, Louise Erdrich
A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara
Native Son, Richard Wright
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
When Are You Coming Home?, Bryn Chancellor
Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood
The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
Genre-Busters
Her 37th Year, An Index, Suzanne Scanlon
Artful, Ali Smith
...And those were just the highlights of my year in books.
I've got to thank Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge for pushing me to read outside of my usual boundaries. I only heard about it in September, so didn't quite complete all the challenges, but it's a new year, and they've announced the 2017 challenge. I am, of course, digging all the encouragement to read more books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, but for me, the biggest challenge on the list is the first one: Read a book about sports. (I just picked up Forward: A Memoir, though, so maybe not so tough after all...)
As for the writing in 2016, most of my attention was focused on fiction, and I just started sending out short stories. One of them, "Grief Sequence," was an honorable mention for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, which is encouraging, although it feels strange to be a "new writer" all over again. But in truth, when it comes to fiction, that's what I am.
I'm happy to say that as the year came to a close, the poetry bug bit me again--or, more accurately, poetry started kicking me in the ass and reminding me to get back to where my real work is. I've embarked on a long sonnet sequence that I'm hoping to finish in February, thanks to a residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
But before that wraps up, I'll be starting another writing project. Like so many other writers, I've been trying to find ever more ways to respond to and resist white supremacy and sexism, especially as they've manifested themselves in Trump's campaign and election. As we head into these next four years, I want to make sure not to lose hope, to remember the power that rests in the reclamation of language that's been used to oppress. So, each day for the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, I'll be writing an "Inaugury," a poem or essay that attempts to scry the signs of the times, to reinterpret language that's been misused, and to remember that this period is a new beginning for all of us. I'll be posting the poems on my website starting on January 20th.
Until then: Here's to the end of the story that was 2016 and to cracking the spine on 2017.
Swingin' on the Front Porch, Swingin' on the Lawn
This is my last week in Johnson, Vermont, where the kind folks at the Vermont Studio Center have given me space to write and to be among other artists for the month of February. There's been much furious scribbling, broadening of horizons, and exchanging of ideas. (Also, a wee bit of carousing, a lot of laughter, heaps of good food, and a mid-winter bonfire. This place is luscious.)
The residency has given me encouragement to be braver and less polished with my poems, including the Inauguries, which have definitely begun to absorb the influence of this place and the people I've met here. Being away from home has also offered some necessary distance from stories and poems that I should have abandoned long ago. Darlings have been murdered! Drafts have been trashed! Let the new language come flooding in!
While I've been here, Unsplendid put out a new double issue, which includes a villanelle and a sonnet I wrote. Editor Doug Basford's preface is worth checking out for its thoughtful articulation of some of the relationships between politics and poetry.
Also, speaking of politics and poetry, the new issue of Rattle is out, and it features poems by civil servants--folks who've worked for the CIA, FDA, EPA, the Census Bureau--which just goes to show we poets are everywhere. I've got a poem in there, too, in the poets-not-affiliated-with-the-government section. I'll have to wait until I'm home to read the rest of the issue, but I can tell you my poem was inspired by a dream in which Death tried to serve me a pie. No lie.
The residency has given me encouragement to be braver and less polished with my poems, including the Inauguries, which have definitely begun to absorb the influence of this place and the people I've met here. Being away from home has also offered some necessary distance from stories and poems that I should have abandoned long ago. Darlings have been murdered! Drafts have been trashed! Let the new language come flooding in!
While I've been here, Unsplendid put out a new double issue, which includes a villanelle and a sonnet I wrote. Editor Doug Basford's preface is worth checking out for its thoughtful articulation of some of the relationships between politics and poetry.
Also, speaking of politics and poetry, the new issue of Rattle is out, and it features poems by civil servants--folks who've worked for the CIA, FDA, EPA, the Census Bureau--which just goes to show we poets are everywhere. I've got a poem in there, too, in the poets-not-affiliated-with-the-government section. I'll have to wait until I'm home to read the rest of the issue, but I can tell you my poem was inspired by a dream in which Death tried to serve me a pie. No lie.
