Victor D. Infante's Blog, page 181
March 6, 2011
Dispatches from the House of Paine Poetics and Culinary Research Facility ...
Crazy freaking past few days ...
*Lisa Sisler came up from New Jersey, and she and Lea worked on getting their ducks in a row for the imminent release of their anthology, Knocking at the Door: Approaching the Other, from Birch Bench Press (an imprint of Write Bloody Publishing.) The book is gorgeous, and the poems more so. Very excited about this ...
*Lisa joined us last night to see the "Here & Now: Ephemera" show at Gallery 263 in Cambridge, hosted by the amazing Jade Sylvan. Absolutely captivating night of work intended to never be seen again, complete with ritual burning of the poems' only copies at the end. Great work by Jade, Tony Brown, Corrina Bain (who destroyed my heart with the knowledge that I'll never be able to just go to my bookshelf and read those poems again!), Nicole Terez Dutton (whom I can't believe I was completely unaware of beforehand) and everyone else involved, including a burlesque performance, stand-up comedy by a physicist and live coding by dawn Gabriel. Sheer genius. It had me wobbly by the end.
*The Radius torrent continues, with the first of our "Invented Forms" series by Robert Wynne, and the next installment of our namesake "Radius" feature, with Willie Perdomo, Rich Villar and Sean Dalpiaz. And still more to come ...
*I have a workshop coming up! I'll be running a session on "Reconciling With the Past Through Poetry," as part of Ballard Street Poetry Journal's series in collaboration with the Worcester Public Schools Nightlife Adult Education program. I actually don't know a whole lot of details as to how you register for the series and all that, but I'm told they're in here somewhere. I promise to provide more information when I know it. But, hey. I love Ballard Street, and I love public schools, so I'm just happy to help. But anyway, here's my session:
Beginners Poetry Workshop Details
Reconciling With the Past Through Poetry
Lead by Victor D. Infante
Date: Wednesday, March 16th
Time: 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Location: Forest Grove Middle School
The series starts next week, I believe, with a session by Lea. Other instructors, as I understand it, include Alex Charalambides, Emily Ferrara, Carle Johnson, and Sou Macmillan. (Information shamelessly stolen form The Poets' Asylum webpage. Because they know stuff.)
*Lisa Sisler came up from New Jersey, and she and Lea worked on getting their ducks in a row for the imminent release of their anthology, Knocking at the Door: Approaching the Other, from Birch Bench Press (an imprint of Write Bloody Publishing.) The book is gorgeous, and the poems more so. Very excited about this ...
*Lisa joined us last night to see the "Here & Now: Ephemera" show at Gallery 263 in Cambridge, hosted by the amazing Jade Sylvan. Absolutely captivating night of work intended to never be seen again, complete with ritual burning of the poems' only copies at the end. Great work by Jade, Tony Brown, Corrina Bain (who destroyed my heart with the knowledge that I'll never be able to just go to my bookshelf and read those poems again!), Nicole Terez Dutton (whom I can't believe I was completely unaware of beforehand) and everyone else involved, including a burlesque performance, stand-up comedy by a physicist and live coding by dawn Gabriel. Sheer genius. It had me wobbly by the end.
*The Radius torrent continues, with the first of our "Invented Forms" series by Robert Wynne, and the next installment of our namesake "Radius" feature, with Willie Perdomo, Rich Villar and Sean Dalpiaz. And still more to come ...
*I have a workshop coming up! I'll be running a session on "Reconciling With the Past Through Poetry," as part of Ballard Street Poetry Journal's series in collaboration with the Worcester Public Schools Nightlife Adult Education program. I actually don't know a whole lot of details as to how you register for the series and all that, but I'm told they're in here somewhere. I promise to provide more information when I know it. But, hey. I love Ballard Street, and I love public schools, so I'm just happy to help. But anyway, here's my session:
Beginners Poetry Workshop Details
Reconciling With the Past Through Poetry
Lead by Victor D. Infante
Date: Wednesday, March 16th
Time: 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Location: Forest Grove Middle School
The series starts next week, I believe, with a session by Lea. Other instructors, as I understand it, include Alex Charalambides, Emily Ferrara, Carle Johnson, and Sou Macmillan. (Information shamelessly stolen form The Poets' Asylum webpage. Because they know stuff.)
March 3, 2011
Thursdays Are For Pimping
You know how I've been complaining that I'm stupidly busy lately? This morning was a great illustration of just busy that actually is. Between Radius and the T&G alone, I feel like I've done a month's worth of work in a few days. It's all paying off, though.
In Radius, there is a great excerpt from Sharon Doubiago's new memoir, and a response to three poems by Stephane Brown from writer Jean Macpherson. (And actually, the Macpherson piece inadvertantly lead me to an interesting essay by Kazim Ali on body, identity and poetry. Happy accident!)
In a particulary fun T&G today, I write about women who rock, Craig Semon writes about British songstress Adele, intern Jim talks to 7 Minute Stagger, intern Lee takes on 16-year-old artist Keenan Cassidy, and Dianne Williamson takes aim at another reality TV star coming to Central Mass. and beahving badly.
And still more to do ...
March 2, 2011
Busy as Hell
Some weeks, you really don't get much of a chance to breathe. This is one of them. Mind, it's all been worth it, but man ...
Radius is kicking along, nicely. The past few days have seen excellent poems by Antoinette Brim and Daniel McGinn, and all sorts of exciting stuff is waiting in the wings. (Could I be blamed for dropping names? Even if the names were Sharon Doubiago and Willie Perdomo? All right. Fine, then. I won't ... :)
It's a funny beast, Radius. Very much a product of its times. My goal, from the outset, was to apply contemporary tools to the old-fashioned beast that is the literary journal. Deconstruct it, if you will, but it into a context of a world where a goodly number of people want to follow things on their phone or on Twitter. At its core, it's really just a WordPress blog, but that's just a tool. A blog is just a platform for organizing content. You can do all sorts of things with it. For example, over at Telegram.com, I just LiveBlogged the Oscars. It was a silly, frivolous and, dare I say, highly entertaining exercise. The Sports department uses that same tool in an entirely different way, and reporter Shaun Sutner has used it to cover political events in different ways still. Three applications for one nifty tool, and I'm certain more will emerge. More should emerge. I think we've gotten to the point in the intersection of technology and publishing where we no longer have an opportunity to rest long. We need to constantly adapt to out environment, and that environment change so quickly as to leave the complacent lagging behind. "This is not a world of rest," as my friend Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz pointed out so aptly in her TED presentation.
But Radius is, very much, a literary journal, and I'm as serious about that business as I've ever been. Hopefully, if we've done our job correctly, it's voice and point of view will emerge. I'll leave that one up to other people to decide, but so far, I'm happy. In a lot of ways, happier than I was with The November 3rd Club. The work's more constant, but I like where it's going.
So, yes. It's built to be followed in a Google Reader or somesuch, to be followed on Twitter or Facebook. The hope is for it to be very much of the contemporary world, and to not sniff derisively at people who like interacting with the modern world in modern ways. Whatever. The poems are still the poems, and frankly, so far they're pretty damn good.
Radius is kicking along, nicely. The past few days have seen excellent poems by Antoinette Brim and Daniel McGinn, and all sorts of exciting stuff is waiting in the wings. (Could I be blamed for dropping names? Even if the names were Sharon Doubiago and Willie Perdomo? All right. Fine, then. I won't ... :)
It's a funny beast, Radius. Very much a product of its times. My goal, from the outset, was to apply contemporary tools to the old-fashioned beast that is the literary journal. Deconstruct it, if you will, but it into a context of a world where a goodly number of people want to follow things on their phone or on Twitter. At its core, it's really just a WordPress blog, but that's just a tool. A blog is just a platform for organizing content. You can do all sorts of things with it. For example, over at Telegram.com, I just LiveBlogged the Oscars. It was a silly, frivolous and, dare I say, highly entertaining exercise. The Sports department uses that same tool in an entirely different way, and reporter Shaun Sutner has used it to cover political events in different ways still. Three applications for one nifty tool, and I'm certain more will emerge. More should emerge. I think we've gotten to the point in the intersection of technology and publishing where we no longer have an opportunity to rest long. We need to constantly adapt to out environment, and that environment change so quickly as to leave the complacent lagging behind. "This is not a world of rest," as my friend Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz pointed out so aptly in her TED presentation.
But Radius is, very much, a literary journal, and I'm as serious about that business as I've ever been. Hopefully, if we've done our job correctly, it's voice and point of view will emerge. I'll leave that one up to other people to decide, but so far, I'm happy. In a lot of ways, happier than I was with The November 3rd Club. The work's more constant, but I like where it's going.
So, yes. It's built to be followed in a Google Reader or somesuch, to be followed on Twitter or Facebook. The hope is for it to be very much of the contemporary world, and to not sniff derisively at people who like interacting with the modern world in modern ways. Whatever. The poems are still the poems, and frankly, so far they're pretty damn good.
February 27, 2011
Radius, Day Two ...
Eventually, when it's not so bloody new, I'll probably only post links to Radius in this blog a couple times a week. But it is still new, and we're still getting the word out. Besides, today's post is a poem by Tony Brown, and when is that ever not a good thing?
Lots more good coming up ahead, lots of great poems by great people, and beyond that some fantastic writing about poetry by some smart folks. It's going to be constantly in movement. I'm terribly excited.
***
Oscars LiveBlog tonight! Join me at 8 p.m. as I trade my serious journalistic cred for frivolity and pretty people!
Lots more good coming up ahead, lots of great poems by great people, and beyond that some fantastic writing about poetry by some smart folks. It's going to be constantly in movement. I'm terribly excited.
***
Oscars LiveBlog tonight! Join me at 8 p.m. as I trade my serious journalistic cred for frivolity and pretty people!
Of Lit Journals and LiveBlogs
Radius: Poetry from the Center to the Edge
launched today. A little quietly, at that, at least for me, my well-established penchant for spectacle being what it is. It's going to be a little different than November 3rd Club was, obviously. Nov3rd was a giant explosion of content every four months or so. This is going to be a slow trickle almost every day, give or take. It's meant to be the sort of thing you add to your Google Reader, Twitter feed or Facebook and just go with. Mind, we can't be starting that slow, as we're kicking off with poems by Patricia Smith, Mckendy Fils-Aime and myself. And there's lots more to come. Like I said, it's a slow start, but really, it's the ride that matters. And it's going to be a heck of a ride.
***
In completely random other news, I'll be LiveBlogging the Oscars for the Telegram & Gazette tomorrow at 8 p.m.! It is the week of the surreal Web presence!
***
In completely random other news, I'll be LiveBlogging the Oscars for the Telegram & Gazette tomorrow at 8 p.m.! It is the week of the surreal Web presence!
February 22, 2011
Jaw-Droppingly Sad Comics News
A few outlets are reporting that DC and Milestone comics writer Dwayne McDuffie has died. I'm unsure how old he was, but I was under the impression he was younger than I am.
It's devastating news: in addition to being one of the few high-profile African-American writers in mainstream comics, he was also at the vanguard of bringing diversity to comics, a noble effort that often had him against the intractible desires of both fans and corporations alike.
Obviously, he's come up a number of times in my heroes blogging. Make no mistake, I consider McDuffie to be one of the greats, and I think we'll look back at him and see he was a pioneer. When we look back, I'm pretty sure that we'll see that Dwayne McDuffie was the writer who told us anybody could be a hero. And that's an important thing.
RIP, Dwayne, and thanks for the stories. You'll be missed.
It's devastating news: in addition to being one of the few high-profile African-American writers in mainstream comics, he was also at the vanguard of bringing diversity to comics, a noble effort that often had him against the intractible desires of both fans and corporations alike.
Obviously, he's come up a number of times in my heroes blogging. Make no mistake, I consider McDuffie to be one of the greats, and I think we'll look back at him and see he was a pioneer. When we look back, I'm pretty sure that we'll see that Dwayne McDuffie was the writer who told us anybody could be a hero. And that's an important thing.
RIP, Dwayne, and thanks for the stories. You'll be missed.
February 19, 2011
Godzilla Destroys That's Entertainment!!!!
I knew I should have picked up my box this week!
February 17, 2011
Makes You Wonder
So, everyone and their sister is reporting that Adrianne Palicki, of Friday Night Lights fame, is the new Wonder Woman in David E. Kelley's remake:
Frankly, I know nothing about her, although I think she can certainly look the part with little effort, and is evidently quite athletic, which bodes well, and people who know seem to regard her acting highly. So that's OK. I still, however, have issues with Kelley's vision of the show, where she's evidently "a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life."
Which ... OK. Sure, the "female lead who needs to find balance while doing it all" is a fine TV trope. But is it Wonder Woman? Back when I started blogging about heroes, I said, "I think there's one major element of storytelling -- and the nature of contemporary stories -- that needs to be considered: controlling canon."
The Wonder Woman that appears in Kelley's new TV show doesn't have to be the Wonder Woman we see in the comics. But there does need to be a through line. Wonder Woman's story, at its core, is that a representative of a hidden island of Amazon warriors is sent to man's world to battle a great evil. That evil, in the comics canon of the '40s, was the Nazis. With the passing of the Nazi threat, Wonder Woman has grown increasingly problematic, eventually leading her to become a sort of ambassador warrior pacifist priestess. Which? Yeah, OK. Self-contradictory all over the place, but for the most part, it works. For the most part, the comics have never really bothered replacing the Nazis with some other threat. (I used to have the great George Perez reboot in the '80s, but can't recall off hand why she's sent to "Man's World," although I do remember Steve Trevor washing up on Paradise Island's shores. But the "leaving Paradise to face a great evil" has always struck me as the most compelling aspect of Wonder Woman as a character, perhaps even more than the feminist iconography she represents. (And indeed, it's the main reason she is a feminist icon.)
In all the talk about the reboot, I've not heard word one about Amazons or Paradise Island. Indeed, everything I've heard makes me think the show is going to be a less neurotic Ally McBeal as an action hero. Which? Not so interested. Now, those elements may be in play somewhere along the way - hell, the current comic continuity has her not remembering her origins or something. I can't keep it straight -- but still, the growing concern is valid: There's something about the scenario as presented that makes one suspect that she's not an Amazon warrior sent to combat great evil or bring peace to the world. (And if she is, then why is she a corporate executive? It seems an odd sideline.)
As I've said before, stories grow and change over time, but stray too far from the controlling canon, and the story becomes something else. Take away the main elements, and it's no longer a story about Wonder Woman. And that's OK, to a degree. As I've said before, Wonder Woman can be problematic, and like a lot of the great heroes of the 20th century, there comes a time where you have to ponder that it might be better creating new heroes, rather than simply using the name of an old one and discarding what made her interesting in the first place. Certainly, that was the idea that kicked off this whole exploration of heroes in the 21st century, and the Wonder Woman reboot seems an even more egregious sin than the looming Buffy the Vampire Slayer fiasco.
Because Wonder Woman means something, especially to a lot of people for whom she was the only female superhero, and certainly the only one who wasn't a female version of a pre-existing male character. There are a lot of reasons why people get their hackles raised over her, still, including the likes of Gloria Steinem. And maybe there are still ways to make her relevant to a contemporary audience. It's not inconceivable. But in the end, she still has to be Wonder Woman. Otherwise, you're just using her name, and she deserves better than that.
Frankly, I know nothing about her, although I think she can certainly look the part with little effort, and is evidently quite athletic, which bodes well, and people who know seem to regard her acting highly. So that's OK. I still, however, have issues with Kelley's vision of the show, where she's evidently "a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life."
Which ... OK. Sure, the "female lead who needs to find balance while doing it all" is a fine TV trope. But is it Wonder Woman? Back when I started blogging about heroes, I said, "I think there's one major element of storytelling -- and the nature of contemporary stories -- that needs to be considered: controlling canon."
The Wonder Woman that appears in Kelley's new TV show doesn't have to be the Wonder Woman we see in the comics. But there does need to be a through line. Wonder Woman's story, at its core, is that a representative of a hidden island of Amazon warriors is sent to man's world to battle a great evil. That evil, in the comics canon of the '40s, was the Nazis. With the passing of the Nazi threat, Wonder Woman has grown increasingly problematic, eventually leading her to become a sort of ambassador warrior pacifist priestess. Which? Yeah, OK. Self-contradictory all over the place, but for the most part, it works. For the most part, the comics have never really bothered replacing the Nazis with some other threat. (I used to have the great George Perez reboot in the '80s, but can't recall off hand why she's sent to "Man's World," although I do remember Steve Trevor washing up on Paradise Island's shores. But the "leaving Paradise to face a great evil" has always struck me as the most compelling aspect of Wonder Woman as a character, perhaps even more than the feminist iconography she represents. (And indeed, it's the main reason she is a feminist icon.)
In all the talk about the reboot, I've not heard word one about Amazons or Paradise Island. Indeed, everything I've heard makes me think the show is going to be a less neurotic Ally McBeal as an action hero. Which? Not so interested. Now, those elements may be in play somewhere along the way - hell, the current comic continuity has her not remembering her origins or something. I can't keep it straight -- but still, the growing concern is valid: There's something about the scenario as presented that makes one suspect that she's not an Amazon warrior sent to combat great evil or bring peace to the world. (And if she is, then why is she a corporate executive? It seems an odd sideline.)
As I've said before, stories grow and change over time, but stray too far from the controlling canon, and the story becomes something else. Take away the main elements, and it's no longer a story about Wonder Woman. And that's OK, to a degree. As I've said before, Wonder Woman can be problematic, and like a lot of the great heroes of the 20th century, there comes a time where you have to ponder that it might be better creating new heroes, rather than simply using the name of an old one and discarding what made her interesting in the first place. Certainly, that was the idea that kicked off this whole exploration of heroes in the 21st century, and the Wonder Woman reboot seems an even more egregious sin than the looming Buffy the Vampire Slayer fiasco.
Because Wonder Woman means something, especially to a lot of people for whom she was the only female superhero, and certainly the only one who wasn't a female version of a pre-existing male character. There are a lot of reasons why people get their hackles raised over her, still, including the likes of Gloria Steinem. And maybe there are still ways to make her relevant to a contemporary audience. It's not inconceivable. But in the end, she still has to be Wonder Woman. Otherwise, you're just using her name, and she deserves better than that.
Updated Forthcoming Publications
Here's the updated (and corrected) list. Now need to write more. And make dinner.
The Legendary will be publishing my poems "300,000 Kilometers Per Second," "Soccer at Nuremberg," "Although My Tongue Has Forked No Lightning," "Paris" and "Philophobia."My short story "A Fable of Worcester" will appear in Britain's Theaker's Quarterly Fiction.My poem "My Life as Rosencrantz or Guildenstern" will appear in the anthology Knocking at the Door, from Birch Bench Press, an imprint of Write Bloody Publishing.My poem "To The Girl I Never Knew" will appear in the anthology Don't Blame the Ugly Mug: Ten Years of Two Idiots Peddling Poetry from Tebot Bach.My poems "Letter to Louis, Ten Years Later," "On the Outside" and "Toxic Waltz" will appear in Chiron ReviewA good run, and I'm grateful, and humbled. Runs like this make me want to be better. You'd think the opposite would be true, but I guess I've been up and down so many times that I see the good times as moments of grace. They give me the strength to push myself further. You should never stop growing as a writer (or whatever it is you should do, I suppose. I only know from writers.) It's not a race you win. You simply strive to write the next poem or story, and make it the best it can be.
In other projects, short story brewing, and I'm kind of excited about it; have a date to go over coding and headline/font styles for Radius; my column tomorrow will digest the best bits from Sunday's Grammys LiveBlog, and there's a rumor going around I might be doing the Oscars; and lastly, I really need to send the Cobourg Writers Workshop the haiku I promised them. Seriously. A haiku. This should not be taking me this long.
OK. Off to make dinner.
The Legendary will be publishing my poems "300,000 Kilometers Per Second," "Soccer at Nuremberg," "Although My Tongue Has Forked No Lightning," "Paris" and "Philophobia."My short story "A Fable of Worcester" will appear in Britain's Theaker's Quarterly Fiction.My poem "My Life as Rosencrantz or Guildenstern" will appear in the anthology Knocking at the Door, from Birch Bench Press, an imprint of Write Bloody Publishing.My poem "To The Girl I Never Knew" will appear in the anthology Don't Blame the Ugly Mug: Ten Years of Two Idiots Peddling Poetry from Tebot Bach.My poems "Letter to Louis, Ten Years Later," "On the Outside" and "Toxic Waltz" will appear in Chiron ReviewA good run, and I'm grateful, and humbled. Runs like this make me want to be better. You'd think the opposite would be true, but I guess I've been up and down so many times that I see the good times as moments of grace. They give me the strength to push myself further. You should never stop growing as a writer (or whatever it is you should do, I suppose. I only know from writers.) It's not a race you win. You simply strive to write the next poem or story, and make it the best it can be.
In other projects, short story brewing, and I'm kind of excited about it; have a date to go over coding and headline/font styles for Radius; my column tomorrow will digest the best bits from Sunday's Grammys LiveBlog, and there's a rumor going around I might be doing the Oscars; and lastly, I really need to send the Cobourg Writers Workshop the haiku I promised them. Seriously. A haiku. This should not be taking me this long.
OK. Off to make dinner.
February 15, 2011
Odds and Ends ...
Lots going on. So much that it's making me a bit of a shut in, getting things done. And still it feels like there's not enough time ...
*Last night, I LiveBlogged the Grammys as a sort-of "test drive" to get a handle on the software for otherwise legitimate journalistic purposes. Despite some weirdness with linking to the CoverItLive blog, particularly from Livejournal, I'd have to say the experiment was a success. The program's pretty easy to use, and a bunch of folks hung out and snarked with me. All good fun. I'll be digesting the best bits for my column on Thursday.
*Also yesterday, I found out that my poems 'Letter to Louis, Ten Years Later," "On the Outside" and "Toxic Waltz" will be in a forthcoming issue of Chiron Review. I'm beside myself with glee at that one. I've been in Chiron before, but for fiction, not poetry, and besides, it's definitely the right home for those particular poems. It really is one of my favorite journals right now, and being in it again is terribly exciting.
*At the suggestion of my friend, publisher and occasional Foosball nemesis, Derrick Brown, I'll be posting a poem a week from my book, City of Insomnia, on Facebook for the next month. The first poem, "15 Ways to Leave Your Labyrinth," is up now.
More soon. Gotta go do dishes so I can do more work with a clear conscience. Hope you're having a nice Valentine's Day, and remember, as my friend![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380442897i/1319734.gif)
el3mo
once famously saif, "Saint Valentine was beheaded."
*Last night, I LiveBlogged the Grammys as a sort-of "test drive" to get a handle on the software for otherwise legitimate journalistic purposes. Despite some weirdness with linking to the CoverItLive blog, particularly from Livejournal, I'd have to say the experiment was a success. The program's pretty easy to use, and a bunch of folks hung out and snarked with me. All good fun. I'll be digesting the best bits for my column on Thursday.
*Also yesterday, I found out that my poems 'Letter to Louis, Ten Years Later," "On the Outside" and "Toxic Waltz" will be in a forthcoming issue of Chiron Review. I'm beside myself with glee at that one. I've been in Chiron before, but for fiction, not poetry, and besides, it's definitely the right home for those particular poems. It really is one of my favorite journals right now, and being in it again is terribly exciting.
*At the suggestion of my friend, publisher and occasional Foosball nemesis, Derrick Brown, I'll be posting a poem a week from my book, City of Insomnia, on Facebook for the next month. The first poem, "15 Ways to Leave Your Labyrinth," is up now.
More soon. Gotta go do dishes so I can do more work with a clear conscience. Hope you're having a nice Valentine's Day, and remember, as my friend
el3mo
once famously saif, "Saint Valentine was beheaded."
