Stephen Burt's Blog, page 5
August 12, 2013
James Tiptree, Jr.
At the website for National Public Radio, I recommend that you go read the short stories, and for that matter the out-of-print novels, of the great James Tiptree, Jr. (real name Alice Sheldon). You might also enjoy the award-winning biography of Sheldon/ Tiptree by Julie Phillips.
Stephanie
Sometimes I dress as a woman and answer to Stephanie. I am a transgender person, and a cross-dresser; I would very much like to be seen as a woman, sometimes, although I present myself, most of the time, as a man. I’ve written about being Stephanie, in poems and in prose; you’ll find some of that writing here.
“On Growing Up Between Genders” (New Haven Review)
“Hermit Crab” (poem) (New Yorker)
“My Life as Stephanie” (London Review of Books)
If you’re looking for more general information about transgender people, you can start with my friends at the Trans Youth Equality Foundation, who have tips and resources both here and here. You can find even more information, with a focus on US politics and social research, at the National Center for Trangender Equality.
If you are anywhere near Boston, you might also appreciate the resources made available. and the events sponsored, by the Tiffany Club of New England.
July 20, 2013
Radio Boston Interview about Belmont
Fun interview with Meghna Chakrabarti discussing Belmont (the town and book), writing, and parenthood.
July 19, 2013
In Every Generation: A Response to Mark Edmundson
Complaints against contemporary poetry arise, like vampire slayers, in every generation, and it’s easy to see why: when you compare your very favorite famous artists from the past with almost any quick or large or secondhand selection of contemporary work, the past will look better. That’s called selection bias, and it can be remedied not by better close reading, but by elementary training in statistics. As for the claim that our poets are in thrall to the academy, by comparison to the poets of the past, that’s less true than it was in 1980, because we have more small presses and Bohemian communities of serious poets who don’t care what their teachers think: I mean not only the performance (or “slam”) poetry communities, but the people who publish chapbooks in deepest Brooklyn, who might be teaching writing at art schools today, and who get adopted by the academy, if at all, rather tenuously, and at later stages of their (cough) careers.
Somerville, MA, July 23rd: I’ll Read You Yours…
I’ll Read You Yours, If You Read Me Mine
ARTS AT THE ARMORY
151 HIGHLAND AVE. SOMERVILLE, MA
TUESDAY JULY 23, 2013, 7PM
Nine local poets, children’s book writers, novelists, memoirists, journalists and short story writers will converge for a bit of a (thrilling!) experiment: a reading where they present another participant’s work rather than their own.
READERS INCLUDE:
Alysia Abbott
Stephen Burt
Jef Czekaj
Daphne Kalotay
Pagan Kennedy
Tanya Larkin
Rishi Reddi
Grace Talusan
Gilmore Tamny
More info here: https://www.facebook.com/events/546238778773738/
June 20, 2013
The Power of Poetry at TEDGlobal 2013
So this happened.
“I read poetry all the time, I write about poetry frequently, and I take poems apart to see how they work,” says Stephen Burt as he takes the TEDGlobal stage. “I’m a word person. I understand the world best and most fully through words, rather than pictures or numbers. When I have a new experience, I’m frustrated until I can try to put that experience into words.”
Burt is here to explain some of the reasons he became a poetry critic and an English professor. For one thing, he says, it was because poems made him feel more — happier, sadder, more alive. He wanted to figure out why, to pick apart these word concoctions to understand their power. In doing so, he realized that there are some things at which poetry excels. For one thing, helping readers understand and accept that we’re all going to die. The audience laughs, somewhat ruefully.
September 23, 2012
My Life as a Girl at VQR
“According to current medical criteria, trans people have gender dysphoria: our gender does not match our biological sex, and the mismatch makes us unhappy. Several therapists have now agreed that I have gender dysphoria, but how badly do I have it? Not so badly, as these things can go. The stories transsexuals tell about life pre-transition, in which they are discontented to the extent of becoming suicidal, because they are biologically male or female and feel they should not be, do not describe my life at all.” [Read the rest at Virginia Quarterly Review]
September 14, 2012
New York Times Magazine
Mark Oppenheimer wrote this profile for the New York Times Magazine.
