Mary Biddinger's Blog, page 18

Happy hour

If you're going to be in Boston for AWP, I hope you'll join us for this cool reading.

Kickoff of the Insurgency Tour

Last night I was lucky enough to begin the O Holy Insurgency reading tour at Case Western Reserve University, where Joshua Ware's Poets of Ohio class asked me some fascinating questions about the book, and about poetry in general. Next week I'm off to Minnesota for the Prairie Gate Literary Festival, and after that, AWP Boston, where I'll be reading for Interrupture on Thursday night, and The Country Dog Review on Saturday night.

Sandy Longhorn posted some thoughts on OHI here, and the first review of OHI is here. This new book thing really started sinking in last night when I had to pick a copy of the book to be my official reading copy. Many thanks to Black Lawrence Press for making the text so clear, and the book so easy to read from.

I thought I would have the new book jitters, but that wasn't the case. I did, however, read some of the more familiar poems from the book, so we'll see how it goes when I begin trying some of the non-standards.

I decided to make personalized, signed copies of the book available via Paypal, through my website. Let me know if you would like one!

Barn Owl Review is at the printer, along with several UA Press projects. I feel like I need to get a lot more sleep before I'm ready conquer the travel on my calendar.

Many thanks to Kati Mertz for the photo above.

Februarying.

This semester has started with quite a bang, and just when it will quiet down, the travel will begin. I'm headed to the Prairie Gate Literary Festival in Minnesota in two weeks. Before then, and closer to home, I will be reading at Case Western Reserve University on Valentine's Day at 6:00 pm in the Guilford Hall parlor. It's the debut reading of O Holy Insurgency, and I am super excited.
Current projects include finishing up Thievery by Seth Abramson, and The Poet Resigns: Poetry in a Difficult World by Robert Archambeau, both forthcoming from the University of Akron Press (in time for AWP, too!). In poetics news, we now have all essayists committed for a collection on fifteen innovative women poets. It's the little sibling of The Monkey & the Wrench, and we are over the moon about this project.
The biggest adjustment I am facing this semester is needing to carve out time to read. I typically teach novels classes in the summer, when I can read at the pool. Now I have to find time when I am conscious enough to retain Brideshead Revisited. Teaching British fiction is making me want to go back to England.
Thankful that the people of my family have been very healthy so far this winter (fingers crossed). Lots of snow. I know there are some snowdrops under that blanket. 

O Holy Insurgency giveaway at Goodreads

Check it out!



 

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    Goodreads Book Giveaway
 

   
       
   

   
     
          O Holy Insurgency
     
     
          by Mary Biddinger
     

     
         
            Giveaway ends March 01, 2013.
         
         
            See the giveaway details
            at Goodreads.
         
     
   
   

      Enter to win

O O O O O

I've fallen thoroughly in love with this box full of books. O Holy Insurgency should be hitting the shelves and online retailers soon. Thank you so much to Black Lawrence Press. 

The Next Big Thing

The very lovely Jennifer Militello tagged me for The Next Big Thing interview series. Thanks so much, Jennifer! Here are responses regarding my second full-length collection of poems,  O Holy Insurgency , which is forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press in early 2013. 
What is the working title of the book?
The book is called O Holy Insurgency. I haven't had more than a sip of coffee yet this morning, and just mistyped that as "O Holly Insurgency," which is a completely different book altogether. 
Where did the idea come from for the book?
One of my struggles as a writer (and human) is dealing with rules and finding meaningful ways to break them. At the time that I started this book (and all surrounding times, I suppose), I found that my emotions were considered by others to be inconvenient and irrelevant. As a student of creative writing, I often found my strong feelings unwelcome in a sphere that rewarded detachment and intellectual restraint. I wrote this book, which is full of hyperbole and bold emotion and romantic ecstasy, as a love song for all rule-breakers. It is also a love song for the Midwest, my home, which is the ultimate breaker of rules: supposed to be dead but resurrecting itself every day, condemned as ugly, but undeniably gorgeous. 
What genre does your book fall under?
O Holy Insurgency is a book of poems. I also would like to think that it might be categorized under "epic literature" or "romance poem extravaganza." 
What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
I would pull a completely random, passionate, and interestingly flawed couple off the streets and cast them as the two main characters of the book. I'd like to think that this book could be about anyone.
What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
O Holy Insurgencywrenches the love poem out of the terrain of hearts and flowers, and transplants it in a quotidian rust belt paradise, where broken glass becomes a shimmering beacon, and no river is too polluted to dazzle a pair of lovers on its banks.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I am a single mom of two, and therefore I have to write as if I am being chased by lions. I wrote the majority of these poems in the spring and summer of 2009. I sequenced and tinkered with the manuscript from Fall 2009 through January 2010. O Holy Insurgency presented itself to me as a complete project, so basically I was just capturing individual filaments involved in lighting it up.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Baudelaire. Akron, Ohio. Red candy.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
This collection of poems is unusual in that it's the first time (and perhaps the last) I have written a series of poems that weren't elegies in some regard. O Holy Insurgency is very much in love with its present, whereas my other poems tend to be looking over their shoulders or contemplating lost places and people who are gone or who may as well be gone. Also, I can promise you that O Holy Insurgency is pretty sexy.
You can read some poems from the book here:
"Confluence" from The Journal at Verse Daily
Numerous O Holy Insurgency poems at Diode
Two poems at Thermos
"An Excursion" at The Rumpus"Portrait of Myself as a Piece of Red Candy in Your Mouth" at The Collagist


You can watch the official book trailer here:

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
The book is forthcoming with Black Lawrence Press, an imprint of Dzanc Books. 
My tagged writers for next Wednesday are:
Matthew GuenetteRebecca HazeltonMeg JohnsonEmilia PhillipsWendy Xu

And my friend Julie Brooks Barbour already has a Next Big Thing right here.

Lockdown.

I may be the world's slowest grader, but I feel like it's an accomplishment having so much to say at the end of this semester. I will be on lockdown until the middle of next week. Pardon my fence.

Tiny update.

It's the last week of the semester. I seem to have survived just fine, though it was certainly an adjustment in terms of workload, going from mostly administration to all teaching. I wrote a lot for a month, then I didn't write. I'm on O Holy Insurgency birthwatch (please come soon, O Holy Insurgency). Winter break, once it gets here, will be filled with celebrations of winter break, reading of British novels 1925 to present, and hopefully finishing up my current book project, Breach Year.

I have some new poems here at John Hoppenthaler's Congeries.Thanks for taking a peek.

Official book trailer for O Holy Insurgency by Mary Biddinger

This is how we do it.

I'm not going to lie to you. Reading poetry makes me write poetry, especially when I read poetry that terrifies me. I read fiction because my engine runs on novels. I have to let my brain go to the place it makes for novels. But reading poetry, and criticism about the poems I'm reading, even though it's sometimes like wearing a shirt with a thousand itchy tags...there's no better way to get me writing.

I have been a neglectful blogger. This teaching full time again, it's amazing, but I find myself prepping all of the time. In the past few years I've taught nothing but poetry workshops, two levels of undergrad, plus MFA, and this semester I have a contemporary poetry lit lecture class, and a graduate lit + theory class on Modern & Contemporary poetry, in addition to the undergrad poetry workshop. It's dreamy, but I am still slipping around a little.

Oh, then there's this. Five new poems so far this month. It's like the reading for teaching is feeding the writing. I like what I'm writing. Every time I stop not-writing I return to writing as a different writer. The poems I am writing are a little more rude, a little more about the body. Haven't written a new Risk Management Memo poem in a while, but will.

O Holy Insurgency will be out very, very soon. I can't wait to meet her.

Also, thanks to the Poetry Foundation for putting this interview up on Harriet, and to LitBridge for asking all the questions.