Marly Youmans's Blog, page 111

Adventure Boy

Michael-my-husband has been having some difficulties in exiting Africa by way of Maputo and then Johannesburg. Evidently he had a Kafkaesque passage when accused of gun smuggling in Mozambique... Eventually he did fly off.  But then he and hundreds of others were turned back to the airport when someone on board the plane suffered a heart attack. I hope that victim survived and is feeling better

"Show us what he does and how"

Clip from Ruth Franklin's acceptance speech for the 2012 Roger Shattuck Prize in criticism:  It’s obvious why the reviewer needs the novelist—not just any novelist, but a good novelist, even a great one, to challenge us to rise to his or her level. But the novelist also needs the reviewer: not just as a vehicle for advertisement, but as an enforcer of standards. If we speak only to praise—and my

Autumn morning with rain

Yesterday I finished the work on a long judging stint. I celebrated by taking a nap, and when I woke, I sat up in bed and wrote a poem. It felt like magic. And even a morning of autumn rain and "Goldengrove unleaving" can feel like the first day of summer. "Nature is never spent / There lives the dearest freshness deep down things..." I'm in a Hopkins sort of mood, it seems.

Or perhaps it is a

Waving from the book parlor...

Another day of deadlines and much reading ahead (not to mention important rush visits to the village dump and farmer's market), so why don't you visit me somewhere else, friendly passers-by? Book boards etc. at Pinterest? The Twittering Machine? Etc. Or wander around in the blog, visiting past time. Good cheer and happy reading...

And thanks to Nancy Olson of Quail Ridge Books for recommending A

Public service announcement

This is a no-post day. It is a day to kickstart the children, read many books for a deadline, and wrangle on contracts. Probably I'll throw in a little self-doubt and considerable ditheration and a few fantods. Have a good one, passers-by!

News x 3

1.  Epstein on the state of the liberal arts

Have I said that I very much like Joseph Epstein? I feel sure that I've mentioned his wonderful essay on Isaac Bashevis Singer. Here's a new essay of his that is in part a review of Andrew Delbanco's College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be but is also a frank, interesting response to the current state of the liberal arts on campus.

Clip: The death of

Rebecca and Campbell, Cake Caterers

Rebecca and Campbell, two old friends from summer camp,get together in Cooperstown and make cake!




Happy birthday, Campbell Higle!




Congratulations to Campbell, now leaving forTrinity College, Dublin as a freshman.The Emma Willard cyclone is on her way...




"May the road always rise to meet you . . .may God hold you in the palm of His hand."

The Substance

Awash in driving lessons, NBA reading, Scouts, company, and more... So here's a tiny poem from the just-out The Foliate Head (UK: Stanza Press.) Originally published in Angle. More poems here.




THE SUBSTANCE



Fine as a ring-stole drawn through a hoop

Of gold, but crimped and burned

And almost ruined by some fire

Long ago, far away--

Glimmering like abalone,

Moody and beautiful.



Some

Tolkien/Jacobson, genre/literary

Update: Book designer John Coulthart just sent me a link to this piece, in which he says Jacobson is more nuanced about genre. "The best fiction doesn't need a label." It looks interesting, and I'm going to read it now and then get back to work. Thank you, John!

High school started here on Thursday. The three children and I watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy in celebration of the start of the

Red King Redux

Three of The Book of the Red King poems are at the 2012-2 issue of David Landrum's Lucid Rhythms: "The Fool, the King, and the Fox-Fall," "The Yellow Fool," and "The Red Fool." The latter two are little poems based on alchemical colors (some others of these have appeared in At Length), and the first is a narrative. I need to think more about the first one, whether it will stay as is,