Marly Youmans's Blog, page 33
June 3, 2016
Becoming what we eat
Carlos Sillero of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, Old Books, sxc.hu
The content we devour on the internet really can have a lasting effect on our cognitive abilities. At least, so says a new study published by the International Journal of Business Administration this May.... it may not be the screen time that’s at fault for lessened abilities—it’s the low quality of most online
The content we devour on the internet really can have a lasting effect on our cognitive abilities. At least, so says a new study published by the International Journal of Business Administration this May.... it may not be the screen time that’s at fault for lessened abilities—it’s the low quality of most online
June 2, 2016
Dear Yale English majors,
Wikipedia public domain
Various people have reasoned with the demands of your petition (included below) on many grounds: the paltry numbers of "women, people of color, and queer folk" actively writing major work in earlier centuries; the fact that literature speaks to the larger human condition; the brutal truth that we can't time travel to correct injustices and insert diverse writers; the
Various people have reasoned with the demands of your petition (included below) on many grounds: the paltry numbers of "women, people of color, and queer folk" actively writing major work in earlier centuries; the fact that literature speaks to the larger human condition; the brutal truth that we can't time travel to correct injustices and insert diverse writers; the
May 30, 2016
Memorial Day, again--
My slim, tall father would somersault backward out of the tail...
Memorial Day with marching bands on Main Street, and I am thinking of my father, Hubert L. Youmans. A Georgia sharecropper's child, he joined the Army Air Corps (aka our Air Force) at seventeen and flew as tail gunner out of RAF Bassingbourn in the B17 Incendiary Blonde (91st Bombardment Group, 322nd BS) during World War II.
Memorial Day with marching bands on Main Street, and I am thinking of my father, Hubert L. Youmans. A Georgia sharecropper's child, he joined the Army Air Corps (aka our Air Force) at seventeen and flew as tail gunner out of RAF Bassingbourn in the B17 Incendiary Blonde (91st Bombardment Group, 322nd BS) during World War II.
May 28, 2016
Fowles in the frith
At seven, birds and squirrels flit and climb in the lilacs, and a lovely morning light lies in weightless panels on the green grass. To think that the air was juggling flurries so few days ago! And this little bit of 13th-century medieval marginalia runs in my head:
Fowles in the frith,
The fisses in the flood,
And I mon waxe wood
Much sorwe I walke with
For beste of bon and blood.
Wodewose
Fowles in the frith,
The fisses in the flood,
And I mon waxe wood
Much sorwe I walke with
For beste of bon and blood.
Wodewose
May 27, 2016
Desire for a riotous black comedy that will offend everybody--
Dome with flag photograph
by Robert Linder of Springfield, Missouri
Where is our Evelyn Waugh? Can the current scene drift any closer to black comedy? My fellow Americans (and any non-Americans watching with dropped jaws), this is fabulous comedic, dark-satiric material. We will not be saved by an unexpected knight from the powerful, crazy, possibly terrifying trajectory of the campaign, but
by Robert Linder of Springfield, Missouri
Where is our Evelyn Waugh? Can the current scene drift any closer to black comedy? My fellow Americans (and any non-Americans watching with dropped jaws), this is fabulous comedic, dark-satiric material. We will not be saved by an unexpected knight from the powerful, crazy, possibly terrifying trajectory of the campaign, but
May 24, 2016
2 at 8: Angle
Angle 8, edited by UK poets Ann Drysdale and Philip Quinlan (with web mastery by poet Peter Bloxsom), is now up. The issue is full of interesting poets drawn to form, including Claudia Gary, Kate Bernadette Benedict, Norman Ball, R. Nemo Hill, Mary Meriam, Anna M. Evans, Charlotte Innes, Janet Alexa Kenny, Alan Wickes, Maryann Corbett, Deborah Warren, David M.Katz, Catherine Chandler, Kevin
May 18, 2016
Advice to the casual book reviewer--
Artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins.
Hand with heart from the interior
decorations for Thaliad.
If you Google "how to write a book review," you'll find wheelbarrow loads of advice on writing a book review that looks just like almost everybody else's review. Since that's the case, I'm not going to repeat the usual advice. So here, my two cents worth of not-the-usual advice:
Go on trust. Always assume
Hand with heart from the interior
decorations for Thaliad.
If you Google "how to write a book review," you'll find wheelbarrow loads of advice on writing a book review that looks just like almost everybody else's review. Since that's the case, I'm not going to repeat the usual advice. So here, my two cents worth of not-the-usual advice:
Go on trust. Always assume
May 16, 2016
Tales of men and women
Cold morning with something unusual for here: a couple of orioles in the lilac bush. Lilac bushes are about as common as dandelions in the northeast (hence the lilacs of Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd," but a morning with orioles in the lilac bush and goldfinches at the feeder? That's like a flash of sunset at noon. Despite the cold and yesterday's snow flurries, this has
May 14, 2016
Thank you
to those who voted for Maze of Blood in the Foreword comments section on the maze-page (or who do so by May 20th.) You have helped to make the book a little more visible, and that is always the difficulty for good books in our age: to be visible. I thank you for helping!
May 13, 2016
Book soup
A springing mind--
by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
for Maze of Blood
(Mercer, fall 2015)
Advice to writers
Advice to writers, even my own, makes me cringe a little. Perhaps I prefer some silly bit of advice like David Sedaris saying that you must write with a candy cane pen.
Because it doesn't matter a whit what writers say about writing or painters about painting or dancers about dancing, etc. Just
by Clive Hicks-Jenkins
for Maze of Blood
(Mercer, fall 2015)
Advice to writers
Advice to writers, even my own, makes me cringe a little. Perhaps I prefer some silly bit of advice like David Sedaris saying that you must write with a candy cane pen.
Because it doesn't matter a whit what writers say about writing or painters about painting or dancers about dancing, etc. Just
