Marly Youmans's Blog, page 99
January 31, 2013
Wee vacation to The Purple Island
Last night I went to choir practice and discovered that I can sing again, albeit with occasional coughing bouts. But I felt laid low and slumped into bed afterward. Then I wrote two posts this morning and deleted them both out of boredom with myself and the subjects, one about the teetering status of the in-residence 4-year college education and what that might mean for writers in academia, and
January 30, 2013
Childe Phoenix
This month a story originally published in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet will be reprinted in Lightspeed. "Prolegomenon to the Adventures of Childe Phoenix" is one of my stranger stories, involving a death, chasmic separation, and a young boy's departure into the great outer world. In its surreal elements I see obsessions that I have also dealt with in poetry. In addition, there is an
January 27, 2013
At Scribd and in the Red Room...
THE RED ROOM
"The Red Room" makes me think of Jane Eyre, flung inside to contemplate her wicked behavior... But nothing bad happens to me there; in fact tomcatintheredroom (Tom of Cardiff, we might also call him, it seems) has written a long, marvelous review of Thaliad that reminded me of things about the adventure that I had forgotten and also suggested ideas that I had thought about only in
"The Red Room" makes me think of Jane Eyre, flung inside to contemplate her wicked behavior... But nothing bad happens to me there; in fact tomcatintheredroom (Tom of Cardiff, we might also call him, it seems) has written a long, marvelous review of Thaliad that reminded me of things about the adventure that I had forgotten and also suggested ideas that I had thought about only in
January 24, 2013
There is no other village
One of the vignettes from Thaliad,
by Welsh artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins.
My Thaliad page.
Phoenicia Publishing Thaliad page.
This excerpt from Thaliad has already been shared in several places, so if you're a regular visitor to my little cluster of huts by the internet stream, you may have seen it. What's the news of Thaliad? Lady Word of Mouth appears to be working slowly and yet steadily on
by Welsh artist Clive Hicks-Jenkins.
My Thaliad page.
Phoenicia Publishing Thaliad page.
This excerpt from Thaliad has already been shared in several places, so if you're a regular visitor to my little cluster of huts by the internet stream, you may have seen it. What's the news of Thaliad? Lady Word of Mouth appears to be working slowly and yet steadily on
Winter gratitudes
Freezing dusk is closing
Like a slow trap of steel
On trees and roads and hills and all
That can no longer feel.
But the carp is in its dept
Like a planet in its heaven
And the badger in its bedding
Like a loaf in the oven.
And the butterfly in its mummy
Like a viol in its case.
And the owl in its feathers
Like a doll in its lace.
Like a slow trap of steel
On trees and roads and hills and all
That can no longer feel.
But the carp is in its dept
Like a planet in its heaven
And the badger in its bedding
Like a loaf in the oven.
And the butterfly in its mummy
Like a viol in its case.
And the owl in its feathers
Like a doll in its lace.
January 21, 2013
Inaugural
Around five or six o'clock today, writer Richard Krawiec challenged a number of people on facebook to write an inaugural poem--Kathryn Stripling Byer is probably to blame for my inclusion on the list... (Thanks, Kay!) I curled up by the window while snow fell down and drafted this blank verse poem. It opens with images from the Bible--the lowly pot and the potter.
SO HOLD THE DREAM
Even a
SO HOLD THE DREAM
Even a
Thaliad twice--
Artist Marja-Leena Rathje posts about rereading Thaliad here. She is a Finnish-Canadian artist with a passion for printmaking and photography, working in the Vancouver area of British Columbia, and her blog is part artlog, part personal.
Complete information on how to order Thaliad is here. My Thaliad page is here.
Complete information on how to order Thaliad is here. My Thaliad page is here.
January 20, 2013
Narnia and Cair Paravel
As I'm still toiling in the endlessness of the flu, my husband amused me early this morning by reading from that excessively odd and sometimes alarming personage, Montague Summers. And the passage he read struck us both as interesting for the name Narnia, both for the name itself (the Italian name already being known) and for the creation of the Narnian world. (If you're not interested in
January 19, 2013
Bookish memory--
The world is full of dreadful news and noise and divisions between peoples and parties, but while I was dwelling on these things and "the dark lamentable catalogue of human crimes," as Churchill put it, I was reminded that President Carter, during his speech accepting his party's nomination for a second term as president, called Senator Hubert Horatio Humphrey by the name of Hubert Horatio
January 18, 2013
Mendelsohn on the novel
Daniel Mendelsohn has a wonderful interview at Lamba Literary. As one expects of a critic, he examines the terms of the questions, looking at underlying assumptions as he answers. I don't agree with everything he says--how could I, not being a critic and translator of Cavafy but novelist and poet, poet and novelist?--but I find much that he says in accordance with my own thoughts or else
