And the Nobel goes to…

[caption id="attachment_2405" align="alignleft" width="212"] Ill: N. Elmehed. © Nobel Media 2016[/caption] When the Swedish Academy announced this morning that Bob Dylan was their choice for this year’s Literature Prize, people went crazy in exactly the ways you'd expect: his die-hard fans were jubilant; many writers and literature-lovers expressed open dismay; and others jumped into the fray to defend the award and call out the naysayers for snobbery and narrow-mindedness. I think one can be nonplussed or even disappointed by this decision and remain innocent of elitism or parochialism or of suggesting Dylan is anything less than awesome. Sure, song lyrics are poetry, which makes it literature. Still, I don’t think the expectation that the award go to people who’ve spent their lives making, you know, books, as their principal occupation, is necessarily misplaced or snobby. ...
Moby-Dick blackout poem

Moby-Dick Blackout Poems

[caption id="attachment_2082" align="alignleft" width="300"]Moby-Dick blackout poem Blackout poem in progress[/caption] My novel Landfalls came out in North America yesterday (!!!), and I want to share a quirky project I’ve been working on in anticipation of its launch. The idea came from Austin Kleon’s newspaper blackout poems. Kleon’s technique entails “finding” short poems in a newspaper page and inking out everything else. They’re really cool. Here's one example: [caption id="attachment_2071" align="alignright" width="300"]Austin Kleon, newspaper blackout poems Austin Kleon newspaper blackout poetry[/caption] I first stumbled across Kleon’s work four or five years ago. I was teaching at Sacramento City College and looking for an engaging and approachable in-class writing exercise for the poetry unit of my Intro to Creative Writing class. Many of my students had signed up to write short stories or personal essays. The prospect of writing a poem daunted them. Indeed, their instructor had not written a poem in many years and wasn’t undaunted herself. ...
inciting, Ai Weiwei, @Large Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, Alcatraz, Chinese dragon, dragon kite

Inciting: @Large–Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz

[caption id="attachment_1747" align="alignleft" width="300"]inciting, Ai Weiwei, @Large Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, Alcatraz, Chinese dragon, dragon kite "Inciting": from "With Wind," @Large Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz exhibit[/caption] On Christmas Eve, my mother, my husband, my two sons, and I went to the @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz exhibit on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. I am not a sophisticated observer of the visual arts. I see stuff, I like it, I don’t, I’m moved, I’m bored, I’m provoked, I'm exhilarated -- often for no clear reason that I can articulate. I don’t know much about art history, I’m woefully ignorant about contemporary art, and I rarely go to art museums or exhibits or galleries. And although I’d heard of Ai Weiwei, I didn’t know much about him or his work or about his particular brand of activism. I don’t really write (overtly, anyway) about politics or human rights or social issues. ...