June 20th, 2008 bhenricksen
An article in the current New Republic, “The Country of the Damned” by Adam Kirsch (TNR June 25) awakened memories. Kirsch discusses the grip that the Southern Agrarian ideology held on Allen Tate, who for a time was thought of as one of our greatest poets. Along the way, Kirsch quotes some atrociously racist and anti-semitic remarks that Tate made in print in his younger days, one being a declaration in the early 1930s that certain blacks accused of a particular crime (I forget what it was) should be executed whether guilty or not. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in James Wright, Minnesota Literature, Poetry | 2 Comments »
April 29th, 2008 bhenricksen
Being an obscure writer with an obscure publisher puts you out there on your own. You’re a Willy Loman, chatting up the managers of bookstores, writing snappy letters to regional buyers, and leaving off fliers at libraries. Willy was out there on a shoeshine and a smile. I wear sneakers. Either way, you meet all kinds, and it can be especially exciting if you have a speech problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Book Event, Minnesota Literature | 2 Comments »
April 26th, 2008 bhenricksen
Since I do a little writing, I enjoy metafiction, stories and novels in which the creative process itself is part of the theme. A great one from a couple of decades back was The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles. In this tale a shadowy figure representing the author makes an appearance. In the excellent film adaptation, the movie makers become the story in the last act. Another fine novel was Italo Calvino’s If On a Winter’s Night A Traveler. It is interesting to speculate on how the expectations of readers, not to mention the way minds process information, help to shape the story, and Calvino’s novel begins with the reader browsing in a bookstore. At every stage in If On a Winter’s Night, the reader steps in to have a say. Narratives are driven by the desires of the primary characters, but also, Calvino shows, by the desires of readers. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Minnesota Literature, Novels | 2 Comments »
April 9th, 2008 bhenricksen
I live in Duluth, springtime’s last stop, so my wife and I looked forward to our short stay in the Twin Cities over the weekend. I’ve edited a collection of poems in honor of a great American poet, and we went 150 miles south to do a couple of book events and to see green grass. We called our trip The James Wright Mystery Tour, the mystery being whether anyone would show up for the events. From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James Wright has contributions from some major American poets–Galway Kinnell, C. K. Williams, and others–and also from some fine poets with a more regional fame. A few in this latter group joined me to read both their own poems and Wright’s, and to talk about his importance to Minnesota. Wright had taught at our state university in the Sixties and wrote some of his best poems during those years. Read the rest of this entry »
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