Reading
Data Collection Experiment: Survey Says…
by Caryn Thurman on Tuesday, April 11, 2006 07:06 pmSo as I mentioned here, the results of the Poetry Foundation's mega-survey is now available on their website and offers all kinds of tasty nuggets about the American public's poetic habits and preferences. Well, while I certainly appreciate all their hard work, I think maybe a quick survey of the passers-by of LitKicks is in order.
Let's get 'er done, shall we?
1. Do you even like poetry or are you totally faking it?
2. What's the last book of poetry you've purchased (for yourself or a friend), borrowed or stolen?
3. Above all else, what most attracts you to a poem? Rhythm, rhyme, structure, the lack thereof? Is it the message that draws you in ... the metaphor, the triggering of an emotion or memory? Does size matter? Of the poem.
4. With #3 in mind, is there a certain type or style of poetry that you like most? Really, it's ok to admit that you just have a thing for senryu. Or maybe you're more of a villanelle junkie. We're not here to judge...
5. We covered everyone's favoritest poem of all time here, but beyond your wonder of wonders, what is the last/most recent poem you've read that made you say "whoa", "wow", "heck yeah" or some similar expression of amazement? Maybe it was a re-read of an old standby, a new discovery or maybe it was something you stumbled across here? Maybe it was something from a Burger King commercial?
And finally ...
6. If Walt Whitman went to Burger King, what would he order?
That's it. Take your time, be sure to fill in the bubbles completely and as always, we promise to only use your answers for our usual nefarious purposes.
Let's get 'er done, shall we?
1. Do you even like poetry or are you totally faking it?
2. What's the last book of poetry you've purchased (for yourself or a friend), borrowed or stolen?
3. Above all else, what most attracts you to a poem? Rhythm, rhyme, structure, the lack thereof? Is it the message that draws you in ... the metaphor, the triggering of an emotion or memory? Does size matter? Of the poem.
4. With #3 in mind, is there a certain type or style of poetry that you like most? Really, it's ok to admit that you just have a thing for senryu. Or maybe you're more of a villanelle junkie. We're not here to judge...
5. We covered everyone's favoritest poem of all time here, but beyond your wonder of wonders, what is the last/most recent poem you've read that made you say "whoa", "wow", "heck yeah" or some similar expression of amazement? Maybe it was a re-read of an old standby, a new discovery or maybe it was something you stumbled across here? Maybe it was something from a Burger King commercial?
And finally ...
6. If Walt Whitman went to Burger King, what would he order?
That's it. Take your time, be sure to fill in the bubbles completely and as always, we promise to only use your answers for our usual nefarious purposes.
Literary Resolutions: 2006
by Caryn Thurman on Monday, January 2, 2006 05:14 pmAs we're recovering from the holidays and winding down the new year celebrations, the LitKicks team is looking forward to an interesting and busy year in 2006. In addition to our own personal resolutions for the coming year, we thought it would be a good time to ask ... What are your literary resolutions for 2006? Though we definitely want to know what you are reading, we also want to know what you have brewing on a larger scale in the literary realm. Are you planning to re-read some favorite authors? Finish some books that you've been struggling with? Or perhaps you're hoping to branch out and experience new genres and styles. Maybe you'll be setting a quantitative goal, Readathon style, such as 52 books in 52 weeks or a more arbitrary and boastful 75. (Remember, if you shoot for a large number, make sure you have someone spotting you -- for safety's sake.)
For those of you more focused on writing than reading, you most likely have some specific resolutions for the year. Are you planning to finish a manuscript? Self-publish a novel or chapbook? Start a new project or experiment with a different style? Maybe you'd like to join a poetry reading or put on one of your own.
Here at LitKicks we have a few resolutions and plans for the new year. Of course we are set on continuing to provide a place for literature to live online by offering timely articles, commentary and news bites. We have a few new features planned that will be fun and informative, plus we'll be adding many more reviews and interviews. As we work to expand our coverage of more genres and styles, we also want to more thoroughly explore the imprints of literature on everyday life -- and the echoes of life and global chaos in literature. We plan to dive into the current literary world and the history of literature on many levels. Levi will be taking on the NYT Book Review, Jamelah will still be reading the classics and I'll be doing whatever it is I do around here. As if that's not enough, we will always have a new literary factoid in our Today in Literature feature.
Whatever your literary goals and pursuits are -- big or small -- we'd like to hear what you're eyeing. And, as always, we wish you the best of luck in keeping your resolutions and for a great 2006.
For those of you more focused on writing than reading, you most likely have some specific resolutions for the year. Are you planning to finish a manuscript? Self-publish a novel or chapbook? Start a new project or experiment with a different style? Maybe you'd like to join a poetry reading or put on one of your own.
Here at LitKicks we have a few resolutions and plans for the new year. Of course we are set on continuing to provide a place for literature to live online by offering timely articles, commentary and news bites. We have a few new features planned that will be fun and informative, plus we'll be adding many more reviews and interviews. As we work to expand our coverage of more genres and styles, we also want to more thoroughly explore the imprints of literature on everyday life -- and the echoes of life and global chaos in literature. We plan to dive into the current literary world and the history of literature on many levels. Levi will be taking on the NYT Book Review, Jamelah will still be reading the classics and I'll be doing whatever it is I do around here. As if that's not enough, we will always have a new literary factoid in our Today in Literature feature.
Whatever your literary goals and pursuits are -- big or small -- we'd like to hear what you're eyeing. And, as always, we wish you the best of luck in keeping your resolutions and for a great 2006.
What Are You Reading?
by Caryn Thurman on Monday, November 7, 2005 07:10 amYou haven't checked in with us for a while to let us know what's on your reading lists this fall. Have you come across a new favorite author or are you re-reading a classic? Maybe you're not really reading anything and need some recommendations -- I'm sure we can help you out. We know you're busy, but tell us, what are you reading?
Reading Fast and Slow
by Beth Vieira on Tuesday, October 4, 2005 03:00 pmMy background is in the classics; my degree as an undergraduate was in Greek and Latin. We had to read texts line by line at a snail's pace, looking up every word so it seemed, scanning poetry, investigating unusual grammatical points, or textual cruxes, or philological articles about diction and cultural meaning.
My graduate background was similarly textually focused. I read almost exclusively poetry, taught myself old French and Middle English, again at a snail's pace. I ended up with the texts of Shakespeare, which (apologies to the theater people out there) are best experienced on the page, and read carefully and closely, again at a decelerated pace.
I was influenced by lots of literary theory that favored such deceleration of reading, such hovering over the text.
The drawback however is that I can't read novels, not at all. I am a page dweller and can't turn the pages fast enough to get through. This fact is a great source of embarrassment because I ended up becoming a literature professor, yet could count the number of novels I had read on one and a half hands. Sigh.
I'd like to know how others tend to read -- are you a speed reader, or do you take the slow route as I do? Whichever way you answer, I'd also like to know: is this a learned tendency, or have you always read this way? And how does this affect the works you choose to read?
My graduate background was similarly textually focused. I read almost exclusively poetry, taught myself old French and Middle English, again at a snail's pace. I ended up with the texts of Shakespeare, which (apologies to the theater people out there) are best experienced on the page, and read carefully and closely, again at a decelerated pace.
I was influenced by lots of literary theory that favored such deceleration of reading, such hovering over the text.
The drawback however is that I can't read novels, not at all. I am a page dweller and can't turn the pages fast enough to get through. This fact is a great source of embarrassment because I ended up becoming a literature professor, yet could count the number of novels I had read on one and a half hands. Sigh.
I'd like to know how others tend to read -- are you a speed reader, or do you take the slow route as I do? Whichever way you answer, I'd also like to know: is this a learned tendency, or have you always read this way? And how does this affect the works you choose to read?
The Book is Dead
by Tim Barrus on Thursday, August 18, 2005 12:41 pmThe book is dead. The only people who take it seriously are writers. And the people in publishing who need their paychecks to pay the rent.
The Great American Public is not buying books. As the reading population increases in numbers (the statistics indicating that more people are reading more books is misleading as it's more accurate to say that the same people are reading only half the books they buy) it's NOT keeping up with the population increase in terms of people who COULD be reading (and investing in books) but are not even tempted. Only five percent of graduating seniors in high school even read at the college level. The average high school freshman is reading at the sixth-grade level and writing (not enthusiastically) at the-third grade level. Fifty percent of sixth-graders are reading at the second grade level. Children spend more time on computers whether they're plugged in or hand-held than they do with books. And they're mainly talking to their peers in code. The best and the brightest at the Master's level are NOT going into publishing. The notion that the best and the brightest go into publishing is absurd.
Here's how publishing stacks up:
Women (and NOT the bright ones) are running publishing, and there's a glass ceiling, and they know it. Publishers are now mid-management. They're not much more than very nervous accountants. It's men who sit on the Boards of Directors of the (mostly German and French) international corporations that own the American publishing houses. NOT women. The men at let's say Bertelsman (the owner was in the Nazi SS during World War 2) issue the marching orders. The women in management obey. The women would ALL love to be on the boards but they have no money.
Bertlesman itself is not all that happy with its investment in American publishing. They are currently considering divesting themselves of those assetts in favor of technology communication and content. When FOX describes in its public relations information just exactly what assetts it owns, they frequently don't even mention (perhaps it's not worth mentioning of they just forgot) Harper-Collins.
Rupert Murdoch is investing LESS (as is the trend) in books and MORE in information technology and content.
Holt moved. It could not afford the rent.
A hundred people are being fired at Houghton Mifflin as I write this.
Bret Easton Ellis and The Runaway Bride are being looked at as the new hot properties of 2006.
If publishing is becoming more and more irrelevent to the culture at large, and it is, do the math, these companies have no one to blame but the gatekeepers themselves.
Let us look at them. Or her. She has a BA from Brown. She comes from a generation of women who for some odd reason were all named Jennifer.
She's in her twenties. She was surprised when they hired her as an editorial assistant, and she realized right away that if she worked real hard she could become much more than that. No more Manolos for a while anyway.
She answers the phone. She wields the real power.
She is much more aware than her editor that technology is changing publishing and fast. She is biding her time. She knows something she did not know before and that is that another opportunity will open for her if she wants it. At first she wasn't sure. But now she's sure. She does NOT want to become a publicist. She discovers that they're slugs. They slave over books they not only do not read, but they have no intention of ever reading any of them, and if you ask them if they actually READ the books they lie about they will look at you like -- are you mad? It is a dead end job that functions more as a travel agent and Jennifer does not know Charlie Rose anyway.
She does worry (as opposed to her boss who is going to be fired in two months) that the book is becoming less and less relevant, but if she just works hard and holds out long enough, twenty people in front of her will leave, and she can crawl and claw her way to the top.
And she will, too.
Ask any of them. When no one is looking she reads GAWKER.
She thinks writers are pampered brats but she doesn't tell them that. Yet.
I have seen these women become editors in less than a year. They are rather hip and they do buy those Manolos eventually.
When they become editors all of them become quite fat. In Manolos.
The smart ones become agents.
They are few and far between.
They not only "get" the new communication technology, they use it.
While their boss has blocked anyone who might come to her through Everyone Who's Anyone in Publishing dot com, and she thinks email was invented to sell porn which horrifies her. She won't last. The chick who keeps her schedule wants her job, and she'll get it, too.
Jennifer has stopped looking for a man in publishing. There are so few and they're taken.
She wants a stockbroker anyway.
She wants to broker a deal herself with ICM and she's sharpening her chops to do it.
Her publisher (who she secretly laughs at in bars) is from Simon and Schuster where she published Beavis and Butthead.
You think I'm kidding. I'm not.
Jennifer does make mistakes sometimes. When Nasdijj calls and talks to her about some books he'd like to write she says: But we've done enough black books this year. And Nasdijj is not even black.
I've gotten that answer about six times this summer alone.
And then all the people dying to get into this fading industry scream at Nasdijj that there is no racism in publishing on websites everywhere.
Nasdijj would confront all of this silliness with enraged essays but he's washing his hair that night.
The book is dead as a doornail. And what bed, pray tell, is your future in?
The Great American Public is not buying books. As the reading population increases in numbers (the statistics indicating that more people are reading more books is misleading as it's more accurate to say that the same people are reading only half the books they buy) it's NOT keeping up with the population increase in terms of people who COULD be reading (and investing in books) but are not even tempted. Only five percent of graduating seniors in high school even read at the college level. The average high school freshman is reading at the sixth-grade level and writing (not enthusiastically) at the-third grade level. Fifty percent of sixth-graders are reading at the second grade level. Children spend more time on computers whether they're plugged in or hand-held than they do with books. And they're mainly talking to their peers in code. The best and the brightest at the Master's level are NOT going into publishing. The notion that the best and the brightest go into publishing is absurd.
Here's how publishing stacks up:
Women (and NOT the bright ones) are running publishing, and there's a glass ceiling, and they know it. Publishers are now mid-management. They're not much more than very nervous accountants. It's men who sit on the Boards of Directors of the (mostly German and French) international corporations that own the American publishing houses. NOT women. The men at let's say Bertelsman (the owner was in the Nazi SS during World War 2) issue the marching orders. The women in management obey. The women would ALL love to be on the boards but they have no money.
Bertlesman itself is not all that happy with its investment in American publishing. They are currently considering divesting themselves of those assetts in favor of technology communication and content. When FOX describes in its public relations information just exactly what assetts it owns, they frequently don't even mention (perhaps it's not worth mentioning of they just forgot) Harper-Collins.
Rupert Murdoch is investing LESS (as is the trend) in books and MORE in information technology and content.
Holt moved. It could not afford the rent.
A hundred people are being fired at Houghton Mifflin as I write this.
Bret Easton Ellis and The Runaway Bride are being looked at as the new hot properties of 2006.
If publishing is becoming more and more irrelevent to the culture at large, and it is, do the math, these companies have no one to blame but the gatekeepers themselves.
Let us look at them. Or her. She has a BA from Brown. She comes from a generation of women who for some odd reason were all named Jennifer.
She's in her twenties. She was surprised when they hired her as an editorial assistant, and she realized right away that if she worked real hard she could become much more than that. No more Manolos for a while anyway.
She answers the phone. She wields the real power.
She is much more aware than her editor that technology is changing publishing and fast. She is biding her time. She knows something she did not know before and that is that another opportunity will open for her if she wants it. At first she wasn't sure. But now she's sure. She does NOT want to become a publicist. She discovers that they're slugs. They slave over books they not only do not read, but they have no intention of ever reading any of them, and if you ask them if they actually READ the books they lie about they will look at you like -- are you mad? It is a dead end job that functions more as a travel agent and Jennifer does not know Charlie Rose anyway.
She does worry (as opposed to her boss who is going to be fired in two months) that the book is becoming less and less relevant, but if she just works hard and holds out long enough, twenty people in front of her will leave, and she can crawl and claw her way to the top.
And she will, too.
Ask any of them. When no one is looking she reads GAWKER.
She thinks writers are pampered brats but she doesn't tell them that. Yet.
I have seen these women become editors in less than a year. They are rather hip and they do buy those Manolos eventually.
When they become editors all of them become quite fat. In Manolos.
The smart ones become agents.
They are few and far between.
They not only "get" the new communication technology, they use it.
While their boss has blocked anyone who might come to her through Everyone Who's Anyone in Publishing dot com, and she thinks email was invented to sell porn which horrifies her. She won't last. The chick who keeps her schedule wants her job, and she'll get it, too.
Jennifer has stopped looking for a man in publishing. There are so few and they're taken.
She wants a stockbroker anyway.
She wants to broker a deal herself with ICM and she's sharpening her chops to do it.
Her publisher (who she secretly laughs at in bars) is from Simon and Schuster where she published Beavis and Butthead.
You think I'm kidding. I'm not.
Jennifer does make mistakes sometimes. When Nasdijj calls and talks to her about some books he'd like to write she says: But we've done enough black books this year. And Nasdijj is not even black.
I've gotten that answer about six times this summer alone.
And then all the people dying to get into this fading industry scream at Nasdijj that there is no racism in publishing on websites everywhere.
Nasdijj would confront all of this silliness with enraged essays but he's washing his hair that night.
The book is dead as a doornail. And what bed, pray tell, is your future in?
Re-Reading On the Road
by Jay Meija on Tuesday, August 16, 2005 10:07 pmOK, so I threw my dog-eared paperback copy into the backseat of my car, late last night. I had wolfed this book down this hot summer back in July for the umpteenth time and at first, it made me laugh, full of joy again and I was in awe and exhilirated.
I have read this damn thing many times in sweet escapist joy but this second time in a month I re-read last week, well, it was different the last time around. Across the miles and moils of years, this time the second rush of ending summer seemed more painful than before. I wept. Dean was a rat, and Sal retaliated, and I bummed.
I have read this damn thing many times in sweet escapist joy but this second time in a month I re-read last week, well, it was different the last time around. Across the miles and moils of years, this time the second rush of ending summer seemed more painful than before. I wept. Dean was a rat, and Sal retaliated, and I bummed.
The Placebo Effect
by Caryn Thurman on Monday, August 15, 2005 08:29 amOftentimes it's hard to distinguish an author's experiences from those portrayed in their writing. Storylines and characters run parallel to a writer's world and we find ourselves sometimes trying to map bits and pieces back to their real life counterparts. Well, they do say "write what you know".
LitKicks member Tulate recently offered this up for consideration:
"John Lennon swore up and down that he wrote Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds about a drawing his son made in school. Meanwhile, I think I recall that UCLA actually offered a course interpreting the song which everyone assumed was a reference to John's LSD use.
Lennon knew about LSD first hand and could certainly write a song about it if he so chose. I'm sure writers with no drug experience have written about acid trips too.
For a piece to be riveting, full of gut wrenching imagery, able to evoke deep emotion -- does the writer need first hand experience? Or is reality over-rated? Does the fiction writer using good research, vivid imagination and poetic license get higher marks than the guy who's actually been there and done that and is now writing fiction adorning factual accounts with beautiful, moving and precise words?"
LitKicks member Tulate recently offered this up for consideration:
"John Lennon swore up and down that he wrote Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds about a drawing his son made in school. Meanwhile, I think I recall that UCLA actually offered a course interpreting the song which everyone assumed was a reference to John's LSD use.
Lennon knew about LSD first hand and could certainly write a song about it if he so chose. I'm sure writers with no drug experience have written about acid trips too.
For a piece to be riveting, full of gut wrenching imagery, able to evoke deep emotion -- does the writer need first hand experience? Or is reality over-rated? Does the fiction writer using good research, vivid imagination and poetic license get higher marks than the guy who's actually been there and done that and is now writing fiction adorning factual accounts with beautiful, moving and precise words?"
Idol Worship Gone Too Far
by Bob on Thursday, July 21, 2005 07:22 amI play guitar. "Play" is the relative term here. Segovia plays. Comparatively speaking I don't.
Steve Morse is my guitar idol and he really plays. He studied with Segovia at one time. Played with the likes of McLaughlin and Howe. Over time Morse has pretty much established himself as one of the reigning geniuses with the instrument.
My idol worship has gone too far in that I came to the realization that I'll never do anything remotely close -- neither musically nor technically -- to what Morse does. My reaction is to play less. Why bother? Turning something I enjoyed doing into something I could never do well enough wasn't the most brilliant move I ever made but that's another story.
Transferring this idolatry run amok to the literary field, has anyone out there had a similar experience with writing? Anybody read something so utterly perfectly fantastic that it just makes you feel like hanging up the pen? And if so -- what was that wonderfully demolishing piece of literature?
Steve Morse is my guitar idol and he really plays. He studied with Segovia at one time. Played with the likes of McLaughlin and Howe. Over time Morse has pretty much established himself as one of the reigning geniuses with the instrument.
My idol worship has gone too far in that I came to the realization that I'll never do anything remotely close -- neither musically nor technically -- to what Morse does. My reaction is to play less. Why bother? Turning something I enjoyed doing into something I could never do well enough wasn't the most brilliant move I ever made but that's another story.
Transferring this idolatry run amok to the literary field, has anyone out there had a similar experience with writing? Anybody read something so utterly perfectly fantastic that it just makes you feel like hanging up the pen? And if so -- what was that wonderfully demolishing piece of literature?
Words, etc.
by Jamelah Earle on Wednesday, June 22, 2005 06:33 amPOLONIUS: What do you read, my lord?Ah, I love quoting Shakespeare in the morning. Or something. The truth is, I've always liked this little exchange in Hamlet, precisely because the prince's answer is one that never happens.
HAMLET: Words, words, words.
(William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 2:2:191-192)
If I were to ask you what you're reading, you'd probably tell me the name of a book, or perhaps something of the plot. Maybe you'd give me an author's name, and you might mention how it's written (good or bad), or you might not. These are all good answers, and I'm not trying to imply otherwise, but how often do we actually discuss the books we're familiar with in terms of their makeup, their words?
Who Will Live On?
by Levi Asher on Tuesday, June 21, 2005 06:47 amLitKicks member Elpoc_05 asks a perennial question about modern lit:
'Who will live on? Ours is a time of remembrance of everyone; but we certainly will not be able to keep it up for long. Not everyone will be known forever -- who are the greats of the modern era? Who represents our time and our style? McLuhan? Ginsberg? Pound? Eliot? Stein? Kerouac? Dylan? Cohen? Sid Vicious? Rachmoninoff? Derrida? Stephen King? Legends are innumerable. Who can we think of but Shelley, Byron, Keats from their era. Chaucer is it for his time. But what about us, and our time? Who really IS the genius of today, the one to stand out?'
'Who will live on? Ours is a time of remembrance of everyone; but we certainly will not be able to keep it up for long. Not everyone will be known forever -- who are the greats of the modern era? Who represents our time and our style? McLuhan? Ginsberg? Pound? Eliot? Stein? Kerouac? Dylan? Cohen? Sid Vicious? Rachmoninoff? Derrida? Stephen King? Legends are innumerable. Who can we think of but Shelley, Byron, Keats from their era. Chaucer is it for his time. But what about us, and our time? Who really IS the genius of today, the one to stand out?'
