Category: Literary Matters

One Third of the Year, Gone So Soon

John Winkelman

Ivy flower

On Friday, the last day of April, I received my second COVID-19 vaccine shot (Pfizer). I felt fine until Saturday afternoon after kung fu class, at which time my energy level crashed and I developed a fever and I crawled into bed and slept for several hours. As of now things appear to be back to normal.

This was another week in which no new books arrived. April in general was an extremely slow month for the Library at Winkelman Abbey, with only five new volumes added to the shelves. It isn’t often that my reading outpaces my acquisitions.

In reading news, for the last week of April I finished Anders Dunkers’ collection of interviews Rediscovering Earth, which I must revisit soon with pen in hand so I can highlight all of the wonderful ideas and copy down all of the books cited therein.

I also finished  David Meltzer’s No Eyes: Lester Young, a book-length jazz poem or collection of jazz poems in tribute to saxophonist Lester Young. This was published by Black Sparrow Press, back when Black Sparrow was independent, rather than an imprint of a larger publisher, and when their books were immediately recognizable by their rough covers and muted color palettes.

In writing news, I finished out April having written a poem a day, every day for the entire month. It felt really, really good to have my head in that space again. I will try to keep up the pace, while also balancing the writing with editing, transcribing, and writing some new prose as well. The calls for submission never stop, and the deadlines approach.

And with that, I will leave you with the groovy tunes of Lester Young and Buddy Rich.

Brighter Days in Many Ways

John Winkelman

Books for the Week of April 18, 2021

As of this week the quality of life in my neighborhood has improved immensely. A terrible neighbor, who had made it his mission to deliberately be as obnoxious as possible to the people around him, has finally moved away. While, like Rush Limbaugh, the tragedy is not his absence but rather his existence, I do have to thank him for giving me an immense number of writing prompts over the past eight years. I used to have a running joke that I could never write literary fiction because around 3,000 words in, Cthulhu would show up. In this case, when writing about this odious jackass, he was so awful that the Great Old One never appeared. One day I will publish these stories, which are more transcriptions of events, and other than slightly changing some names I won’t need to alter any of the events in order to make them an entertaining read.

All of which is to say, I am looking forward to the next several months of peace and quiet with cautious optimism.

Three new volumes arrived this week. On the left is Red Nation Rising, from a Kickstarter campaign run by PM Press. The writers describe it as the first book to explore the dynamics of violence of bordertowns, which they define as the encroachment of white/European settlers into indigenous lands. This is a definition of a border/town which I have never seen before, and it rings true. What settlers call a border, the indigenous populations would call an encroaching wave of apocalypse.

In the middle is the Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction issue of Uncanny Magazine, originally published in 2018. Uncanny has published a manifesto wherein they describe their rationale for the naming of this and the other volumes in the _____ Destroy series. It is quite a good read, and eye-opening for anyone who is not familiar with the changing world of genre fiction. And it is a nice poke in the eye for anyone who doesn’t like the fact that the world of genre fiction is becoming more open and exclusive.

On the right is the latest issue of Poetry Magazine, which is a beautiful way to round out the last full week of National Poetry Month.

In reading news I am still working through a big pile of poetry books and journals, and it is wonderful! I will post the list on May 1. I am also still working through Rediscovering Earth, and quite liking it, though I have not had much free time to read this past week.

In writing news I am still keeping up the pace of at least a poem a day for the month of April. It feels good. Poetry is a muscle which grows stronger with regular exercise.

On Friday I will receive my second COVID shot. I look forward to being able to interact with other humans again. A little.

April in All Its Beauty

John Winkelman

Books for the week of April 11, 2021

A year ago this week I began a project which kept me working second and third shift for three months, then a long and late first shift for a couple more. This year I am on a stable project which, other than the fact that I am working from home instead of in an office, is not particularly disruptive. Which is to say, not more disruptive than having a job in the first place.

Only one new book arrived here at the Library of Winkelman Abbey last week – E. Catherine Tobler’s The Kraken Sea, from Apex Book Company.

In reading news, I finished Maurizio Lazzarato’s The Making of the Indebted Man (published by Semiotext(e)), and it left me feeling all kinds of grumpy.

No, not grumpy. Another word, begins with “g”.

GUILLOTINEY!

Yes. That’s the word.

With all of the leftist and left-ish books I have read over the past few years I can feel the strain and stress from the day to day experience of living in a society currently dominated by forces which could be delicately called “reactionary”. But that is the subject for another post or fifty.

I am working my way through Living at the Movies, a collection of Jim Carroll’s early poems. Carroll wrote these poems in his early twenties, and they are good enough for what they are, but as a 51 year old here in the 2020s, I don’t feel as much connection to them as I might have back when I was in my early twenties, thirty years ago.

After finishing Lazzarato’s book I started reading Rediscovering Earth, a collection of interviews with environmentalist and writers about the possible futures of nature and the environment. I picked this one up from OR Books a couple of months ago. It is much more hopeful and inspiring, if not less rage inducing, than the Lazzarato.

In writing news I am maintaining my pace of a poem a day for the duration of National Poetry Month. NaPoWriMo is also happening this month, which is appropriate, though I am not really participating as so many others are, in that I am not posting my poems in public.

Perhaps next year. If NaPoWriMo happens next year.

If there is a next year.

It’s Warm, It’s Cold, It’s Warm, It’s Cold

John Winkelman

We are now well into April, and the normally turbulent weather of this time of year is being exacerbated by a healthy dose of global warming which makes the highs and lows more frequent and more extreme. At present we have no expectation that this trend will reverse itself in the lifetime of any human currently living. Come to that, we have no expectation for things to change in the lifetime of any animal at all currently living, with the possible exception of extremophile critters somewhere around a deep-sea thermal vent in the Pacific Ocean.

No new reading material arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey this week. I expect the rest of April will be slow for the acquisitions department.

In reading news, I just finished Ibram X. Kendi‘s How to Be an Antiracist, and it blew my mind open in ways I did not expect. It wasn’t the subject, which was was very much in line with The New Jim Crow, Caste and Carceral Capitalism. Rather, it was the way Kendi drew the distinction between “not-” and “anti-“. For me (straight, white, middle-aged dude), this made me extremely uncomfortable in a positive way, as it pointed out a large blind spot in my interactions with the world. It’s not enough to simply not contribute to the problem. One must actively work to fix the problem, or by virtue of the inertia of the zeitgeist of the world, the problem persists. Any way of living that is not explicitly anti- is implicitly pro-. In matters of oppression and equity, there is no middle ground.

As April is National Poetry Month, I have been working my way through my back issues of Poetry Magazine, instead of the (surprisingly small) number of my poetry books which I have not read. The variety of poetry in Poetry is keeping my mind in the writing space, and I have managed to write a poem a day so far for every day of the month. I won’t copy them out of my journal or type them up until May, most likely, and then we will see if I have managed to put any of the many words I know together in some kind of meaningful order.

Here in the third week of Spring the world is turning green and some of the nights are warm enough to keep the windows open. The fresh air and smell of earth and grass and rain, and the soft sounds of the city at night make for a more restful sleep than I have know in months, and though I am not getting any more sleep than at any point in the past year, it is of better quality and therefore when I wake up I don’t resent being out of bed.

IWSG, April 2021

John Winkelman

Welcome to the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. This month’s question is the following:

Are you a risk-taker when writing? Do you try something radically different in style/POV/etc. or add controversial topics to your work?

I don’t know if I am a risk taker, as such. I like to play around with forms and styles. I have written stories in first and third person, past and present tense. Some styles work for certain stories; others do not. In the past I have written fantasy, science fiction, horror, westerns, and literary fiction. Again, some worked better than others. In particular, I went through a phase of writing literary short stories where around 2,000 words in Cthulhu would show up, despite my best efforts to keep the story from heading in that direction.

For me, memoir involves more risk because in order to be effective it must dig into places which I am not always willing to uncover. For example, a few years ago, for NaNoWriMo I set out to write a series of short stories, and as a warm-up exercise I wrote a short piece about the toxic people in my life. That short piece turned into 18,000 words, all written on November 1. I was an angry, bitter emotional wreck for days after. On a positive note, I was far enough ahead in my word count that I could take a couple of days off of writing in order to recover from the experience.

I don’t touch much on controversial topics, other than possibly equity, empathy and compassion, which are controversial topics in a society where sadism seems to be the national pastime.

So I suppose the risk-taking lies in trying something new which may or may not work. Either way, I have broadened my horizons and (hopefully) improved my craft.

Thank you for reading this answer, and thank you (and hello!) to the members of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group who find their way to my humble blog.

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Tech Upgrade, Of a Sort

John Winkelman

Reading material for the week of 2021.03.28

If the above image seems subtly different from the images in the previous posts, it is because I just bought a new smart phone to replace my ageing Galaxy Note 4. I now have a Google Pixel 4a/5G, which in most ways is not appreciably different from any other mid-range smart phone, but it does have an amazing camera, which is apparently the hallmark of the Google Pixel series. So expect to see an increase in the number of photo posts on this blog.

The weather in this past week was all over the place, from highs near 70 to lows in the teens. All in the space of a few days. Right now the air is a balmy 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Perfect for walking in the woods. Which I just did.

On the left pf the above photo is the latest issue of Poetry magazine, from the Poetry Foundation. On the right is Unwelcome Bodies, Jennifer Pelland’s collection of short fiction which was published by Apex Book Company. I received this as a reward for backing Apex Book Company at a certain tier on their Patreon.

In writing news, I am writing (at least) a poem a day for the month of April, and so far, four days in, am keeping up. Seems I can only write at the moment if I am under some sort of external pressure. That is all.

It’s Like, Warm Out

John Winkelman

It’s been a beautiful week here in Grand Rapids, in the last full week of March 2021. The tai chi and kung fu classes are back at Wilcox Park, weather permitting. After almost four months of indoor classes conducted through Zoom, the outdoors seems huge. I went for a long walk at Blandford Nature Center after class, and I was one of maybe five people in this huge park. For most of the two hours I was there I didn’t see another soul, and though the park is surrounded by neighborhoods, for the most part I didn’t hear anyone either. It was a disorienting experience. I felt something which I wouldn’t call agoraphobia, but it was something on that spectrum. A sense of vast horizons, after a year of being inside my house, and much of that time in my office, staring at a computer screen. It was disorienting having the nearest object farther than ten feet away from my eyes.

A decent pile of books arrived here at the Library of Winkelman Abbey in the past week. Two are from subscriptions, and the last three are from a recent order I placed at the best bookstore in Grand Rapids, Books & Mortar.

On the left is the latest issue of the ever-excellent Rain Taxi Review of Books.

Second from left is Nancy by Bruno Lloret, the latest release from Two Lines Press.

In the center is Alix E. Harrow’s The Ten Thousand Doors of January, which I have been meaning to read for, oh, at least a year.

Second from the right is The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin, which I learned about from Cory Doctorow‘s blog Pluralistic, in which he discussed this book in the same paragraph in which he invoked Frank Wilhoit’s description of conservatism (“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”).

On the right is Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks, which I suspect will have a lot to say which heavily echoes the Wilhoit quote. This is, after all, America.

In reading news, I am about three quarters of the way through Gideon the Ninth and loving every page of it. I will probably finish Monday or Tuesday.

In writing news, lots of journaling but not much else. So it goes.

Next Friday I get my first COVID shot. Then I will enter the liminal space between it and the second shot three weeks later. There is no telling what the world will look like on the other side of that experience.

Suddenly Spring

John Winkelman

And what a Spring it is so far, with temperatures in the 60s and sunny and beautiful. The tai chi and kung fu classes have moved back outdoors, and there we will remain, weather permitting, until the snow flies again in November or December. Almost eight months of outdoor classes is pretty good for Michigan.

The new issue of Pulphouse Magazine was the only reading material to arrive in the past week at the Library of Winkelman Abbey. This has made my life a little easier, as I am in the midst of organizing all of my bookshelves, recycling many years of old literary journals, and making one of my bookcases the exclusive home of the many books I own which have been inscribed to me by their authors. The goal, of course, is to outgrow that shelf once the world is in a state where readings and book signings and conventions can happen again. So maybe 2022 or 2023.

In reading news, I am still working my way through the backlog of books in translation. Currently in front of me is Juan José Saer’s The One Before, translated by Roanne L. Kantor, and published by Open Letter Books. After this month I am going to broaden my reading habits a little, and rather than five or six works in translation a month, only attempt two or three, which will leave room for more of the nonfiction, poetry and genre fiction which is also slowly but steadily piling up.

In writing news, as always, there is no writing news. Perhaps next week.

Happy Spring, eveyone!

The Last Full Week of Winter

John Winkelman

And what a week this past week was. Due to family emergencies, trips to the vet, favors for friends, and the necessities of a new project, I have had almost no time at all to read, write, relax, sleep, or clear my head. My only quiet time was the drive to Jackson from Grand Rapids, in which a visit was cancelled at the last minute, and so I drove a total of over four hours in order to deliver a sandwich.

At this point, after the last twelve months – and tomorrow it will be exactly twelve months since the quarantine really took hold for me – I can’t even get angry about this kind of thing any more. But it is frustrating to see the days grow longer and the weather grow warmer and not be able to enjoy it as I have in years past.

Two bound collections of words arrived at the Library of Winkelman Abbey this week. On the left is Elemental, a collection of stories in translation from Two Lines Press. This is the third anthology published under their wonderful Calico series, which is one of the reasons I am continuing my subscription to their catalog.

On the right is the March 2021 issue of Poetry Magazine. One day I will sit down and read all of the back issues which I have collected over the years, which are regrettably collecting dust on my shelf.

In reading news, things have been going slow though I did finish Deepak Unnikrishnan‘s weird and wonderful Temporary People (Restless Books), and am now about two-thirds through Arno Geiger‘s beautiful The Old King In His Exile (And Other Stories, translated by Stefan Tobler). Geiger’s book is his memoir of taking care of his father, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s, which is a thing which has struck down a few in my immediate and extended family, so it is a…well, I wouldn’t call it a comfort read, exactly, but it is supportive.

In writing news, there is no writing new, other than some journaling. Maybe next week.

So it goes.

 

March, Already and Still

John Winkelman

It was almost exactly a year ago that the COVID lockdown hit West Michigan and I began working from home. As the joke goes, this is not March 7, 2021, it is March 372, 2020.

A small pile of books and periodicals arrived here in the past week. On the left is volume 3 of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. This was difficult to find, as it is a very specific volume 3 which is part of a set which was published in 1992. I picked up volumes 1 and 2 from the remainder shelf of Schuler Books and Music sometime around 1995. I kept hoping volume 3 would show up for cheap, and I left the bookstore in 1999 with that dream unfulfilled.

Next is The Best of Apex Magazine, which is volume 1 of a series, the other volumes of which have not yet been published. Apex Magazine went on hiatus in 2019 and has just recently come back, so future volumes of the anthology will hopefully be printed in upcoming years.

Next is Notes from Childhood by Norah Lange, translated from the Spanish by Charlotte Whittle and published by And Other Stories.

And last but not least is the latest issue of The Paris Review, which has managed to stay in print and excellent and relevant for over fifty years, which is admirable.

In reading news, I am well into Deepak Unnikrishnan’s weird and wonderful novel Temporary People (Restless Books), which started out as a collection of short stories in the literary fiction genre, but soon blew straight through magic realism into the realms of satire and surrealism. And it is really, really good.

In writing news, events of the mundane world sapped away much of my free time and emotional energy and I accomplished very little. I still feel the drive and desire to be creatively productive so perhaps next week will be more fulfilling.

Tune in next week for such thrilling tales as “Welp. Here I am again,” and “Here are some books,” and if time and energy allow, “Here is some stuff I have been thinking about.” See you next time, loyal reader(s)!