Tag: Paul Celan

April 2024 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

April was National Poetry Month, and I didn’t read as much poetry this time as I have in past years. Part of that was my specific choices for poetry books, and part was general business and mental exhaustion. As you can see from the list below, I have spent most of my reading time buried in All that is Evident is Suspect, a collection of writing from members of Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, or “Workshop for Potential Literature”). The writing therein is frying my brain in the very best way. Highly recommended.

Acquisitions

Books I acquired in the month of April 2024

  1. Lauren T. Davila (editor), To Root Somewhere Beautiful: An Anthology of Reclamation (Outland Entertainment) [2024.04.10] – Purchased through a Kickstarter campaign run by Outland Entertainment.
  2. Frantz Fanon (Richard Philcox, translator), The Wretched of the Earth [2024.04.20] – Purchased from a fantastic new store which opened the weekend of 4/20: Black Dog Books and Records. I see myself shopping there a lot.

Reading List

Books and other material I read in April 2024

Books and Journals

  1. Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast [2024.04.07]
  2. Paul Celan (John Felstiner, translator), Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan [2024.04.12]
  3. Kirk Jones, Aetherchrist [2024.04.16]
  4. Jean Daive (Norma Cole, translator), A Woman With Several Lives [2024.04.18]

Short Prose

  1. Raymond Queneau, “Slept Cried”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect: Readings from the Oulipo 1963 – 2018 [2024.04.18]
  2. Jacques Duchateau, “Lecture on the Oulipo at Cerisy-la-Salle”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.19]
  3. Latis, “The Atheist Organist”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.20]
  4. Marcel Duchamp, “Correspondence With the Oulipo”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.20]
  5. Albert-Marie Schmidt, “Letter to the Oulipo”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.21]
  6. Claude Berge, “Letter to Jacques Roubaud & Georges Perec”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.21]
  7. François Le Lionnais, “Idea Box”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.21]
  8. Jean Lescure, “The N+7 Method”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.21]
  9. Georges Perec, “Alphabet for Stämpfli”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.22]
  10. Italo Calvino, “How I Wrote One of My Books”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.22]
  11. Luc Étienne, “Bilingual Palindromes”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.22]
  12. Stanley Chapman, “Letter to Valérie Guidoux”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.23]
  13. André Blavier, “Literary Lunatics”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.23]
  14. Jean Queval, “Circular Reflections from an Immobile Insect”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.24]
  15. Michèle Métail, “Fifty Oscillatory Poems”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.25]
  16. Marcel Bénabou, “Ebony Cup and Ivory Ball, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.25]
  17. Jacques Bens, “How to Tell a Story”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.25]
  18. Paul Braffort, “Invisible Libraries”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.26]
  19. Noël Arnaud, “The Last Minutes”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.26]
  20. Michelle Grangaud, “Gesture”, All That Is Evident Is Suspect [2024.04.26]

Weekly Round-up, April 13, 2024

John Winkelman

Shadows of branches, seen during the April 8, 2024 Lunar Eclipse.

[The above photo is the shadow of branches, cast on a sidewalk in Grand Rapids during the April 8 solar eclipse.]

Reading

I finished reading the Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan, and I realized realize that I don’t really care for the poetry of Paul Celan. This is not a criticism of the quality of his poetry. It’s just not to my taste. Now browsing random short books, deciding which one will be next.

Writing

I finished a journal I have been writing in since August of last year. Now that I have a new journal I find myself bouncing back and forth wildly between inspiration and ennui.

Weekly Writing Prompt

Subject: Aliens, Reincarnation
Setting: Ocean
Genre: Romance

Listening

Interesting Links

 

Weekly Round-up, April 6, 2024

John Winkelman

A view West, overlooking a section of the Skywalk in Grand Rapids, Michigan

[I took this photo when walking to the gym from work. One of the buildings attached to the Skywalk has a stairwell with windows facing west. The Skywalk connects to the building I work in, and runs from DeVos Place to the Van Andel Arena.]

It’s been another crazy week for work, leaving little time of brain space for creative endeavors. SO of course I have added a new creative endeavor to my schedule, explained under the Writing heading below.

Reading

I started the month reading The Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan, but almost immediately became distracted by Ernest Hemingways’s A Moveable Feast. So I am bouncing back and forth between the two.

Writing

I started a new daily (-ish) writing exercise based on the weekly writing prompts: Each day, as part of my journaling, I jot down a story idea or fragment from the prompt. It can be a single sentence or the entire story. The prompt generator is just too damn useful and fun for me to not keep it central to my writing practice. If I come up with anything worth sharing I will post it here.

This Week’s Writing Prompt

Subject: Revenge, Evolution
Setting: Outpost
Genre: Magic Realism

Listening

Being a programmer, I often listen to music when I work. And when working I need music that is both interesting and not distracting So I listen to instrumental music, or music with minimal lyrics, or non-English-speaking singers. St Germain performs house-flavored nu jazz, which fits my requirements perfectly.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, March 30, 2024

John Winkelman

The view West from the second floor gymnasium at the West Michigan YWCA.

[The above photo was taken on March 30, facing west out of one of the windows in the second-floor gymnasium of the West Michigan YWCA, at the beginning of tai chi class.]

This was the second week of a hellish two-week sprint at work which had me putting in hours like I have not done in years. But the work is in the bag for the moment, at least until the QA people get their hands on my code.

Reading

In anticipation of National Poetry Month, I have started The Selected Prose and Poems of Paul Celan, which I purchased from Books and Mortar back in the autumn of 2023.

Writing

A lot of journaling. Not a lot of creative writing, except for snippets which sneak into the journals.

This Week’s Writing Prompt

Subject: Artificial Intelligence, Dragons
Setting: Ship
Genre: Romance

Listening

Interesting Links

October 2023 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

October was an excellent month for books, thanks primarily to me having a couple of weeks off from work to rest and recover and read and visit bookstores. I didn’t read as much as I would have liked, due to overall burnout, but again, what my reading list lacks in quantity it makes up for in quality.

Acquisitions

Books acquired in the month of October 2023

  1. Jean Daive (Rosmarie Waldrop, translator), Under the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan (City Lights Books) [2023.10.03] – Purchased at The Book Nook& Java Shop in Montague, Michigan. This was a spur-of-the-moment purchase. I saw the City Lights logo and pulled the book down, opened it to a random couple of pages, and immediately became obsessed. It’s not often that I read a book in the same month that I purchase it.
  2. Elmore Leonard, When the Women Come Out to Dance [2023.10.06] – Purchased at Argos Books and Comics in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I recently read Get Shorty, because the movie version is one of my all-time favorites. This collection contains the short story “Fire in the Hole,” which is the basis for the TV series Justified, which is very good.
  3. R.F. Kuang, Babel [2023.10.06] – Purchased at Books & Mortar Bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I read Kuang’s Yellowface a few weeks back and quite enjoyed it. This one has been on my TBR list for some time, so I when I saw it at Books & Mortar, I grabbed a copy.
  4. Jim C. Hines, Amelia Sand and the Silver Queens (self-published) – This is the reward for Hines’ latest Kickstarter.
  5. Antonio Machado (Stanley Appelbaum, translator), Fields of Castile/Campos de Castilla [2023.10.15] – Purchased from Books and Mortar Bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A few months ago, after looking up interviews with Cormac McCarthy, YouTube began suggesting clips from a movie called The Counsellor. I had never heard of it, but it looked intriguing. The first clip I watched was from the end of the movie, and consisted of a conversation between Michael Fassbender and Rubén Blades. It was a powerful scene and the poetry of Machado figured prominently. I watched a few more scenes from the movie, enough to realize that (a) I really need to see it, and (b) I need to be in the right frame of mind because it is VERY dark. So I have not yet seen the movie but I do have some Machado to read in the meantime.
  6. Paul Celan (John Felstiner, translator), Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan [2023.10.15] – Purchased from Books and Mortar Bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I ordered this after reading about fifty pages of Under the Dome. I knew Celan’s name, but nothing more. I am very much looking forward to reading this one.
  7. Jean Daive (Norma Cole, translator), A Woman With Several Lives (La Presse) [2023.10.23] – Purchased from Books and Mortar Bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Also purchased after reading a few dozen pages of Under the Dome. Also looking forward to reading it.
  8. Marosia Castaldi (Jamie Richards, translator), The Hunger of Women (And Other Stories) [2023.10.27] – From my subscription to And Other Stories.
  9. Michele Mari (Brian Robert Moore, translator), Verdigris (And Other Stories) [2023.10.27] – From my subscription to And Other Stories.
  10. Lutz Seiler (Martyn Crucefix, translator), In Case of Loss (And Other Stories) [2023.10.27] – From my subscription to And Other Stories.

Reading List

Books I read in the month of October 2023

Books

  1. Shawn Speakman, The Tempered Steel of Antiquity Grey [2023.10.02]
  2. Olga Tokarczuk (Antonia Lloyd-Jones, translator), Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead [2023.10.17]
  3. Jean Daive (Rosmarie Waldrop, translator), Under the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan [2023.10.18]
  4. Ai Jiang and Christi Nogle (editors), Wilted Pages: An Anthology of Dark Academia [2023.10.26]

Short Prose

  1. Jennifer Fliss, “Ijo de Ken Sos Tu?”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.18]
  2. Simo Srinivas, “The Girls of St. X”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.19]
  3. Jo Kaplan, “Humanities 215”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.19]
  4. Amber Chen, “Hugging the Buddha’s Feet”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.21]
  5. Cyrus Amelia Fisher, “In Vast and Fecund Reaches We Will Meet Again”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.21]
  6. John Langan, “Applicatio”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.21]
  7. Steve Rasnic Tem, “Higher Powers”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.22]
  8. Michael A. Reed, “Twisted Tongues”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.22]
  9. Brian Evenson, “The Allard Residency”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.23]
  10. Hussani Abdulrahim, “The Library Virus”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.23]
  11. R.B. Lemberg, “The Occupation of the Migratory Library of Oanno”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.24]
  12. Gabino Iglesias, “Tiny Hearts in the Dark”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.24]
  13. Ana Hurtado, “Parásito”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.24]
  14. Suzan Palumbo, “The Davinci Chip”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.25]
  15. Ayida Shonibar, “An Inordinate Amount of Interest”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.25]
  16. Premee Mohamed, “Preservation of an Intact Specimen”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.25]
  17. Octavia Cade, “Those Shining Things Are Out of Reach”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.25]
  18. Marisca Pichette, “Her Finished Wings”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.26]
  19. R.J. Joseph, “Those Who Teach Pay Knowledge Forward”, Wilted Pages [2023.10.26]