And Your Point Is?

Note: Originally posted on 2.8.2009, I’ve moved this back to the top because Robert Bernard Hass has been kind enough to respond in comments. I have also written a response to his comment and would love to hear the view of others, which is why I’m also going to cross-post this to the Plumbline blog.
What [...]

Dream, Prayer, Chart

I’m still getting my bearings in this discussion so I’m going to indulge in just a bit more terminological meandering before I get down to looking at some actual poems.
In Kenneth Burke’s The Philosophy of Literary Form, there is an otherwise unremarkable essay on using Freud as a guide to interpreting poetry, in which Burke [...]

Short Fiction Notes: Recent Reading (II)

“Prime Evening Time” — Ward Just: Character study of an Army Captain home & working in the Pentagon after three tours in Vietnam. He has won bronze & silver stars & the Congressional Medal of Honor. Only a Captain, he’s on track to be a general. There really isn’t any external action in the story; [...]

Short Fiction Notes: Recent Reading

“Shelter” (Charles Baxter) — This is the first Baxter story I’ve read, but when I began writing fiction a couple of months ago I was greatly influenced by his how-to book, Subtext, which I am reading straight through for a second time. “Shelter” is in Baxter’s collection A Relative Stranger & it’s an effective story, [...]

Short Fiction Notes: Andre Dubus

If Flannery O’Connor known for her her cruelty toward her characters, Andre Dubus is known for his kindness. Of if not kindness, sympathy. (He is also better at writing women than O’Connor is at writing men, but I’m not really interested in a comparison that, carried any farther, would quickly become tendentious.) I’ve been reading [...]

Short Fiction Notes: Flannery O’Connor

I’ve just reread O’Connor’s “And the Lame Shall Enter First” and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” & it hasn’t been so long since I read “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” It’s not my purpose in these notes to produce an analysis, but to catch a sense of my own reactions to various writers’ [...]

Short Fiction Notes: Chekhov

Because I have been trying to write some fiction, I have been reading the acknowledged masters of the genre, beginning with a little Barnes & Noble edition of stories. What appeals to me about Chekhov is his coolness, his detailed dispassionate descriptions of people and events. He is sympathetic toward his characters, but he does [...]

End of Term Blues

Just finished grading my last set of papers & now I’m on sabbatical until next September. The papers brought me up short, I must admit. They were from a freshman class and we had finished the semester reading Margret Atwood’s Oryx & Crake, a very smart & entertaining book, I think. My students seemed to [...]

Language and the Truth

I’m sort of old-fashioned in that I tell my creative writing students that they have a responsibility to the truth of their own experience and that the way they use language reveals the extent to which they have taken that responsibility seriously. Listening to Sarah Palin reminds me of nothing so much as listening to [...]

How to Read a Poem*

Instructions: Begin, in so far as it’s possible, without preconceptions and do not rush to make a judgment about whether you like or dislike a poem, or whether it’s good or bad; most of all, do not dismiss mysteries or difficulties as weird or incomprehensible (at least) until you have worked through the steps [...]

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