Creating magnetic poetry is a favorite pastime of ours here in the roger office. Luckily, I found a way to get my daily fix while I’m at home for summer break!
Here’s one I’m liking right now: “under her/by sweet grass/want summer slow.” Does it make perfect sense? Not really. But the great thing about magnetic poetry is that your mind fills in all the little linguistic niceties that are missing.
Our 6th edition is well on its way to the printers. Our staff has been spending hours copiously picking apart each and every word in our submissions. Lately, it seems as though my 16th edition of CMS has become my dearest friend. I have fallen into the habit of correcting every grammar mishap I see, and have often bolted awake in the middle of the night from nightmares about copyediting. It perplexes me how often people disregard basic rules of grammar in their everyday writings, but more so, how often people misuse words.
A recent Huffington Post article discusses this tendency, and urges writers familiar with copy editing to relax; the author promises that even if our society can never break the habit of misusing words like “literally” and “myself”, “quality english” will never cease to exist.
Check out the article here.
I was catching up with the news on Huffington Post and I found about a translated version of William S. Burroughs’ novel “The Soft Machine.” The publisher and the translator of the book are facing obscenity charges over publishing the novel in Istanbul. According to the Turkish Government the reasoning behind this trial is “The way the book deals with the coarse, sleazy, vulgar and weak aspects of humans will develop an attitude that allows the justification of criminal activities in the readers’ minds.” These were similar reasons another one of Burroughs’ novels, “Naked Lunch” was banned in Boston in the 1960s for a short period of time.
Reading this article really got me thinking about publishing rights. Here in the U. S. censored versions of Huck Finn have been in the news, bringing up the question “is it okay to change a classic novel?” While the Turkish government appears to be having a conversation that happened in the U.S. back in the 1960s: “How much is too much?” I have never read the novel in question, but I wondered if people could really justify criminal activity solely based on what fictional characters do in a novel? The conversation has been in the news about movies, television and video games being too violent, but it has been awhile since I have heard of a book being “too violent.”
Can a novel be to violent or too crude? Can someone’s morals be degraded because of a novel? Should a publisher, translator, and writer be censored because a novel handles subjects that are taboo? The article explains, “Burroughs’ raw depictions of heroin addiction and homosexuality are hard to digest for some in Turkey, whose mostly Muslim population of 74 million is steeped in old traditions.” If the majority of the population considers the subjects immoral and wrong, does that mean the book should be banned for everyone? Where do you draw the line?
You can read the article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/16/william-s-burroughs_n_862406.html
As a staff member last year and the Assistant Poetry Editor this year, I have noticed a reoccurring theme from Volume 5 into Volume 6. This theme is nature. Last year, we received many submissions all focusing on nature and learning to understand the environment and our place in this world. This subject even extends into our art work, last year we displayed art centered on farm life. For our poetry, we had pieces about sunflowers, winter, and blackberries in Volume 5, and this year, we have poems about cows, birds, and trees. I believe the idea of nature is consistently being discussed in poetry and creative writing because we are attempting to understand our own existence. Other than religion, nature seems to be the way humans analyze and become curious about their own lifestyle and gives a purpose for being a part of this world. Not to reduce the subject to a single idea, such as a cow, but it is exciting to see what each poet will do with either an image or concept concerning nature. Although some of these topics may sound simple, the poets we have published have insightful, imaginative, and brilliant parallels between our world and the natural world. We are always looking for new, energetic, and heartfelt creative work for our literary magazine. However, with these past two issues, the pieces we have received have mostly been focused on nature. Yes, we are located by the water front in the beautiful town of Bristol, RI, but our ads have never indicated we are looking for natural themes, they just happen to come to us, naturally. The overwhelming response of submissions over the past couple of years has made us confident in what our goals are for the magazine as well as our mark in the literary world.
A recent Guardian article titled “A renaissance rooted in technology: the literary magazine returns” argues that the environment for literary magazines looks good. It discusses how the internet has made it more affordable to print and market a literary magazine. In particular it states how the short story is great to read on the commute to work because of the creation of internet-wired cellphones. The article argues that the reason for this change is the re-vamping of literature in order to spur the interest of the population.
This article surprised me for the simple fact that I don’t see that serious literature has become more widely read recently. I feel that more often than not people nowadays would rather turn on the television and fry their brains than sit down to read a good book. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy a good television-brain-fry once in a while, but looking at the current state of children in our country and even the world, they are being entertained by Spongebob Squarepants instead of being read Goodnight Moon or Horton Hears a Who. I don’t blame parents for this; it’s easier to entertain a child with television than with a book because it’s hard to get children to sit still for the time it takes to read a book. But if they don’t inspire their children to read, the responsibility falls on the next generation.
With this being said, I hope to see more children and adults embrace literature and make it a part of their life because reading is truly one of the most enriching, intellectually stimulating activities one can do. I also hope that the literary magazine world continues to flourish because I believe it is wonderful because it gives us easy access to up-and-coming serious literature.
I’ve got a thing about novels or plays being translated into different mediums, such as movies or even . . . comic books? The newest one I’ve heard of is Lucy Knisley taking the Harry Potter series and turning them into comic books. While I find this idea charming and sort of funny (after viewing the pictures), something about this still rubs me the wrong way. I think this was ruined for me when I was assigned Macbeth in graphic novel form for my Shakespeare class. Part of me enjoyed the artistic depiction, but the rest of me despised the artistic license that the designers took in interpreting the author’s original text.
Is it okay to take another author’s text to do this? Is it unoriginal? Is it any different than a movie being made from the book? I’m not sure. Check the article out for yourself here.
The trusty Huffington Post just posted a blog post by Evil Wylie’s blog: Evil Reads. As we are all aware, the English had developed a great deal over the past decades. Considering these changes, editor Evil Wylie has “stripped the unsightly ‘n-word’ from Twain’s original text – and replaced it with ‘Navy SEAL.'” Now, Huck goes on his adventure with his friend, Navy SEAL Jim. See the article here.
What impact do you think this will have on the story?
The craze to run out and purchase an eReader has been slightly subdued. Now that the frenzy has died down, questions about malware are arising. The Huffington Post linked to Media Bistro’s article about bad links possibly corrupting eReaders. Click here to read the article.
Today is the 85th birthday of critically acclaimed author Harper Lee. Harper Lee has been classified as a recluse following the rapid success of To Kill a Mockingbird. The study of this book was offered for the annual Birss Memorial Lecture during the 2009-2010 school year. Marja Mills is coming out with a memoir under Penguin that examines the lives intertwined with Harper Lee. Mills claims that Lee gave her support to the project; however, Harper Lee refutes this claim. Find the article published by the Los Angeles Times here.
I just found this interesting piece on family life as the subject of writing. It’s a charming piece, and struck a note with me, since most of my writing is very personal and about my family experiences. It’s definitely something to think about, and I wonder how my family would feel if they read some of my writing…
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