Week? Books 6-10.

Oh man, I am really bad at this blog thing. Also possibly really bad at this book-a-week thing. My last post was 11 weeks, and not nearly as many books ago. Oops. Giant YA fantasy tomes are my excuse.

Really. In the past 11 weeks I have read two such books, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by one J.K. Rowling, and Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Both of these I read for this gifted kids' reading class I teach online. Both of them took me forever to get through. I don't quite understand the appeal to young folks of a 500-page doorstop. I mean, I get that there are some really voracious readers out there, but damn, these books are long and plot-heavy and plodding. Can't someone write a decent-sized, literary novel for young folks, or is that too old-fashioned?

But enough of that.

While making my way through the above books, I also occasionally fed my adult brain with some more literary/poetic fare.

First, there was The Angel of History by Carolyn Forchè, a poet whose name I knew but whose work I didn't. I need to read this book again. It's dense and multi-layered and I didn't understand most of it. Lots of French language and references to historical events that I'm not familiar with. There's a section in the book, though, about the Czech Republic, where I lived for a year. It uses some Czech words and references Czech things and the atmosphere of the poems felt familiar and good to me. Again, I need to read this book again.

Then, I read Olena Kalytiak Davis's On the Kitchen Table From Which Everything Has Been Hastily Removed. Years ago, Davis was the first contemporary poet I read and actually liked and felt some connection with. This particular book is weird - lots of sex and drugs and other "inappropriate" things in disjointed poems that ramble on for pages. What I like is her playful approach to language and the sounds of words. This book is also a chapbook, which I'm counting as a full-length in this context because those others were soooo looong (and also because chapbooks are a real poetry thing, which I should read more of). You all (all 1 of you) should read Davis, but start with And Her Soul out of Nothing. Also, I hear she's in the midst of composing some kind of novel in sonnet form? I'm super looking forward to that.

And finally, I managed to read an entire issue of the venerable literary journal, Tin House, their Fall 2018 "Poison" issue, to be exact. Funny thing, this morning I actually received an email from said lit journal. When it first popped up in my inbox, I thought, "Finally, my rejection!" for the submission they've had "in progress" since September, 2017 (yes, 2017). But no. Instead, it was a notification to past submitters and subscribers that they are ceasing publication. Alas, my one-year subscription wasn't enough to keep them afloat. Or perhaps they realized they'd begun publishing crap and decided to call it quits - a wise decision to get out while their reputation still held. Because, really, while their poetry selections tend to be good and varied and slightly boundary-pushing (in my humble opinion), their prose, especially their fiction has been, um, disappointing.

Take, for example, the "Ghost Story" by one Ethan Rutherford, in this most recent issue. In said story, a man/father tells his children a story from his own childhood, when he lived in Anchorage, Alaska. In this childhood story, he explores a small run-down cabin (within walking distance of his home in town??) surrounded by wild blackberry bushes (???), and helps his father on his fishing boat down at the town fishing boat dock (?????) and meets a magical seal woman (??). For those who haven't been to Anchorage or even done some cursory googling about the city and its environs (as I assume is the case for one Mr. Rutherford), these incongruous details might not stick out or matter to the story. But come on Tin House! You have editors! You're based in the PNW! You should be better than this! Details matter! But anyway, the poetry is good and I'm slightly sad to see them shutting their doors. (Also, I'm going to continue operating under the assumption that they were actually planning to accept my most recent submission if they had been able to keep operating.)

And that's it, for now. Perhaps now that the fall semester is at an end, and our angry shaking earth has quieted herself down a bit, and we just got some new books at our lovely little town's Jokabokaflod event last night, I'll get some more reading done. Hopefully.