Yesterday was the first time I read a novel cover to cover in, like, I don't know. Maybe two years? Maybe five? And I remembered how that used to be a weekly thing when I was a grad student. Nowhere to go but couch and cat and book. At the time I thought it was a really shitty way to live. I was obviously an idiot to think that. I would love to have more days of nothing but read. Note: there is a difference between day of nothing but read and day of evaluating 50+ poetry manuscripts in a sitting. Just wanted to clarify.This week I am going to Jackson, Mississippi with the amazing Erika Meitner to visit students of Steve Kistulentz and to read some poems and to be on the radio and to bring our poetry taboo craft talk to a new audience. With my family situation and all it's been a while since I have been able to travel far away aside from AWP, so this is really cool. Things are finally better. I have never been to the south aside from AWP Hotlanta. I have no idea what to expect. I used to travel quite extensively. But I also used to be able to read for eight uninterrupted hours. Think there's a connection between these things?
Haven't written many poems. Have, however, started planning for a major fiction project. I have no idea what's gotten into me. I've just been thinking in prose sentences lately. Perhaps it's the weather. Who knows.
Oh, and the novel? Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. I'm reading it for the book club I moderate, but I probably would've read it in one day even if I wasn't under the gun.
6 comments:
funy
Disgrace is one of those books that everyone seems to get around to eventually, and it's the perfect size for cover-to-cover reading.
Enjoy the South! Don't eat too many boiled peanuts!
Oh, I prefer my peanuts fried, thank you very much.
Can't quite remember the last novel I read cover to cover. A few science fiction things, I guess, but it's been a while since I've read something I really dove into.
Last ones probably were the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I finally got around to reading in 1999 (after having known about the books since something like 1968). Those really held me. Before that, sometime in the early 1990's, Treasure Island.
I read massive amounts of poetry, constantly, and essay-type stuff scattered between, but hard to give that level of concentration to novels these days.
"Nowhere to go but couch and cat and book." Lovely. I've mostly been reading short stories in journals, given the constraints of teaching and grading XXX number of comp and world lit papers. I empathize.
So glad you'll be visiting us down South. Wish I were closer to Jackson and could attend the reading! Good luck. Hint: just say "y'all" instead of "you guys" or "you's guys." (Not sure how y'all puralize up there.) :)
Major fiction project? Maybe you're picking up on NaNoWriMo vibes. November feels like a good time to write.
I'm with you on wishing I had more time to read. Usually 1 day a week I can spend a couple hours reading, but I've been wishing I had a couple hours every day.
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