Librotraficante

When I was a little boy, I had the following poster on my wall:

Turns out my jump shot wasn't true, even after I got a pair of Jordans, so in the end, the weapon I chose was words. I read a good many of them, and later, I wrote some too. Now what is true, for me, is that books can shake up the world. Believe it.

Another writer who believes it is coming to WVU next week. That writer is Dagoberto Gilb, Guggenheim recipient and PEN/Hemingway Award winner, among other things. He is a former teacher of mine, and he writes from the gut and soul, from las alturas and from hoyos. He spills it on the page. (Those last two lines are lazily ripped-off from one of his books, Gritos.)

But I've gathered that we live in a digital culture, that we are a people who need something more than books. You're looking at a screen right now. Do you want some footage? Have some:

So, words are the best kinds of weapons. Consider that without the writing of Fred Cruz, there would be no footage to watch. Consider further that without the writers who later wrote of Fred Cruz, including Dagoberto Gilb (who wrote the script for Writ Writer), there would be no footage to watch. It's the passing down of the words that matters. Before you clicked the video, how many of you knew Fred Cruz's story? Of more immediate concern, how many of you know what is happening in Arizona as I write these very words? Right now, in the Tuscon Unified School District, books are being taken from the students who need them. The words of Dagoberto Gilb, among many others, are being removed from schools' Mexican American Studies programs. In the face of this absurdity, writers are employing their full arsenal of weapons, including words of outrage, hilarity, wit and wisdom. Check this out from Tony Diaz, founder of Nuestra Palabra:

Spread the word to anyone who knows or wants to know the truth about the power of books. Tell them to come to the Gold Ballroom of the Mountainlair this Wednesday, February 8th at 7:30 p.m. A writer will be reading some real words there. His name is Dagoberto Gilb.

Doug Terry, ABD

This just in from Professor Ernest:

"Congratulations to Doug Terry, who passed his booklist exam.  A great time was had by all--and Doug has built a solid foundation for an ambitious and important dissertation.  Nice job, Doug!"

The Tenants are very pleased to be able to add their congratulations too.

Spring Break Jamaica--Global Service Learning (all majors welcome)

Spring Break in Jamaica

Study and Volunteer in Jamaica for Spring Break 2012 with WVU and Amizade!

·        Live with a local family

·        Participate in a community development project

·        Visit historical and tourist sites

·        Earn university credit

·        Become an active global citizen

INTS 499—Global Service Learning: Community Development in Petersfield, Jamaica (1 cr.), with Prof. Gwen Bergner, Dept. of English

This course puts global service learning into practice in Petersfield, Jamaica during one intense week of service work; cultural immersion; and the study of global citizenship.  The one-week service learning component in Jamaica allows us to observe and experience the impact of globalization on the people in the community.  The location is ideal: our host organization, the Association of Clubs (AOC), was founded as an outgrowth of the sugar workers’ cooperative at the Frome sugar estate, and Negril, a tourist resort, is only about an hour away from the community of Petersfield.  Participating in a community service project directed by the AOC provides the opportunity to develop mutually enriching relationships across cultural and national boundaries.

Overview

·        We will meet at least once before traveling to Petersfield, Jamaica and we’ll have on-line discussions before the trip. Each student will construct a blog through Google’s blogger platform to develop throughout the course.

·        In Jamaica, students perform service work on weekday mornings, attend class after lunch to discuss course materials, and participate in site visits and cultural activities in the afternoon. Evenings are spent with host families.

·        Activities include visits to a local sugar cane production facility, an underground slave route, and local and tourist beaches.

·        After our return, each student will complete a capstone project by adding journal-type entries, links, photographs, images, and video to his/her blog.

For scholarship and financial aid information, please see: http://amizade.org/programs/service-learning-courses/financial-aid/.

For more information, please see www.amizade.org or contact Gwen Bergner at gwen.bergner@mail.wvu.edu.

Hungry Poets: Recite for Your Supper!

Hungry Poets Prize

In Memory of Gabe Friedberg

$250 Prize for the winning poem

$100 Second Prize, $50 Third Prize

          Finalists will read their poems at Hungry Poets Night at the Blue Moose Café in Morgantown, Saturday April 14, 8:00 p.m. Finalists will be notified the week of March 18.

Guidelines:                                                                                                    

§        Entries must be postmarked (or hand delivered) on or before March 3, 2012.

§        Entries must be between 50 and 500 words.  Only one poem (or poem series less than 500 words) per person.

§        Poems must be typed. The Contest is not responsible for lost entries - Do not send your only copy.

§        You retain any copyright to your poem, but you agree that the contest organizers may publish it in a not-for-profit medium.

§        Include your name, age, phone number and email address.

§        Applicants must be under 30 years old.

§        Each finalist must read his/her poem at Hungry Poets Night to be eligible for the prize.

§        Your poem should not have been previously published or awarded a prize or compensation of any kind.

§        $15 gift certificate to each hungry finalist for one of Morgantown’s progressive eateries.

§        Judges’ decisions will be highly subjective but final. 

                       

                        Send entries to:     

                             Hungry Poets Prize

                             C/o Blue Moose Café

248 Walnut Street                                                            Co-sponsored by

Morgantown, WV  26505                              WVU Department of English

CFP: Literary London, 2012

Call for Papers
Literary London 2012

 

Hosted by: the Institute of English Studies, University of London
Organised by: The Literary London Society
4-6 July 2012

 

The 11th Annual Literary London conference will be hosted by the Institute of English Studies, University of London, on 4-6 July 2012. The Institute is located in Bloomsbury, at the centre of literary London, and just a few minutes’ walk from such attractions as the British Library, the British Museum, and the clubs, pubs, and restaurants of Soho. It is at the heart of London: one of the world's major cities with a long and rich literary tradition reflecting both its diversity and its significance as a cultural and commercial centre. Literary London 2012 aims to:

• Read literary and dramatic texts in their historical and social context and in relation to theoretical approaches to the study of the metropolis.
• Investigate the changing cultural and historical geography of London.
• Consider the social, political, and spiritual fears, hopes, and perceptions that have inspired representations of London.
• Trace different traditions of representing London and examine how the pluralism of London society is reflected in London literature.
• Celebrate the contribution London and Londoners have made to English literature and drama.

Proposals are invited for 20-minute papers, comprised panels, and roundtable sessions, which consider any period or genre of literature about, set in, inspired by, or alluding to central and suburban London and its environs, from the city’s roots in pre-Roman times to its imagined futures. While the main focus of the conference will be on literary texts, we actively encourage interdisciplinary contributions relating film, architecture, geography, theories of urban space, etc., to literary representations of London. Papers from postgraduate students are particularly welcome for consideration. While papers on all areas of literary London are welcomed, the conference theme in 2012 is ‘Sports, Games, and Pastimes’. Topics that might be addressed are:

• Sport: participation, spectatorship, and sporting events including the three London Olympics
• Gambling
• Shopping and fashion
• Pubs and coffee houses
• Games and hobbies
• Holidays, downtime, and park-life
• Child’s play
• Reading and writing as pastimes

Please submit all proposals for 20-minute papers, comprised panels, and roundtable sessions using the online forms at http://www.literarylondon.org/conference/

All proposals must be received by the deadline of 1 April 2012

For more information about the conference, please contact the conference organiser, Martin Dines, at conference@literarylondon.org

 

The full call for papers, online proposals forms, and information about the Literary London Society and the Literary London Journal can be found at the Society’s website: http://www.literarylondon.org

 

Please circulate this CFP far and wide!

 

Best wishes

 

Brycchan Carey

President of the Literary London Society

The Grad Student Rap

While most graduate students do not have time to type the entirety of Moby Dick on a roll of Scott, some do have time to write a serious musical composition bemoaning grad student life. Enjoy!

Material Culture

For those of you interested in some of the more unworn paths of human endeavor, the Tenants have discovered a particularly novel way in which to spend your free time.* A seller on EBay named the_heppcat is currently auctioning the entire text of Moby Dick typed on toilet paper. Starting bid is $399.95 (but shipping is free). For the more sceptical among you, the webpage includes a number of videos of the_heppcat unrolling various "volumes" of the text to show that it is, in fact, complete.

Now, so far, there are no bids, but if this "mod oddity" sells, the Tenants are considering setting up a cottage industry in the barn, inscribing various literary works on non-standard items. As with those Project Runway challenges that involve making clothes out of items found at The Dollar Store, however, where contestants who select some kind of fabric are always ridiculed, we intend to eschew anything as obvious as yet another form of paper. The first project: writing the works of Emily Dickinson on Skittles.

*Not recommended for graduate students, who, as everyone knows, have no free time.

It's a very pretty book...

And lovely inside too. Jim Harms' Comet Scar, that is. Just out from Carnegie Mellon. Have you gotten your copy yet? You'll be wanting to, of course. Jim will be reading on March 8 and you'll want to be ready. You can read straight through or you can do what I do, which is just open the book anywhere and begin. Here's the poem I read first:

Phoebe

She's listing the leaves again.

She's beginning with leaf

like a hand, then

leaf like a little leaf.

She's folding the leaf

like a letter into a map

to fit in her pocket.

Dear Me, How are you

but I already know.

She's licking a lemon

plucked from my tea,

the glass on a tray on

the porch steps.

She's shaking a spoon

of wet sugar.

She's lecturing a year-old

nest finally fallen

from the elm, saying

How could you? She walks

the nest to a pile of leaves;

she buries it deep, she digs it out.

She spends fifteen minutes

trying to throw it back

into the tree before

she looks at me again,

before anything else.

I like that one, don't you? Effortlessness is so hard to pull of. I learned a lot just by typing. That's how poetry works, sometimes: it sneaks up on you.

Congratulations to Jim. And remember: March 8, 7:30 p.m., in the Gold Ballroom. Until then, happy reading.

Spring Reading Series Kicks Off

Our first reading of the semester—this Wednesday, January 18, at 7:30 p.m. in 130 Colson—will feature two alumni authors: Katie Fallon (MFA) and Ida Stewart (BA). Here's a little something to tide you over until then...

From Katie's Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird:

My legs could barely carry me up a steep logging road, but this tiny bird had just completed a 3,000-mile trip despite tremendous odds—perhaps dodging storms, evading predators, and dealing with shrinking habitat the entire way. Since this bird was more than two years old, he'd made that journey at least six times. I admired our little cerulean a great deal. He was much stronger than I was. A bird equivalent of me would have dropped into the Gulf after only a few feet.

Greg asked if I wanted to hold the cerulean warbler. This was a silly question, of course...

The warbler cocked his head and looked at me with a clear black eye. A month earlier, he may have stared at scarlet macaws and other tropical birds during migration. He could have looked down at oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. And now, he peered at me. I swallowed, tried not to cry, and instead focused on memorizing all of his intricate markings and colors.

And from Ida's Gloss:

Enough

A mountain of song and dance.

Everybody's leading who's got feet

and not got time enough to listen.

J's on the banjo asking who knows

the words, if you do sing along,

if you don't, pick it up quick.

Red's learning the old song, a new

old way. Thinking it's too far away

from home, too fancy, everybody's got

a different notion of fancy.

The old ways, the right ways, the shortcut

up around and down

and up again. Everybody says

I got a plan, I got a plan,

then waits to see what summer says,

but she just comes and goes,

another gust of dance. This mountain,

this is me and you. All of you. This place

we're in all talk. All follow

and sidestep. All call and response.

All of you, there is no middle ground,

it's all middling, and there is no higher road.

There is no more, no more than this

song and dance has a climax,

has a peak or an end.

Hope to see you at Wednesday's reading. WV cookies provided, of course.

Dr. Justus

Dr. Justus, at the precise moment of transformation.

The Tenants are very pleased to announce that regular, normal graduate student Jeremy C. Justus has become Dr. Justus. The apotheosis occurred during a conversation with his dissertation committee, a far-flung and distinguished group: Judith Halberstam, Donald Hall, Judith Roof, and Timothy Sweet, as well as yours truly. Since much of the dissertation defense centered around issues of privacy, agency, and subjectivity in an era of hyper-surveillance, with Facebook serving as a continual example of new forms of both narrative and self-fashioning, it was apt that this photo hit hundreds of people's newsfeeds even as the committee was still congratulating him.