Wishing You a Belated Happy Kentucky Writers' Day

I wanted to write a post for Kentucky Writers' Day (April 24th), but computer problems and personal insanities kept me occupied.

I also wanted to add an amendment to my previous comment about former Poet Laureates of Kentucky, and note that it's a little difficult to find information on some Poet Laureates, particularly from early on, when the appointment process was a bit more sporadic.

I remember hearing James Baker Hall describe the early appointment process (and I paraphrase): Sometimes a member of the General Assembly would say, "So-and-so down in such-and-such holler writes some poems. Let's make her Poet Laureate of Kentucky." And the Assembly would vote for this, and the poet was happy, and the member was happy because he'd made his constituents happy. But beyond this the benefits for Kentucky and literature were relatively small.

So, when I said that as far as I know, former Poet Laureates of Kentucky wrote poetry, well, I only know back so far. But certainly ever since the Kentucky Arts Council has been involved in the process, Poet Laureates in Kentucky (until now) have written poetry.

On to newer news: I was very happy to hear that the crowd for Gurney Norman's April 24th induction ceremony overwhelmed the Capitol Rotunda. There aren't a lot of literary events that require more seating than is available. So Huzzah! for auspicious beginnings!

Gurney Norman: New Kentucky Poet Laureate

National Poetry Month seems like the perfect time to formerly induct a new state Poet Laureate, and on Friday (April 24th) Gurney Norman will officially take over from Jane Gentry Vance. After receiving the news, my first thought was Oh! I didn't know Gurney Norman wrote poetry. How wonderful!

Well, he hasn't published any poetry. The official Kentucky website says, "The word 'poet' in the position's title is interpreted in its broadest sense to include persons whose accomplishments are in any literary form." The dictionary allows for this broad use of the word poet. But the U.S. Poet Laureate always falls under the narrower definition and writes poetry, and as far as I can tell, all of Kentucky's past Poet Laureates wrote poetry. This seems a little funny to me.

Part of me is peeved because it's not as if Kentucky's run out of great (poetry-writing) poets on whom the Kentucky Arts Council/governor could bestow this honor. And part me is tickled by imagining the Kentucky Arts Council watching Gurney Norman's long and acclaimed career and waiting and waiting for him to write a volume of poetry until, finally, someone exclaims, "Darn it all! We have to get Gurney Norman for Poet Laureate before the man dies on us."

I've only read Norman's Kinfolks (so far), but his history of prose achievement and promoting literature in Kentucky (and Kentucky in literature) is certainly worth honoring. A major part of the job of Kentucky Poet Laureate is to advance reading and writing in the Commonwealth, and in that sense, Gurney Norman is a perfect fit. I won't be able to attend the ceremony in Frankfort, but I hope our new Poet Laureate makes it down to my end of the state. I also hope that he pays special attention to the important, but much neglected, role of Kentucky poetry.

Book Personality Quiz

I love Blue Pyramid's Book Quiz! In six questions, it picks one out of 64 works of literature for you to be. I'm A Prayer for Owen Meany. Not half bad!

You're A Prayer for Owen Meany!

by John Irving

Despite humble and perhaps literally small beginnings, you inspire faith in almost everyone you know. You are an agent of higher powers, and you manifest this fact in mysterious and loud ways. A sense of destiny pervades your every waking moment, and you prepare with great detail for destiny fulfilled. When you speak, IT SOUNDS LIKE THIS!



But then, of course, I had to keep retaking the quiz to see what else I could be. (I stopped when I got Ulysses.) Take it and let me know what you get. I know it's silly, but come on, it's only six questions...

Ulysses by James Joyce

I've finally finished James Joyce's Ulysses. A work of such magnitude, symbolism, and breadth deserves a long, thoughtful post. But since when have I been in the habit of giving great writers what they deserve?

Top Five Reasons You Might Want to Read Joyce's Ulysses

1. You're the sort of person who gets a kick out being able to say you've read some large, ponderous volume. Enough of a kick to actually endure said large, ponderous volumes. (This is my excuse.)


2. You're getting a graduate level degree in English, and you're terrified of what will happen if your peers find out you haven't read certain large, ponderous volumes. (They won't kill you. On the contrary, they need to keep someone around they can mock. Instead, you'll receive copies of Dan Brown's work in the mail with anonymous notes saying, "This made me think of you.")


3. You've heard that Ulysses is obscene, and you really prefer your erotic reading to contain no actual sex but to involve men who think constantly about sex, bowel movements, and academic theories; women who think constantly about sex, bowel movements, and how much they hate other women; and long strings of rhyming words that dissolve into jumbles of letters just for the heck of it.


4. Reading twenty-five pages of dialogue that you can't comprehend makes you feel smart. (Also my excuse.)


5. You've read everything else in the world, including the West Kentucky Rural Telephone Directory and the Sony M-16 VCR manual. (But in that case, you've already read Finnegans Wake, so nothing should intimidate you.)

Top Five Things I Enjoyed about Ulysses

1. The complexity and breadth of Joyce's symbols: father-son relationships, Hamlet, the mother (as Freudian symbol, as Ireland, as female ideal), The Odyssey, Irish history (particularly in relationship to conflict and betrayal), Biblical stories, and... well, everything else.


2. The novelty of Joyce's writing. Joyce's various styles and tones (the language of old Celtic legends, of 19th century humorists, of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, etc.) are mixed with various forms (play script, Q&A catechism format, newspaper headlines, etc.).


3. Joyce's use of foils to bring out his characters' personalities. (It wasn't until Bloom and Stephen were together that I really felt the distinctness of these two characters.)


4. The occasional bouts of the hilariously ridiculous.


5. Finishing it.

(Image from The Blue Pyramid.)

The Literary Merits of Biblical Characters

I've got a nasty cold/infection/virus, so I've been doing a lot more reading than writing (and a lot more curled-up-on-the-couch-PBS-watching than anything), so I'm keeping my nonsensical, mucus-laden thoughts to myself. (You can thank me later.)

Do, however, feel free to check out Tod Linafelt's thoughts on the literary merits of Biblical characters. I haven't read James Wood's How Fiction Works (which Linafelt discusses), but that didn't make this article any less intriguing. (In fact, I find I sometimes enjoy reading about certain books more than I enjoy reading the books themselves. But that may be unnatural.)

Easter Poems

I forgot to mention that April is National Poetry Month! Americans are being encouraged to read a poem a day for a month. Daily poems can be found at the Academy of American Poets, Knopf Doubleday, and (as always) Poetry Daily. More on celebrating National Poetry Month next week.

But a much more important celebration waits in the wings. I wish you a blessed Easter and renewed hope in Christ.

(Here and here are some Easter poems. My favorite is probably Rory Harris'.)

Fewer Posts, Better Posts... Same Great Price

Breaking News: Bethany has decided to cut back to four blog-posts a week.

In the past, the blogger tried to post five times a week. Her decision, she says, stems from her hatred of that "morning-after regret when I go through the post I wrote the night before and try to fix all the typos, run-on sentences, missing transitions, and stuff-that-just-makes-no-sense-unless-I-was-drugged-and-translating-from-an-alien-language. This blog will never be great literature, but I'm hoping the posts will flow a little better if I give myself more time to write and edit them."

Bethany also said she'd like to write more posts about writing if she "can think of ways to do this that don't sound really uninformed or self-indulgent, like 'Today I wrote stuff. Then I wrote more stuff. It was all crap. I hate my life.'"

A source close to Bethany said that she's probably also trying to steal more time for her non-blog-related writing, but Bethany would neither confirm nor deny this statement.

"Who knows?" she said. "Some weeks there might be more posts, but I'm not promising anything." In the past she has been known to skip a whole week of posting without explanation.

(Image from Muppet Wiki.)