Photo by Angela Gorgas, National Portrait Gallery

I’m re-reading The Rachel Papers. This photo of Martin A, currently on display at one of my favourite art galleries in the world, was taken in 1968 [Update: I've just been informed by the Gallery that the photo was actually taken in 1978 despite what it says on their website...must say however that Mr. A looks much closer to 20 than 30 in the pic, if you ask me], making him just about the same age as our Charles Highway. One of the things that strikes me about The Rachel Papers is how similar its squalling-into-the-world opening is to that found in Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. Once I lay my hands on the latter I’ll give you a side-by-each, separated-at birth-example. Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of the show at the Portrait Gallery.

JMV

Born in Los Angeles in 1946, Robert Bringhurst is an award winning Canadian poet, typographer and author. Perhaps best known for  The Elements of Typographic Style – a reference book of typefaces, glyphs and the visual and geometric arrangement of type, he is also a respected translator of poetic works from Haida into English.  He lives on Quadra Island, near Campbell River, B.C.

We met recently in Ottawa to talk about his definition of the book as articulated in The Surface of Meaning, and of typography and the services it ideally offers its readers, including:

Invite the reader into the text

Reveal the tenor and meaning of the text

Clarify the structure and the order of the text

Link the text with other existing elements

Induce a state of energetic repose, which is the ideal condition for reading

Please listen to our conversation here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

L.S.  Harris in The Nature of English Poetry informs us that there are only two things to consider when criticising poetry: the poem and yourself. "Your only means of judging a poem is the effect it has upon you; so if you are to be honest and clear you will have to write about yourself a great deal."

So the first question to ask is, ‘What effect does the poem have on me?’, the second, more difficult, is: ‘Why?’

Why do I like or dislike it.? Does it please my ear? Is that good enough? Do its statements impress me? Do I understand them, or are they purposefully vague? Either way, am I affected or pleased by them? Does the poem appeal to reason ? Is it the images that I find most appealing? Perhaps  it’s the combination of thoughts, images  and sounds that produce the impact, where one without the others would  produce no effect?

If you’re not sure what it is about the poem that appeals, try removing an image, or a sound. Find the words that introduce new feelings into the poem. Sadness. Mirth. Irritation. Or those that jar you, or make you swoon, laugh or cry; then check the effect. Still the same? 

Many times these feelings, likes or dislikes, will be stirred by reasons unrelated to the poem itself. Perhaps you like the place the poem describes, or the animal. Perhaps you were in a happy head space when you first encountered the poem – falling in love? Perhaps your grandmother first read it to you in her warm cosy living room; or in her country-side garden.  Or maybe it’s the book in which the poem is bound. Its smell, touch, illustrations. Or perhaps you hate the poem because an ignorant teacher once tried ramming it down your throat, or made fun of you in front of the class for not understanding it.

Try then to isolate these experiences. Mention them, but make clear that they are personal reasons for reacting to the poem in the way you do; reasons which may distance your response from the response of others.

Regardless, says L.S., regardless of how much you may know about rhythm and prosody, no matter how much you may know about theories of poetry, when you judge a poem, you must trust your own feelings. Those who set about criticisizing poetry  with a foot-rule, or a set of proportions and qualities which they think every poem ought to exhibit, end up making themselves ridiculous.  As do those who, ‘like men who tap the wheels of a train before it sets out on a long journey’ look out for flaws before they have read the poem, condemning false rhymes, insisting that each line must contain definite numbers of sylllables according to strict rules.

Irregularity of rhythm can, for example, as often as not be a virtue as a fault. The whole poem, and its effect must first be considered, for the effect, rather than any rule, or fact, is the essential component of a poem.

***

Do those who set about criticising poetry or literature based on a set of  qualities or rules make themselves ridiculous? 

What of merit? If a jury arrives at a unaminous decision, surely, in evaluating why all choose the same winner, after isolating and excluding personal experience, there must be a set of common reasons that can be identified which explain how one entry emerges victorious over the others? And can’t one of these reasons be that the winning entry breaks rules and exhibits original qualities?

Latest find: $5.00 Cdn. 

This find, which I announced (bragged about) on Facebook, brought on a comment by Dorota Wąsik who informed me that Animal Farm was banned by the United Arab Emirates in 2002: which strikes me as odd, in light of the new openness with which that country is promoting international discussion of Arab authored books. In fact, I note with interest that Martin Amis will be attending the 2010 Emirates Airline International Festival of Literature to air, clarify and discuss his position on Muslim fundamentalists and Sharia law.

A.B. Yehoshua was born in 1936 to a fifth-generation Jerusalem family of Sephardi origin. His first book of stories, "Mot Hazaken" (The Death of the Old Man) was published in 1962. He was an important member of the "new wave" generation of Israeli writers who differed from earlier writers by focusing on the individual rather than the group.  Franz Kafka, Shmuel Yosef Agnon, and William Faulkner  were all formative influences. 

Author of nine novels, three books of short stories, four plays, and four collections of essays, Yehoshua has won the Brenner Prize, the Alterman Prize,  the Bialik Prize, the Israel Prize for Literature, the National Jewish Book Award and many, many other international prizes.

His most recent novel, Friendly Fire, explores the nature of Israeli familial relationships, personal grief and bitterness. We met recently at the Blue Met Writers Festival in Montreal to talk about the book.  Our conversation touches on the Jewish diaspora, hatred and minorities, a two state solution, gestures recognizing good, the metaphor of fire, domestic violence, Apartheid, South Africa, solutions, marriage, and marriages between Arabs and Jews.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

and this:

…the barn-red, hay-green fact of this place:

 Also, FOR SALE SIGN, WILSON STREET, NOTRE-DAME-DE-GRACE

for its title, and the tensions and relationships it contains:

and

Your look, though, was one for the books.

And a question, contra Paul Vermeersch’s suggestion in the Globe and Mail that "It might be difficult for Starnino’s poetry to wiggle out from under the hard-faced elephant (nice) of his critical persona." Why would one wish to wriggle out from under the other? Why, in fact, should one have anything what-so-ever to do with the other…unless there’s some ‘hoisting with his own petard’ to be done…none of which I see in the article.

I saw this installation years ago at the National Gallery of Canada. This photo of Anish Kapoor’s Untitled, 1990, cannot do justice to the incredibly intense experience offered through immersion of the self in a rich, beautiful colour. Sticking your head inside one of those cones feels like, what it must feel like, to float in outer space…there’s a physical reaction; plus an awe, a wonder. That’s what this artist can create.

John Piper, Romney Marsh, A King Penguin Book (1950)

This has to be one of the sweetest little books in my collection. Contains colour plates at the back, of the marsh itself, preceded by sketches of some of the churches in the district. Same format as those lovely Ladybird Books, only slightly wider. Here’s what abebooks has to say.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

If you think that the Three Day Novel Contest is fast, check out NPR’s Three Minute Fiction. The premise is simple: Listeners send in original short stories that can be read in three minutes or less — about 500-600 words long.

James Wood, literary critic for The New Yorker will appear on-air throughout the summer to read his favorite submissions. Says Wood, a 500-word story "strikes at the very heart of the short story as a project, which is to get something going rapidly." Writing three-minute fiction is good practice. Think, he says, of the masters of the short story, like Anton Chekhov, who began his career writing comic squibs for newspapers."This is something that interests all writers, not just short-story writers, but novelists, too," Woods says. "How do you get a character, as it were, into a room and up and going within a sentence or two?" "One of the most effective ways to get a very short story vivid," he says, "is to think in terms of voice." Maybe the character narrates the story, for example, or perhaps the story is told within the consciousness of the character. "In other words," Wood says, "thinking in terms of the story as a dramatic monologue."

Woods reads a 200 word piece here by Lydia Davis to show how powerful a very brief short story can be. "For Sixty Cents" brings a moment in a Brooklyn coffee shop to life. It’s fragmentary and suggestive, like the pieces Wood expects to hear from listeners. "I’m going to be looking at a writer’s ability to suggest a world, rather than to fill it in and dot every i."