The Moth is a well-known podcasts and stand-up format where professionals and amateurs alike tell personal stories based on a theme.
Circus Bar hosts The Moth on the 3rd Tuesday of every month, including this Tuesday, October 18th. This week’s theme is Hot Mess. Taken from the web site:
“Prepare a five-minute story about spectacular chaos. Faux pas and flamboyant fails. Calamitous confusion. Wearing two different shoes to work, butt dialing your ex, tanking an interview. Disheveled dramas and situations so tangled there is no hope of straightening things out.”
I readily admit that I tend to avoid both poets and poetry. Whether it’s the dense arrangement of words or the way I stereotype poets as aloof and didactic, I don’t give them as much thought.
C. Dale Young, MD, MFA, proves why I’m wrong. I was drawn immediately to him because he has an MFA, but he also went on to medical school, and is now a practicing physician in Redwood, California. So while he was certainly poetic, he was also warm, polite and engaging.
Dr. Young’s poetry is a blend of soul and landscape, in addition to the body. His poems wove through the fabric of his life, mixing in a bit of science here, a dash of hapless romance there, and a zesty topping of fantasy.
As most poets do, Dr. Young’s poetry contains gems such as:
“Things always beg for significance, would that we had time to come back to them”
And:
“No one talks about joy anymore; it is more taboo than love”
He saved the two best ones, however, for the very end. “The Bridge” is available online, and is a whimsical piece about love. On the exact other end of the spectrum was “Torn,” a moving piece about him suturing a victim of homophobic assault and his fear of suffering the same fate.
For the audience’s sake, Dr. Young kept his poems short, and his commentary in between readings was also curt, but often humorous. This is a poet to explore, if you ever have the chance.
This week’s guest of the Zell Visiting Writers Series is C. Dale Young. Mr. Young is not only the author of numerous books and the recipient of numerous literary prizes and fellowships, but also a fully licensed physician.
I invite you to his web site to view a sample of his poetry, or here to read a sample of his prose.
Much of his work revolves around love and nature, and each poem of his that I have read is simple, yet pleasant and enriching.
Thursday, October 13th
5:30 PM in Helmut Stern Auditorium (basement of UMMA)
For a conversation between a writer and an English professor, China Mievelle’s conversation with Joshua Miller was surprisingly unwriterly. Typically, conversations with writers focus on the details of the book and the writing and research process employed, and while China of course discussed his work, the discussion seemed more focused on the ideas contained within the work and not the work itself. China shied away from the more writerly aspects, the questions about what it is like to write and what it is like to be a writer, the questions that all writers are asked all the time. He does not seem to care for such questions and would rather talk about the things he thinks about.
The conversation started, of course, with a discussion about genre and experimentalism. For those unfamiliar with China’s work, he writes within a genre called “New Weird,” which combines aspects of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. On this subject, China talked about how he has had this fascination with monsters since he was a kid. He explored this fascination with the monsters he created in Perdido Street Station, named Remades. These monsters allowed him to work with “impossible specificity,” combining humans with all sorts of bits and scraps of animals, each more unorthodox than the last. After all, a monster according to China is something non-human implanted in the human. The discussion then veered to the sociological, since Remades aren’t just any humans mixed with animal parts, but criminals. He described them as “sadistic imagining of the criminal’s body,” after first discussing how people are obsessed with the bodies of criminals, how we see them as less than human.
From there, the conversation shifted to how China utilizes language (as a concept) in his work, particularly in his novel Embassytown. China has an interest in sociolinguistics and how language shapes the way we think and act. He describes his interest in language as more abstract than specific, as in unlike Tolkien, he doesn’t desire to create his own language, merely work with the theories behind it. In fact, in this book, he plays with Sapir–Whorf hypothesis, which states the grammatical structure of our language shapes how we see the world. Though he acknowledges that this theory is defunct, he still enjoyed exploring its application.
One of the more interesting parts about the conversation for me, was China discussing science-fiction’s obsession with aliens. After all, no matter how they choose to depict them, science-fiction can never truly depict aliens, for “definitionally, the alien cannot be depicted.” Since we are not alien, we are native to our own ways of thinking, we cannot truly imagine an alien being, let alone an alien thought process. In the same way that we cannot say the unsayable definitionally, we cannot show an alien creature.
The last question of the night was asked by a member of the audience and it was “how do you think Brexit will affect the writers and artists living in England (China is British). Though we were long out of time, China could not help but go on a bit of rant about Brexit, which he characterized as the “butchers versus racists” and said that “the EU is as much as a war fetishist as Donald Trump.” As a socialist, China is not particularly attached to either side in the Brexit debate, which allowed him to call out both sides for their hypocrisy. It was great.
“Dear Friends” as a collective work of art is astounding. I’ve only been able to skim through a small portion of it so far, but after attending tonight’s launch party I can barely put it down. It is so inspiring to me simply because it’s a visual representation of a completely diverse group of people coming together to create. Paul Barron sums that up very well near the end of his introductory note: “Whatever our contributors study or work at, they have made a space in their lives to see closely, to experience deeply, and to show us the world through their eyes.” That in itself is why “Dear Friends” is so powerful, and the launch party was no different.
Natalie Burr was the first reader, electing to share her piece of fiction called Making Room. It told a story about how a living person can fade away, leaving their loved ones to grieve about how they used to be. The imagery in Making Room was so vivid that at one point, the narrator was describing running her tongue around her teeth, and I noticed the person sitting to my right doing the same.
The second reader was Christina Khouri with her poem, Untitled. It was a short poem about how hardships can make instability seem normal.
Following Khouri, Asritha Vinnakota first read a short story titled Bells Chime. The story is told throughout the duration of a grandfather clock tolling twelve times. The narration pauses every now and again to let the reader know that, for instance, the fifth bell is chiming. She then read her poem called Bullet Freedom. It seemed to reflect the artfulness of fragmented thoughts.
Next, Sharon Shen read her poem, A Toast. It was a powerful piece comparing the human mind to a garden, likening intrusive thoughts to weeds overtaking daisies. The narrator tells an inspiring tale of survival, realizing “how much power courses through these fragile bones.”
Haley Winkle, a Caldwell finalist, then read Don’t Tell Me, a poem criticizing getting drunk at frat parties. One of the more striking stanzas was: “Don’t tell me how great it is / until he’s getting you to forget / how to spell your own last name”.
After that, Nikole Davtyan read her poem called Used Cars. It told the story of a girl taught at a young age never to have sex. Her mother, giving her “the talk,” compared girls who have sex to cars at the junkyard. The ending of the poem implied the narrator’s resentment towards her mother.
The last reader was Rebecca Polinsky with a nonfiction piece entitled Stinky Feet. It was a narrative discussing how a friend’s eating disorder impacted Polinsky’s life. Although at times horrific, the essay ended with the narrator realizing she was losing her identity as a confident woman by allowing herself to be so negatively influenced. Despite the overall theme of the piece, Polinsky’s conclusions were empowering in the sense that she rediscovered her confidence.
In the words of Megan Knittel, the Editor-in-Chief of “Dear Friends”, “…the core of LHSP philosophy [is] that creative expression can connect us and teach us about ourselves. This year’s journal is about discovering ourselves through others.” I am proud to have a poem included in this amazing collection, and to have been a part of LHSP last year. “Dear Friends” is a magazine containing boundless ideas, limitless new perspectives, and incredible artwork.
As a former member of the Lloyd Hall Scholars Program, tomorrow night’s launch party for the 2015-2016 literary journal is an exciting event. LHSP is a living community that offers courses in the arts. It’s also an amazing way to meet fellow artists or art enthusiasts. The staff puts together a literary magazine featuring student artwork every year.
This year’s collection is called “Dear Friends” and is a culmination of the best artwork from LHSP alumni. It features poetry, prose, and visual artwork. The party begins on Wednesday at 7pm at the Vicky Barner Lounge in Alice Lloyd Hall. Admission is free, and everyone is invited to stop by and listen to some poetry and prose while perusing select artworks.
