Knox Writers’ House Contributor’s Pick of the Week 11/3/2013

I’m Glorious in My Destruction like an Atomic Bomb by Diane Suess in Kalamazoo, MI

Chosen by Rachel Swearingen in Kalamazoo, MI who says:

I wanted to choose a story by a writer I’d never met before, so I combed through the Knox Writer House archives, listening for hours. I discovered some wonderful stories, but I found myself returning to Di Seuss’s poem, “I’m Glorious in My Destruction like an Atomic Bomb,” just to hear it one more time. In Kalamazoo, Di is a bit of a legend. Long before I actually met her, people were telling me to read her book Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open, which I did, cover to cover over a period of a few nights. The fiction writer in me thrills at how much Seuss packs into this particular poem. It’s a lesson in modulation and so much more. The language is both lush and brutal. I could go on and on about my favorite bits: “even then my mouth open like a bullet hole in a picture window,” “I folded up like an ironing board,” or “a tangled sullied wilderness scarified with highways.” In the poem, a young woman is picked up from the Amtrak station by her cousin and told she looks “more ravaged than I expected.” Seuss ravages the word “ravaged” then, so much so that by the end of the poem, we are left not with the young man’s gaze on the girl, but with the woman’s gaze turned back at the girl she was and what she will endure over the next thirty years. Seuss manages to evoke the public and the private here, as well as the political and the historical. She takes apart the idea of beautiful and ruined, and through her language manages to leave me both with a feeling of tired despair and exulted survival. Listening to this poem is like watching a film noir train station scene, only better. I see a train screeching to a halt, a woman stepping off into the exhaust, in red lipstick and a too-tight, belted dress–only this time the film is narrated by the woman herself. 

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Oct 22, 2013

KWH friend and Minnesota’s own Matt Rasmussen’s incredible book Black Aperture is a Finalist for the National Book Award in poetry. In celebration, go listen to all the poems Matt read for Knox Writers’ House here and revisit his  Pick of the Week, Even Because by poet Ralph Angel.

Congratulations Matt!

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KWH House Pick Sept 8, 2013

Ghost Fargo by Paula Cisewski 

in The Twin Cities, MN

Dear Fellow KWH Fans,

I am currently running a USA Projects fundraiser for a memoir which incorporates narrative and lyric essays, physical documents, interviews, poems, fragments, and photographs. It will explore the story, and the lack of story, around the loss of my brother, who “escaped” from prison in 1982 and was not heard from again. I have written about this subject poem-by-poem for decades; there are “brother poems” in both of my published poetry collections. For various practical reasons, which seem impractical now, I have put off writing the whole story and I have put off connecting this personal story to a larger picture. I want to devote my time to writing it, cohesively and in-depth.

The story examines ideas about imprisonment and liberation, family, absence and presence, healing, justice, and real clumsy love. According to documentary filmmaker and artist Ashley Hunt, the U.S. currently has the largest percentage of incarcerated people of any nation at any time. With the rise of the for-profit prison system and other troubling factors, I believe chronicling the causes and effects of one particular family’s experience to be relevant and humanizing.

If you have time to take a look and you like what you see, please consider supporting the project or spreading the word to interested parties.

Thank you! Paula

http://www.usaprojects.org/project/f_ck_your_punishment_culture

Let us know what you think….post a comment or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

KWH House Pick August 20, 2013

What! MORE NEW KWH AUDIO. This July, check out the amazing stories and poems we picked up from some great folks this past winter.

Today enjoy:

Lean Time by Natalie Shapero 

in Gambier, OH.

Let us know what you think….post a comment or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

KWH House Pick August 13, 2013

What! MORE NEW KWH AUDIO. Throughout this summer check out the amazing stories and poems we recorded from some great folks this past winter.

Today enjoy:

At the Particle Accelerator at Krasnoyarsk by Brendan Todt

in Sioux City, Iowa. 

Let us know what you think….post a comment or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

KWH House Pick August 6, 2013

What! MORE NEW KWH AUDIO. This summer check out the amazing stories and poems we recorded from some great folks this past winter.

Today enjoy:

From the Chute by Eric Higgins 

in Houston, TX.

Let us know what you think….post a comment or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

KWH House Pick July 23, 2013

What! MORE NEW KWH AUDIO. This July, check out the amazing stories and poems we picked up from some great folks this past winter.

Today enjoy:

Mom Blog by  Sophie Rosenblum 

in Houston, TX.

Let us know what you think….post a comment or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

KWH House Pick July 8, 2013

What! MORE NEW KWH AUDIO. This July, check out the amazing stories and poems we picked up from some great folks this past winter.

Today enjoy:

Vanilla (A Herstory) by Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers

in Gambier, OH

PS. You can find this incredible poet’s first collection Chord Box here.

Let us know what you think….post a comment or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

KWH House Pick July 1, 2013

What! MORE NEW KWH AUDIO. This July, check out the amazing stories and poems we picked up from some great folks this past February at AWP 2013 in Boston.

Today enjoy:

Hunters by Eugene Cross 

in Erie, PA

Let us know what you think….post a comment or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

KWH House Pick June 25, 2013

This muggy morning, we recommend

Natalie Giarratano in Washington, DC (formerly in Kalamazoo, MI)

reading her beautiful poem Armenia at the Dinner Table.

After you take a listen to this  gracious friend of KWH reading, we further recommend you mosey over to here to order the Liam Rector First Book Prize winning Leaving Clean.  Congratulations Natalie! 

Let us know what you think….post a comment or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!

KWH House Pick June 17, 2013

Over the winter, Knox Writers’ House made it out to the long-fabled West Coast to record some writers living over in California and Oregon. Now, we are hitting the road again and treating you all to some House favorites among the new audio poems and stories.

Today enjoy:

Detroit as Barn by Crystal Williams

in Portland, OR

Let us know what you think….post a comment or email us at [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!