9L News

Our fearless editor, Jodee Stanley, participated in a discussion about literary magazines, including what happens to the industry during a recession, over at Mayday Magazine. Other editors featured are Aaron Burch (Hobart), Ben George (Ecotone), Raymond Hammond (New York Quarterly), Anne McPeak (A Public Space), and Jacob Knabb (Another Chicago Magazine).

A generous review of Ninth Letter's current issue is up at New Pages. Reviewer Robbie Pieschke says it is "...a sexy literary journal, filled with substance." Thank you, Robbie!

Also don't forget that our Ides of March sale continues through March 31. Get Ninth Letter back issues for $3 or 1-year subscriptions for $15! Use code IDESBACK for issues or IDESSUB for subscriptions. Head on over to the webstore to pick out your issues or order a subscription.

Finally, thanks to everyone who came out to the first annual University of Illinois Early Spring Literary Festival! We had a lot of fun. Planning is already underway for next year's event, so we will keep you updated on dates and other info.

Early Spring Literary Festival - Day 3

Here is the list of events for today, the final day of the University of Illinois Early Spring Literary Festival:

11-12:15 Panel discussion: "Independent Publishing." Aaron Burch (Hobart), Peter Cole (Keyhole), Zach Dodson (Featherproof Books), Jacob S. Knabb (ACM: Another Chicago Magazine)

2-3:15 Panel Discussion: "Where We’re At: Ninth Letter on Writing the Midwest." Ashley Booth, Aaron Burch, Dana Burchfield, Brian Kornell, Micah Riecker. Jodee Stanley, moderator.

4:30 Reading: Philip Graham, LeAnne Howe, Jabari Asim, Michael Madonick

Unless otherwise noted, all events will be held at the Author's Corner, Illini Union Bookstore, 809 S. Wright St., Champaign. The festival events are free and open to the public.

Early Spring Literary Festival - Day 2

Here is the list of today's events for The University of Illinois Early Spring Literary Festival:

11-12 Presentation: Jane Ciabattari, The Art of the Book Review

3-4:15 Panel discussion: "The Truth of the Matter: On Creative Nonfiction and Literary Journalism." Christopher Benson, Jabari Asim, Audrey Petty, Steve Davenport

4:30 Reading: Manuel Martinez and Bayo Ojikutu

All of the events, which are free and open to the public, are at the Author's Corner, Illini Union Bookstore, 809 S. Wright St., Champaign.

Ides of March Sale

We're having an Ides of March Sale and the deals are too good to pass up! Get Ninth Letter back issues for $3 or 1-year subscriptions for $15! Discounts are good through March 31, use code IDESBACK for issues or IDESSUB for subscriptions. Head on over to the webstore to check it out.

Early Spring Literary Festival - Day 1

Here is the list of today's events for The University of Illinois Early Spring Literary Festival:

11-12:15 Panel discussion: “The Next Decade in Book Culture: The Rise of the E-Book." Jane Ciabattari, Philip Graham, Harriett Green (University of Illinois Library), Martin Riker (Dalkey Archive Press)

2-3:15 Panel discussion: "Some Critical and Practical Issues in Translation Studies." Elizabeth Lowe, Patricia Phillips, Anastasia Lakhtikova, Reinhard Mayer

4:30 Reading: Eileen Favorite and Jane Ciabattari

All of the events, which are free and open to the public, are at the Author's Corner, Illini Union Bookstore, 809 S. Wright St., Champaign.

Philip Graham Spring Tour

9L fiction editor, Philip Graham will be on the road this spring to promote his book, The Moon, Come to Earth: Dispatches from Lisbon. The tour kicks off with Philip reading at The University of Illinois Early Spring Literary Festival on Wednesday, March 17 at 4:30pm at the Illini Union Bookstore. All the tour dates can be found over at McSweeney's. Also check out John Warner's conversation with Philip.

University of Illinois Early Spring Literary Festival

The University of Illinois Early Spring Literary Festival, sponsored by the UIUC Creative Writing Program, Ninth Letter, and the Carr Reading series, starts next week. There will be many exciting panels, lectures, readings to celebrate creative writing and contemporary literature.

The festival kicks-off on Sunday, March 14 with the second installment of Stories & Beer, which will feature several local writers reading from their work as well as Ninth Letter and Hobart contributor, Bryan Furuness. Location: Iron Post in Urbana. Time: 4-6pm.

Ninth Letter is presenting a panel discussion/reading on Wednesday, March 17, Where We're At: Ninth Letter on Writing the Midwest. Location: Author's Corner, Illini Union Bookstore. Time: 2-3:15pm.

Here is the full schedule:

March 15th

11-12:15 Panel discussion: “The Next Decade in Book Culture: The Rise of the E-Book." Jane Ciabattari, Philip Graham, Harriett Green (University of Illinois Library), Martin Riker (Dalkey Archive Press)

2-3:15 Panel discussion: "Some Critical and Practical Issues in Translation Studies." Elizabeth Lowe, Patricia Phillips, Anastasia Lakhtikova, Reinhard Mayer

4:30 Reading: Eileen Favorite and Jane Ciabattari

March 16th

11-12 Presentation: Jane Ciabattari, The Art of the Book Review

3-4:15 Panel discussion: "The Truth of the Matter: On Creative Nonfiction and Literary Journalism." Christopher Benson, Jabari Asim, Audrey Petty, Steve Davenport

4:30 Reading: Manuel Martinez and Bayo Ojikutu

March 17th

11-12:15 Panel discussion: "Independent Publishing." Aaron Burch (Hobart), Peter Cole (Keyhole), Zach Dodson (Featherproof Books), Jacob S. Knabb (ACM: Another Chicago Magazine)

2-3:15 Panel Discussion: "Where We’re At: Ninth Letter on Writing the Midwest." Ashley Booth, Aaron Burch, Dana Burchfield, Brian Kornell, Micah Riecker. Jodee Stanley, moderator.

4:30 Reading: Philip Graham, LeAnne Howe, Jabari Asim, Michael Madonick

Unless otherwise noted, all events will be held at the Author's Corner, Illini Union Bookstore, 809 S. Wright St., Champaign. The festival events are free and open to the public.

Hope to see you there!

The VOICE Reading Series

The VOICE Reading Series continues today at 7:30p.m at the Krannert Art Museum. University of Illinois M.F.A. candidates Ashley Booth (poetry), Lindsey Drager (fiction), and Max Somers (poetry) will read from their work.

Also, check out Smile Politely for interviews with the readers.

The event is free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!

Angie Estes Reading

The Carr Reading Series continues today with Angie Estes. She is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Tryst (Oberlin College Press, 2009). Her previous book, Chez Nous, also from Oberlin, appeared in 2005. Her second book, Voice-Over (Oberlin College Press, 2002), won the 2001 FIELD Poetry Prize and was also awarded the 2001 Alice Fay di Castagnola Prize from the Poetry Society of America. Her first book, The Uses of Passion (1995), was the winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize. Her poems, "It Is Virtually Without Thickness and Has Almost," "Sommersonnenwende," and Verba Volant," appeared in Ninth Letter's spring/summer 2009 issue.

Here are the details for the reading:

When: Today, March 3 at 4:30pm
Where: Illini Union Bookstore, Author's Corner (2nd floor)

The Carr Reading Series is free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!

5 (or so) Questions with Matt Donovan

The first of March brings another installment of our 5 (or so) Questions with... series. This time 9L staffer Dana Burchfield talked to a contributor from our current issue, Poet Matt Donovan, about the problems with political poetry, the writing process, and the whimsy of children's books. Enjoy!

9L: In both "Randy Mandy's Lame-Ass Allegory of History: A Corrective" and "How to Paint the Sea," there seems to be a negating of recorded history in favor of a more personal relationship with the past. The poems are also moving within the constellation of that restless, mid-teen period--either directly as is the case with "Randy Mandy," or obliquely with Homer having been first encountered by many of us in high school. I wonder what in particular is shaping your aesthetic at the moment, for poems or projects you are currently working on?

MATT DONOVAN: In many ways, the Randy Mandy piece is emblematic of some of the presiding concerns of my most recent poems, but it was a piece that both developed and revealed its broader themes quite slowly. It started out as a more directed meditation on the Operation Crossroads Pacific Islands nuclear tests, yet the more I worked on it, the more wary I became of its singular focus and voice. Gradually, I realized I was growing suspicious of the more oracular political poem, one that is fueled by finger pointing and a more distant voice that seems to stand outside the rendered events. Such a stance elides individual complicity, and struck me, at least at the time, as rather disingenuous—that is not, after all, how we inherit and experience history.

Those suspicions gave direct rise to the middle school context and premise of the piece, and I became increasingly interested in deliberately couching the poem in a kind of cultural void where atrocity was witnessed and then disengaged from. The tragedies in that piece, at best, serve merely as a backdrop for the more pressing personal concerns. That said, I also see connections between the pleasure-seeking classroom adolescents of that poem and the soldiers on Bikini Island, and I’ve been haunted for a long time by that grotesque employment of Rita Hayworth’s image as a means of eroticizing the bomb.

Back to your question, I’ve found myself, in quite a few of my recent poems, fairly consistently hovering over questions about the vexed relationship between the personal realm and history’s wider scope, as well as what, in our American culture, seems to thwart a more complex, empathetic engagement with atrocity and violence brought upon others. That’s the broader scope, of course, and to put it in other terms, I’ve been wrangling with
Americana, fatherhood, and some of this country’s recent turbulent history.

9L: For myself it often feels impossible to write anywhere close to the "recent" or "just happened." I'm sure I'm botching the question here, but is there a different approach you find yourself taking with "this country's recent turbulent history" as opposed to history that may be more “safely” situated in the past past (i.e., WWII or Homer)? Or in other words maybe, is there something new or different at stake when poems engage with our current political contexts, our cultural now?

MD: You're right—it's a huge issue, and something I find myself thinking about quite a bit. It may be worth preempting all of this by saying I don’t think there is any chance of generating worthwhile blanket statements, prescriptions, or tidy resolutions to many of the vicissitudes embedded in taking on some of the more charged political issues of contemporary American life. Nor would I advocate for any poet to avoid tackling political issues he or she is committed to and passionate about—I will always want to read relevant, risk-taking poetry which engages with issues through the lens of an active and critical intelligence.

That said, I think one can find a lack of an active intelligence in many of the American poems responding to, say, the build up of our current war in Iraq. I might agree whole heartedly with the sentiments and emotions which fuel a poem’s engagement, but I don’t turn to poetry to have my own convictions given back to me, and whereas lines from many of the pieces might serve as rallying cries at demonstrations, they don’t necessarily transcend the level of sloganeering. Poets tackling some of the more loaded, enormous, and quite recent political events certainly risk being unable to emotionally distance themselves from their own impassioned convictions, and, to be honest, I think many of those pieces flirt with the same level of complacency and dismissive reductivism that I saw being employed by the right wing in the build up to the war.

I’m obviously aware that silence can amount to complicity, and that there are dangers in anyone suggesting subjective aesthetic standards which might dismiss, out of hand, impassioned voices and groups of political poems. But then, I also want poetry, like any art form, to be complex in its workings and evade any simple paraphrase. I also think it’s worth asking if poetry is the most efficacious tool for enacting changes and ensuring that voices are heard: sometimes, rather than mucking with enjambments, the rally, the slogan, the outraged editorial, is a far better route to take.

9L: Both of these poems as well as your work in Vellum are packed full. I can't help but wonder what the space where you write is like? Do you keep meticulous notebooks of images and vocabulary, or is it all just incubating up in the tunnels of your mind? I suppose the question here has something to do with process...

I don’t think my workspace is mimetic of my process, really—in fact, it’s fairly non-descript. I’m not superstitious or precious about my writing space—I just need a relatively quiet place to sit and type. But in terms of my process, I do keep notebooks of ideas and random jottings. I also have running lists of topics I simply want to explore and research more, which is even more important for me towards generating the work. I often proceed rather blindly—almost always, in fact—unsure of where the next poem or subject is taking me. I do hit quite a few dead ends (I have several folders of dead end topics I’ve been trying, and failing, to write about for years), but I also have grown to trust the intuitive groping-after that my process inevitably entails. I’ll start to notice a tug at the sleeve, and, for instance, without knowing at all where it’s all going, find myself reading accounts of Rudolf Valentino’s funeral. I’ll cull, wade through, and imagine details, and, as I start to hone and pare, or even experiment with juxtaposing other outside narratives, hope to gradually latch on to a line or gesture that simply seems compelling or resonate. Issues of, say, form come much later in my draft process, and, for better or worse, that flailing “hope” really is a central part of how I work.

9L: (Big jump…) If you were to wake up one morning as an animal (of the non-human variety), what animal would you be and why?

MD: Given my son’s own uncontainable imagination, I’m in a constant state of metamorphosis these days, and I definitely couldn’t lay claim to simply one non-human form. He’s in an impassioned superhero phase, and before I’m even half awake, he could demand that I become Bear Guy, Water Boy, Eagle Man—you name it. Even before the milk hits the cereal in our household, bodies are in constant flux.

9L: On the lighter side, then, yes—the immense capacity of a kid's imagination! Are there any particular or favorite children's books in heavy rotation at the moment?

MD: I love reading to my son, and, in the end, I'll happily take on whatever book he's insistent upon. But I do have a distate for anything didactic with kid's books: if the message can be reduced to a moral—be polite, don't be pushy, eat that okra—I'm far less interested. (Oddly, I feel as if I'm echoing myself here, given my above concern for poems that can be reduced to paraphrases.) In the books I read to my son, Cyrus, I love imaginative flights of fancy for their own sake—Sendak's In the Night Kitchen is a great example of this, although there's no doubt a nostalgia component here for me too. Curious George is naughty, and chaos—for a while—ensues; Max throws himself into his wild rumpus with the Wild Things before sailing home; in a terrific book called Tuesday, frogs fly around on lily pads for no reason whatsoever. In these kinds of books, I love the play and pleasure seeking for its own sake. Maybe it's a simple equation, and similar to other arts: ambiguity coupled with beauty, in this case from the drawings themselves. I love David Small's work and Chris van Allsburg's haunting black and white illustrations. And then there's just the pleasure of subversive, unbridled zaniness: Jon Scieszka's Cowboy and Octopus is one the funniest and oddest kid's books around.

The current issue of Ninth Letter (vol. 6, no. 2), featuring "Randy Mandy's Lame-Ass Allegory of History: A Corrective" and "How to Paint the Sea" is available now in our webstore.