Cristina Garcia, “Reincarnated”

I know what you’re thinking.
That I’d probably choose some badass king of the jungle.
But you underestimate me.

I hate when you underestimate me.

As a matter of fact, I’d choose a nightingale.
I’ve never heard one sing but I know they keep
insomniacs company.

What do you know about me, anyway?

If I tell you I’d be a nightingale, believe it.
I happen to know that only unpaired males sing at night
and that they’re iconic in Persian poetry.

You gonna steal that?

Don’t pretend like suddenly you’re this caring, concerned
person when all you’re doing is using my shit.
Let me guess what you’d be, huh? A pirahna?

The Lesser Tragedy of Death is the first collection of poems from Cristina García, who has written several novels for adult and young adult readers. (In fact, Scribner has a new one, The Lady Matador’s Hotel, coming out at the end of the summer.) The collection also includes “Twenty-Nine Palms” (from García’s official website). In a 2007 interview with Chris Abani, the curator of Akashic’s Black Goat poetry line, García describes her writing process:

“I’m constantly sending tap roots into all sorts of unsavory places. That’s an essential part of the mystery and discovery for me. I expect to be disturbed. I hope to be discomfited. I want to be derailed from my suppositions. A lot happens before I even attempt to write the first word of a new novel. For me, it always begins with obsession. I start circling particular subject matter or terrains, reading voraciously, giving myself over to these interests… After the pre-novel saturation I described earlier, I surround myself with poetry books, a shifting array of them. Before I begin a writing day, I will immerse myself in them for an hour or two. Somewhere in that process, if you can call it that, I’ll randomly stumble across an idea, a fragment of language, a single word that will lead me to that day’s work. It’s that unpredictable, at least in writing my early drafts. Poetry is my daily bread.”

23 June 2010 | poetry |

My State-by-State Tour of Public Radio Continues!

You may recall that, earlier this month, I appeared on Minnesota Public Radio to refute some nonsense Garrison Keillor was spouting about the imminent decline of publishing. Well, late last week I did a pre-recorded interview with New Hampshire Public Radio, specifically the show “Word of Mouth,” fielding questions about the history behind the acquisition of The Passage, the new Justin Cronin novel upon which Ballantine has placed blockbuster hopes, and the magnitude of the marketing campaign to launch that novel into the world. That segment aired Monday, with my comments used primarily as a setup for a more extensive interview with Cronin, during which he acquits himself quite nicely.

I had barely gotten 100 pages into The Passage when we did that interview last Friday, and over the weekend I was able to get another couple hundred in, but I’m still only at about the halfway point. So far, there’s a lot to like about the novel—compared to Mira Grant’s Feed, another recent brick-sized first-volume-in-a-trilogy about what happens to American society after scientific experiments lead to a plague of bloodsucking fiends, The Passage is by all means more elegant, and less overtly didactic (or, in some instances, less blatantly satirical). Then again, the plot of Feed is more tightly compressed, and though both novels thrive on hiding some important information until absolutely necessary, so far The Passage is requiring a greater suspension of disbelief. Further, one of the most significant stumbling blocks I’ve had in getting into The Passage is an abrupt shift of narrative focus as a story that starts out echoing the best storytelling of Stephen King suddenly jumps into Walter F. Miller, Jr., territory. (And that’s not just me making stuff up: Cronin has acknowledged the influence of A Canticle for Liebowitz on his post-apocalyptic worldbuilding.) But that could just be on me; I made the effort to adjust to the new setting, and I’m eager to see where The Passage goes from there.

Meanwhile, if there are any other public radio programmers/producers who are looking for somebody to talk about literature or publishing, heck, I’m available, and I wouldn’t mind hitting all 50 states by next June.

22 June 2010 | uncategorized |