2.12.2011
1.19.2011
11.11.2010
Ballooning
This is a short story/collective narrative composed by Bryson members:
Alaina Behan, Clay Dawson, Elizabeth Stoltenberg , Megan Doyle, Lauren Anderson, Morgan Whipps, Ashley Hart, Sarah Means, Travis Freeman, Kurt Hare, Takeshi Takahashi, Kelli Trapnell, Nathan Pesina, and Chad Gallman
Each had one minute to contribute a paragraph or two, this was the final (awesome) result:
The large handed man reaches into his box of unborn balloons. Picking a blue one at random, he gives it helium life. Despite the oversized hands the balloon salesman possesses, he is able to nimbly manipulate a string securely around the neck of his product. He hands the balloon to the eagerly waiting, appropriately sized hands of a child customer who looks up to him and says…
“what is this, sir?” and there was a note of disappointment in the poor child’s voice. He had asked for a poodle, but had received a sword. “Deal with it,” the over-size handed man said sweetly.
“But what do I do with this?” the boy turned to his mother. With the practiced hand of solving similar problems, she pulled a long, thin needle out of her purse and popped the balloon. The boy and his mother walked off, hand in hand, each humming a different tune.
But this is only the beginning of things. Our balloon – deflated, flaccid, and defeated – lies prostrate upon the pavement. Marcel, fresh from work at the chewing factory, happens to have a misplaced stick stuck upon his sole. And to it, our friend the balloon joins.
Knowing that helium friends have not turned out well in the past for Marcel the Shell with shoes on, he quickly exchanges pleasantries but finds he has more in common with this new acquaintance, the bus driver taking a break on the bench along the sidewalk, bespeckled with chewed pieces of gum at least a million years old who swears that he’s seen two UFOs and met John Lennon.
The bus driver was almost reluctant in telling the shell, “Hey uh, Marcel the shell, you have a balloon stuck to your shoe.” Marcel was dumbfounded, though he certainly was not going to deny the fact. “I most certainly do.”
Marcel decided to keep the balloon on his shoe thinking that it was a cool idea to have a balloon.
Suddenly the balloon began to speak.
“I am all knowing; ask me what you wish.” Marcel considered this and wondered why this event was happening to him.
“Um, hi,” he squeaked like a small puppy whimpering for its meal. The bus stopped on Pittsburg avenue, the driver charging out chasing those “damn aliens” once more. Marcel waddled off the bus and hopped, the balloon sticking to the puke green linoleum floor of the bus.
He was immediately overtaken by a feeling of sadness. He missed his new friend terribly. When he thought about the minutes they had shared together, he nearly wept with the remembrance. He hoped for a similar intervention in the future, but his hopes were atrophied from years of loneliness. His only solace lay in the teachings of Zarathustra, which he had known since birth.
When he arrived several hours later in San Francisco, he eyed the big screen that was blaring in the middle of downtown. Severus Snape glowered at the traffic below. His nose rose hawk-like from beneath the strands of greasy, dark hair. “We must end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” he whispered silkily. A shiver ran down Marcel’s spine, yet he was strangely persuaded to go back and find the all-knowing balloon. Suddenly his mission was clear…form his alliance to this new, mysterious, greasy character. Severus Snape. His over-emphasized, British-accented words dripping dark from his lips. “We must end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”…his cloak swept over the floor with every sudden movement convincing Marcel to sneeze heartily.
A sudden change came over his tiny shell body. His one eyeball popped out and a giant purple balloon swelled out of the opening, lifting him up into the air.
“STOP! STOP!’ hissed Snape, who apparently was no longer dead like some crazy lady namexd JK said he was. “THE MUGGLES WILL SEE YOU!”
And then, as the balloon man with the misshapen hands wrapped up his story, a college student wearing a green polo and khaki pants (although it signifies bad family relations if you dream about khaki) said, “WHAT? HOW THE HECK DID IT GET THERE?”
And he got the balloon man fired. And the world was completely devoid of stories.
But somewhere, in the distance, a small shell floated from a giant purple balloon….
10.26.2010
Once Upon a Time...a blogger could not think of a good title
10.12.2010
Fall 2010-Bryson Literary Society & eleven40seven
We have lots of news that I'm going to try to run through in an organized, efficient way:
1. Bryson Literary Society is back and better than ever this year. We are currently sitting at 21 total members and planning a number of fun, awesome events for this semester including a trip to the Modern Museum of Art and the Angelika Film Center in Dallas. If you have any questions about joining this illustrious society please contact our President, Chad Gallman (c.gallman@tcu.edu) or our Faculty Advisor, Dr. Curt Rode (c.rode@tcu.edu).
2. ELEVEN40SEVEN!!! Yes eleven40seven season is upon us. And as we all know, submission time is the most wonderful time of the year (step off Christmas). Our deadline for submissions this year is OCTOBER 18th at 11:47 PM. Please submit and encourage your friends to submit and their friends too, even if you don't really like their friends, we want all the submissions we can get. For rules on submitting please visit: http://www.1147.tcu.edu/submit.html
3. Book club! Book club is back as well this year. We're reading Sloane Crosley's book of essays "How Did You Get This Number". Our next meeting will be Thursday, October 21st, at 6pm in the TCU Bookstore Cafe. We'll be discussing the 2nd and 3rd essay of the book. Come for stimulating conversation with your peers.
That's all for now. Look for our next blog post soon!
4.11.2010
3.12.2010
Poetry Reading – Fancy Beasts by Alex Lemon
Synopsis
In Fancy Beasts, the author takes on California, the 2008 election, plastic surgery, Larry Craig, wildfires, Wal-Mart, and rampant commercialism — in short, the modern American media culture, which provides obscene foil for his personal legacies of violence and violation. This pivotal book captures the turning point in a life of abuse, in which the recovering victim/perpetrator puzzles through the paradigm of son-to-husband-to-father. Frenetic, hilarious, and fearless, these poems are a workout — vigorous and raw. Yet they are also composed and controlled, pared down and sculpted, with a disarming narrative simplicity and directness. Even when dealing with toxic content, the point of view is always genuine and trustworthy. This stunning achievement marks Alex Lemon’s best work yet.
Author Biography
Alex Lemon is a poet and memoirist. He is the author of Happy (Scribner), the poetry collections Mosquito (Tin House Books), Hallelujah Blackout (Milkweed Editions), Fancy Beasts (Milkweed Editions) and the chapbook At Last Unfolding Congo (horse less press). His writing has appeared in Esquire, Best American Poetry 2008, Satellite Convulsions, Tin House, The Bloomsbury Review, The Southern Review, AGNI and jubilat, among others. Among his awards are a 2005 Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2006 Minnesota Arts Board Grant. He is co-editor of LUNA: A Journal of Poetry and Translation and is a frequent book reviewer. He teaches at Texas Christian University and lives digitally at www.alexlemon.com.
2.24.2010
eleven40seven Cover Artist in Newspaper
http://media.www.tcudailyskiff.com/media/storage/paper792/news/2010/02/24/News/Stroke.Of.Genius.Sri.Lankan.Student.Grows.Into.Prolific.Artist-3877596.shtml#cp_article_tools
2.23.2010
2.22.2010
eleven40seven: Submit by 3/10/10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Oj9q05DG68
2.16.2010
Lucille Clifton: We'll Miss You
2.09.2010
1.31.2010
Write 'Em!
The TCU Purple Bike Program will be attaching sponsorship signs on the bikes and will also include a different haiku on each sign. The theme of the haiku must be related to bikes, the environment, or sustainability. The winners of the contest will have their haiku and name printed on a bike sponsorship sign. Submit by email one or more haikus to:
Keith Whitworth at k.whitworth@tcu.edu (PBP Program Coordinator)
Deadline: February 12, 2009 at 5:00 p.m.
A haiku contains three lines that do not rhyme. The syllables are traditionally broken up this way: Line One: Five Syllables - Line Two: Seven Syllables - Line Three: Five Syllables. Have fun with this and if you have any questions, please contact Dr. Whitworth by email or 817-257-5941.
Live Green, Ride Purple!
11.17.2009
maybe he was on to something
BELIEF & TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE
LIST OF ESSENTIALS
- Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
- Submissive to everything, open, listening
- Try never get drunk outside yr own house
- Be in love with yr life
- Something that you feel will find its own form
- Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
- Blow as deep as you want to blow
- Write what you want bottomless from bottom of mind
- The unspeakable visions of the individual
- No time for poetry but exactly what is
- Visionary tics shivering in the chest
- In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
- Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
- Like Proust be an old teahead of time
- Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
- The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
- Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
- Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
- Accept loss forever
- Believe in the holy contour of life
- Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
- Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
- Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
- No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
- Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
- Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
- In Praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
- Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
- Youre a Genius all the time
- Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
Jack [Kerouac]
Jack Kerouac "Belief & Technique For Modern Prose: List of Essentials" from a 1958 letter to Don Allen, in Heaven & Other Poems, copyright © 1958, 1977, 1983. Grey Fox Press.
http://www.poetspath.com/transmissions/messages/kerouac.html
11.01.2009
the REAL dead poets society
http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15996/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=EFebbaI0
Founder of Dead Poets Society visits bards' graves
DAVID SHARP
Published: October 31, 2009
CUNDY'S HARBOR, Maine (AP) - On the big screen, the leader of the Dead Poets Society at an all-boys prep school was an inspirational teacher played by Robin Williams.
In real life, it's a balding amateur poet who drives around in his "Poemobile," visiting and documenting the graves of dead poets and calling attention to their works.
Walter Skold, founder of the Dead Poets Society of America, just finished a three-month road trip in which he visited the graves of 150 poets in 23 states. Skold boasts that he set a literary land speed record of 1.66 gpd (graves per day) over the course of his 15,000-mile journey.
While his graveside poetry readings - and occasional cemetery sleepovers - evoke the macabre, Skold insists his intentions are honorable.
"It's not really a morbid project but rather a way to honor our literary forebearers and to historically resurrect their works," Skold said.
His reports, which sometimes include offbeat tombstone art, are posted online; he encourages others to get out and find the graves of dead poets and to post their video and photos online.
Skold, 49, of Freeport, founded Dead Poets Society of America a year ago, leaving his job as a public school technology teacher to pursue his passions of poetry and photography. For his trip, he bought a used cargo van with a rack for cameras and supplies, shelves for books and a desk that, in a pinch, doubles as a bed.
Over the course of his 90-day journey, Skold visited the gravesites of giants of the poetry world including Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as lesser-known poets like Dudley Randall, whose Broadside Press published many leading African-American writers.
He's making a film documentary called "Finding Frost: Digging Up America's Dead Poets." Next year, he hopes to scout out America's dead poets buried in Europe.
He was especially intrigued by poets who've been forgotten altogether. He calls them the "doubly dead" because they suffered a second death when their works were "slowly consigned to literary oblivion." Some of those include Madison Cawein, Eugene Fields, Virginia Boyle and Elizabeth Hollister Frost, he said.
Skold also discovered that the final resting places of many poets - dead or doubly dead - are unknown. In Maine alone, he found 29 poets whose final resting places are a mystery to the public.
"So many of these individual poets have such interesting stories and such interesting lives that I really feel it's a shame that they've been lost to our literary imagination or our literary history," he said. "I'm trying to bring back people's works and lives who have value and who have been forgotten for one reason or another."
The Library of Congress believes Skold's effort is the first such literary undertaking, said Peter Armenti, digital reference specialist whose focus is poetry.
Many of the poets' grave locations are well-documented, but only to scholars and poetry buffs, Armenti said. Skold's effort attempts to make the poets' information accessible to the general public, and in doing so generate some interest in America's poets.
"I just think it's a fascinating project," Armenti said. "I'm glad somebody's doing it."
Skold's project has the blessing of nine state poets laureate, each of whom was enlisted to participate in poetry readings during his road trip.
South Carolina's poet laureate joined Skold at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston for a reading of a poem by Henry Timrod, whose work is believed to have inspired Bob Dylan.
"It's quirky and interesting in the best way," Marjory Wentworth said from South Carolina. "My hope, long-term, is that it's going to bring people to poetry who might not otherwise be interested. Anything that increases the audience for poetry is a good thing."
In Tennessee, poet laureate Margaret Vaughn said she respects Skold's ambitious goal. She, too, has been documenting poets' graves, as well as writing original poetry for each.
"I know what it takes. I've been doing it for 10 years. He's got the passion. That's what it takes to do this, passion," she said from her studio in Bell Buckle, Tenn.
On a recent afternoon, Skold was in Cundy's Harbor at the burial site of Robert P. Tristram Coffin, who won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1936. The Poemobile, named for Edgar Allan Poe, was parked across the street with the bumper sticker, "I brake for old graveyards."
Wearing a T-shirt from Poe's Tavern in South Carolina, where Poe spent a year in the Army, Skold quickly set a video camera on a tripod and then used a rake from a neighbor and a copy of Coffin's poem "An Old Man Raking Leaves" to create tombstone art on a brisk autumn day.
He likes to surprise with his tombstone art.
For example, he placed a scarlet "H'' on the tombstone of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who penned "The Scarlet Letter." At Longfellow's memorial, he set fire to a portrait of the poet's second wife to underscore her fiery death, which tormented the poet and inspired "The Cross of Snow."
Skold encourages others to take up his cause on All Saint's Day by going to graveyards, preferably during the day, to document poets' graves and read their poetry.
Visiting a graveyard at night can be a dicey proposition and requires special permission. Skold learned that lesson the hard way last Halloween when he was nearly arrested in Malden, Mass., where he and his son lit torches at the tomb of the Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, Puritan author of the "Day of Doom."
"Little did I know that there was a little woman who watches over the cemetery and she told the police that there were people performing satanic rituals," he said.
___
On the Net:
Dead Poets Society of America http://www.deadpoes.org/
10.18.2009
Fiction Reading by Glen Pourciau on Oct. 20. Be there.
What: Fiction Reading by Glen Pourciau and TCU students. 10.17.2009
10.16.2009
10.07.2009
Jason Bredle
Every few seconds I check the Bible
to see what Jesus is saying about me. The answer
is always nothing. Sometimes
he's condemning me to eternal damnation,
but usually nothing. Tonight I am alone,
wearing my sex shorts, adrift amongst
the black suburban pools of eternal damnation.
No, I have not been in love. Yes,
I have been in love. I am speaking the language
in which no and yes mean the same, in which
apricot and goodbye mean the same.
I am remembering the kudzu of the awful season,
sitting with you beside the swamp for the last
time and neither of us knowing it was the last
time but yes the glass was hello and dragonfly.
Was it a blessing? They say so in this language.
Others say this language is dying, or already
dead. I speak it, nonetheless, while eating
apricots in the evening of eternal damnation
where you yell at the map and cut your wrist
and there is a darkness here that I have only shared
with my cat, like that guy in the movie who writes
graphic erotica and goes crazy. One says
pain near the black pool of everything,
my back is covered with wax. Every few
seconds I check the Bible to see what Jesus
is saying about me. The answer is always nothing,
aside from the time he lambasted the outfit I wore
to the People's Choice Awards. A green tuxedo.
Tonight, I am adrift in the suburb of the black sky,
I am speaking the language in which love
and apricot mean the same, in which pool
and death mean the same. I said goodbye
in a suburb like this, years ago. I said
goodbye in a suburb like this, years ago.
According to Hercules, if we make an angel
out of ourselves, that is what we are; if we make
a devil out of ourselves, that too is what
we are. See, this is what I am getting at.
It is the awful season and I am speaking
the language in which violence and God mean
the same, in which blood and dragonfly mean
the same. I am in the orchard of eternity
picking the goodbyes of damnation, I am licking
your dragonfly blood and speaking the language
in which pain means hello. A black pool,
a green sky. That is to say, each moment
without you is a vacant airport, each moment
without you is a glass apricot. Every few seconds
I check the Bible to see what Jesus is saying
about me. The answer is always nothing. Except
today, it's a bunch of weird stuff about how
I'm falling into a black pool in some suburb,
maybe Palatine or something, and just like that,
I've gone forever. I know! That's what I thought
too. This is the story, but in this language, this
is not the story. I am eating red ice,
harvesting a field of knives. I am speaking
the language in which heaven and earth mean
the same, in which sky and white mean the same.
O Lord, I made this dragonfly for you. Even
if you do not listen to it, just know, this
is how I have always felt about you. And I
am possessed. And I am a fatalist. Do you see
these bruises? Do you see these bruises?
They are a sad bouquet. They are a beautiful
scrapbook. I am floating. I am in love.
I am dead. On a perfect night, my back is covered
with wax. O Violence, but I did not want this hello.
O Lord, I made this dragonfly for you.
Even if You do not listen to it, just know, I made it
only for you.
