Douglas Bauer on Marriage, Aging, Life, Death

Douglas Bauer, who visits the Writers Institute tomorrow, 10/29, to present his new book, What Happens Next, Matters of Life and Death, is interviewed by Elizabeth Floyd Mair in the Times Union.

Q: What was the most surprising thing that you learned in the course of writing this book?

A: That I could write it. Until now, all my nonfiction has been about other people. Or it's concerned itself with literary matters. And I struggled in this book to find a balance between what seemed necessary to reveal about myself and my great reluctance to reveal anything, however important to the narrative.

More in the TU:  http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Focus-on-marriage-aging-4923207.php

More about Bauer's visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/bauer_douglas13.html

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"Essayist Douglas Bauer examines future exquisitely"

Douglas Bauer's new collection of essays about life and death and his Iowa farm boyhood is reviewed in his hometown newspaper, the eastern Iowa Gazette, October 27, 2013:

"While it’s common to wonder what happens after we die, it’s not as common — or as pleasing a discussion at a party, say — to speculate on how we will age and eventually pass."

"However, this question posed itself quite plainly to author and essayist Douglas Bauer when, in his early sixties, he found himself needing a series of routine surgical procedures. As he was waking up from the first of two cataract surgeries, Bauer received word that his mother passed away.This experience was the catalyst for Bauer’s moving collection of personal essays, 'What Happens Next?' (University of Iowa Press)."

Read more in The Gazette:  http://thegazette.com/2013/10/27/essayist-douglas-bauer-examines-future-exquisitely/

Read more about Douglas Bauer's event tomorrow, Tuesday, 10/28:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/bauer_douglas13.html

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The Art of the Obituary

"Novelist, short story writer, and essayist Ann Hood loves obituaries. She says that they are a difficult form to write, since they must bring a character 'back to life' in a very compressed space."

Elizabeth Floyd Mair of the Times Union interviews Ann Hood about her new novel, The Obituary Writer (2013):  http://www.timesunion.com/living/article/Telling-tales-of-two-lives-4298288.php

Ann Hood shares the stage with novelist Eugene Mirabelli tomorrow, Tuesday, 2/26:
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mirabelli_hood13.html

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On Losing a Child

No writer has confronted the reality of losing a child more bravely than Ann Hood, whose 2007 novel, The Knitting Circle, and 2008 memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, seek meaning and healing where both would seem unattainable-- in the death of her five year old daughter, Grace.

Hood, who visits the Writers Institute on 2/26, explores grief and loss and paths to emotional survival in all of her subsequent work, including her new novel, The Obituary Writer (2013).

Here is a 2011 article from Salon, "What I never told anyone about her death":  http://www.salon.com/2011/05/17/ann_hood_daughter_mortifying_disclosure/

More on her visit:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/mirabelli_hood13.html

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Her Brother's Death, a Rebirth

Poet Marie Howe, whose brother died of AIDS in 1989, searches for paradoxical redemption and elusive meaning in death and suffering.

Howe, who helped many find their voice in poetry during the AIDS epidemic, will be inaugurated as New York's official State Poet tomorrow Sept. 20th at 8PM at Page Hall.

Here is a poem about her brother's death, one of many, from her bestselling collection, What the Living Do (1997):

The Gate

By Marie Howe

I had no idea that the gate I would step through

to finally enter this world

 

would be the space my brother's body made. He was

a little taller than me: a young man

 

but grown, himself by then,

done at twenty-eight, having folded every sheet,

 

rinsed every glass he would ever rinse under the cold

and running water.

 

This is what you have been waiting for, he used to say to me.

And I'd say, What?

 

And he'd say, This—holding up my cheese and mustard sandwich.

And I'd say, What?

 

And he'd say, This, sort of looking around.

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That Paradoxical Thing: A Bestselling Poet

Marie Howe's interview with NPR's Terry Gross on Fresh Air in October 2011 briefly elevated her to the paradoxical status of "bestselling poet." For at least a month afterward, her books sold like hot cakes, according to W. W. Norton, her publisher. The program was rebroadcast in April 2012.

"Poetry holds the knowledge that we are alive and that we know we're going to die," Howe told Terry Gross. "The most mysterious aspect of being alive might be that — and poetry knows that."

More.

Marie Howe is New York's new Poet Laureate (2012-14), named by Governor Andrew Cuomo under the sponsorship of the New York State Writers Institute. She will be inaugurated along with State Author Alison Lurie on Thursday, Sept 20 at 8PM at Page Hall on the UAlbany downtown campus.

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Poet Henri Cole Tonight

Here is Henri Cole's elegy for his father, "Oil and Steel."

My father lived in a dirty dish mausoleum,
watching a portable black-and-white television,
reading the Encyclopedia Britannica,
which he preferred to Modern Fiction.
One by one, his schnauzers died of liver disease,
except the one that guarded his corpse
found holding a tumbler of Bushmills.
"Dead is dead," he would say, an anti-preacher.
I took a plaid shirt from the bedroom closet
and some motor oil—my inheritance.
Once, I saw him weep in a courtroom—
neglected, needing nursing—this man who never showed
me much affection but gave me a knack
for solitude, which has been mostly useful.

Henri Cole will share the stage with author Jamaica Kincaid, tonight, Tuesday, July 24th, 8PM, Davis Audiorium, Palamountain Hall, 815 North Broadway, Saratoga. Free.

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Darin Strauss, Who Writes of Accidentally Killing a Classmate

"Half my life ago, I killed a girl."

So writes memoirist Darin Strauss (who reads tonight, Monday, 7/23, in Saratoga).

In his 2010 memoir, Half a Life, writer Darin Strauss recounts a tragedy and its aftermath. In his last month of high school, just after turning eighteen, Strauss is behind the wheel of his father's Oldsmobile, driving with friends—having "thoughts of mini-golf, another thought of maybe just going to the beach." Then out of the blue: a collision that results in the death of a bicycling classmate that shadows the rest of his life. In spare and piercing prose, Darin Strauss explores loss and guilt, maturity and accountability, hope and acceptance....

"staggering and unforgettable." --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Strauss, who received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography, will share the stage with award-winning novelist Binnie Kirshenbaum, tonight, Monday, July 23rd, 8PM, Davis Audiorium, Palamountain Hall, 815 North Broadway, Saratoga. Free.

 

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New Event: Poets Harry Staley & George Drew

Harry Staley, poet, beloved UAlbany Professor Emeritus, and noted scholar of the works of James Joyce, along with one of  his former students, award-winning poet George Drew, will read from their new poetry collections on Wednesday, May 2, 2012  at 4:15 p.m. in the Science Library Room 340  on the University at Albany uptown campus. The event is sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute and SUNY Press and is free and open to the public.

Stayed tuned for more updates.....

Staley's new collection is Truant Pastures: The Complete Poems of Harry C. Staley (2011), published by Excelsior Editions, SUNY Press. In advance praise, literature scholar Todd F. Davis said, “The portrait of the speaker in the majority of these poems is one of a man conflicted in his religious faith, in his faith in his fellow human community, in the wars that religion has persuaded his fellow humans to take part in…. Staley demonstrates an understanding that is deeply spiritual, yet does not yield to easy, forgiving answers.

Drew is the author most recently of The View from Jackass Hill (2010), a collection that mourns, eulogizes, and celebrates deceased friends, family members, and favorite poets. The book received the 2010 X.J. Kennedy Poetry Prize, from Texas Review Press. In bestowing the prize, series judge and poet Robert Phillips said, “Here is a poet with a real voice, brave and original…. This is a collection of friendship and vodka, and I can only say, Enjoy!”

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Confederates in the Attic

In his frequently hilarious and occasionally disturbing book about the modern legacy of the Civil War, Tony Horwitz (who visits tomorrow) spends a great deal of time with hardcore Confederate reenactors:

"There's something in me that wishes we could really go the whole way," he said. "I'd take the chance of being killed just to see what it was really like to be under fire in the War." He paused, munching on salt pork and biscuits. "At least then we'd know for sure if we're doing it right."

Fred leaned over to spit out a bit of gristle and noticed something in the grass. "Rob's bloating," he announced. Rob lay splayed on his back, cheeks puffed and belly distended, eyes staring glassily at the sky. Joel walked over and poked a boot in his ribs. "Suck in your gut a bit," he said. "It looks like you sat on a bike pump." Fred rearranged Rob's hands. "They don't look rigor mortal enough," he said. Then the two men returned to their meal.

Rob sat up and wiggled his fingers. "Hands are a problem," he said. "It's hard to make them look bloated unless you've really been dead for a while." More.

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