Monday, September 11, 2006

Stock

I was telling someone about one of my undergrad professors the other day, and found that I couldn't remember her name. Her name was Lorraine, and I kept referring to her as Lorraine in the telling of this story--which I have since forgotten--but as I was talking about her, I could not recall her last name. It's Stock. Lorraine Stock. I took her Women's Narrative course. And now I remember the story:

This was about the same year that the movie Steel Magnolias came out, and one day Lorraine was going on in class about how it was such a strong woman's narrative. I remember thinking to myself, "but it's such a queer narrative." And lacking the nerve to say so in class.

But was this Lorraine Stock? If so, then who taught my medieval lit course? Is this the next signpost of my middle age, that I can't recall the names of some of my favorite professors?

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Poets who complain in their blogs about other poets who complain in their blogs should shut the hell up and go write some poetry.

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Working through the proofs of WB #59, which includes excellent poems by Paul Guest, Betsy Sholl, A.V. Christie, Joshua Marie Wilkinson, and (leading off the issue) Jason Myers. There's a great story by Josh Weil, and a truly wonderful short piece by Emily Wortman-Wunder. I'm not name-dropping. I'm mentioning the work that genuinely moves me. There are some other (read: "big") names in this issue, and it's all fine work. I love this stage: reading each page one line at a time with the help of a ruler; tagging anything that seems questionable (is it fifty cents worth of change, or fifty cents' worth?); digging through the dictionary and Chicago Manual of Style to track down the right usage and punctuation. Galleys are scheduled to go out on 9/24, and we go to press two weeks after that.

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I'm helping to coordinate a campus reading again this year for World AIDS Day. This time, we'll hold it in conjunction with a showing of panels from the NAMES Project. And again this year, the panel that I made for David will be included. It's been two years since I've seen it.

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The WAVE BOOKS Bus Tour hits campus next Thursday night, September 21. See my *other* blog (PA Poetry) for details.

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4 comments:

Nels P. Highberg said...

Patricia Younge taught Women's Narrative Art; I sat next to you the entire time! Stock tauguht Chaucer and all that, which I never took. I don't remember this conversation, though, but it sounds like something Younge and Stock would raise.

Nels P. Highberg said...

Yongue, like tounge. Typed too fast there.

Ron said...

God. You're right, of course. Hand me my cane, would you Nels? That's a dear boy.

John Gallaher said...

Joshua Marie Wilkinson is simply an amazing writer. He's able to, you can see this most clearly in the long form, work with several ways of knowingness in the poem at once.

I'm quite jealous. I look forward to the issue.