June 2019

Summer Reading: KR Recommends . . .

Forget January. Avid readers know that the time for personal resolutions is the cusp of summer, when warm breezes, lingering light, and the prospect of vacation invite the mind to bask, the imagination to take a plunge. Every June, the editors and staff of KR note some of their favorite books, so that you can flesh out your summer reading list and start turning pages. Happy summer, joyous reading! Click here to check out our summer reading recommendations.

High Praise for the Podcast

The American Scholar—the magazine of the Phi Beta Kappa Society—has singled out the KR Podcast for the way it “effortlessly” offers insights into the lives and practices of writers as they ply their craft. In the May edition of “Sound Mind,” his monthly podcast review on the magazine’s website, James McWilliams praised the KR Podcast for adhering to “a conversational mode based on the premise that writers tend to ask other writers the most revealing questions.” He pointed to podcasts featuring Colm Tóibín, Ann Patchett, and Hilary Mantel, noting that they offered “gem-like secrets” about the writing life and concluding, “A podcast like this one makes us reflect on how we interact with the world.” Scroll down to the third article to read the review.

New in KR Podcasts

Our latest podcast features KR Fellow Misha Rai, who sits down with “Proof Casts a Shadow” authors Gabrielle Bellot and Nay Saysourinho to discuss narratives that address the language of citizenship, colonialism, labels, and identity. For more on Bellot’s and Saysourinho’s contributions to the “Proof” project, see below.
Listen to the podcast.

From the KR Blog: “‘Generations of Poetry Bound Together’: A Conversation with CMarie Fuhrman and Dean Rader”

BY KRISTINA MARIE DARLING

May 13, 2019

Dean Rader: One of the great attractions of Native American literature is its interest in story, ceremony, history, and land. These are, indeed, fascinating topics, but I have found that readers often turn to Indigenous literature for “content” or “theme” rather than for its artistry. Rather than assuming contemporary Indigenous poetry is folklore or “culture,” we want readers and writers to look at these poems as art. . . . They reflect both traditional and cutting edge uses of language, line break, white space, fragmentation, repetition, and elision. These are true artists at the peak of their craft. Read the entire conversation with Fuhrman and Rader, the coeditors of Native Voices: Indigenous American Poetry, Craft and Conversations (Tupelo Press, 2019).

Proof Casts a Shadow: Work by Gabrielle Bellot, Nay Saysourinho, and Xandria Phillips

From Gabrielle Bellot’s “By the Lamplight”:
The true perdition of this land is not in the hells that burn, the Trump-trumpeting evangelists tell us, at its borders: it is in the hellscape in the mortal here and now, such that I must feel fear each time I enter certain spaces, so that this mortal coil—and it is coiled, like a snake, for Eden is a world signifying lifelessness rather than life—feels dense with hatred for people, invading things, like me.

From Nay Saysourinho’s “Your Body Has Thirty-Two Kwan”:
When Danny and his family were resettled in Stockton, I wonder if they slept in the same room. My brother and I slept in my parents’ room until I was nine years old, our crowded souls sharing two mattresses. I don’t think it had ever occurred to my mother to split us up between the living room and the bedroom. As long as we were on the same bed, her hand would reach out and pat my head, making sure I was safe.

Plus “femme entanglement,” a painting by the poet and visual artist Xandria Phillips.

Click here for the latest contributions to the “Proof Casts a Shadow” project created by KR fellows Misha Rai and Keith S. Wilson.

To Watch: KR on YouTube

Rita Dove, R.O. Kwon, Chen Chen, Sarah Weinman, Ed Skoog, Shara McCallum: KR has just finished a year of readings and talks by phenomenal writers who came to Gambier, Ohio, to share their work. If you missed them, you can see them on our YouTube channel—“live on tape,” as they say. It’s just one more platform through which we share the best in contemporary literature. To check in with KR on YouTube, click here!

JUNE 2019
CONTENTS
Summer Reading Recs
Podcast Praise
KR Podcast
From the Blog
Proof Casts a Shadow
KR on YouTube

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