passport harlem
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Showing posts tagged writing
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New Specter Column
As we usher in the flurry of work from this ostensibly new literary subgenre, it would behoove us to ask what, exactly, it juxtaposes itself against in order to establish relevance. I, for one, am more than happy to welcome Uncle Jean’s children into the family if mixed-race literature can somehow accomplish the seemingly impossible task of orient itself without simultaneously using and distancing itself from the work of blacks. But if mixed-race literature’s latest best-seller, which poorly pushes an agenda by exploiting the life of an ostensibly depressed, if not mentally ill black woman without even acknowledging that life, is any indication of what may come, then I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.
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You Got Served
Rita Dove’s response to Helen Vendler:
The amount of vitriol in Helen Vendler’s review betrays an agenda beyond aesthetics. As a result, she not only loses her grasp on the facts, but her language, admired in the past for its theoretical elegance, snarls and grouses, sidles and roars as it lurches from example to counterexample, misreading intent again and again. Whether propelled by academic outrage or the wild sorrow of someone who feels betrayed by the world she thought she knew—how sad to witness a formidable intelligence ravished in such a clumsy performance.
Fuck. How do I learn to write like this? (h/t @sweat_btwn)
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I never know what I’m going to write until I’m in a space that is not at all amenable to writing. Like the shower.
These are the notes for my Whitney post, which can be found on mybestfriendgayle.blogspot.com. The idea about The Voice came in the shower, but the other stuff didn’t come until I was on the expressway.
It’s totally dangerous, but I had to write them down while driving. I don’t trust my brain to keep the thoughts until I’m in a safe space more conducive to writing. I need to trade in my car. I drive a stick.
Anyway, #iknowyoudontcare but I posted this to document my process as a writer, since that’s what I’m calling myself these days.
