[A Sunday in God-Years]

I’m happy to say that my review of A Sunday in God-Years, by Michelle Boisseau, is published in the latest issue of PLEIADES: A Journal of New Writing. Volume 30.2 has plenty of great work in it, as usual, and it’s certainly a pleasure to be printed in the same pages as many of these writers (Sherman Alexie!). It’s a particular pleasure to have my review appear just after one from my friend, the amazing B.J. Hollars. Incidentally, he also has a review of Bigfoot appearing today on 300 Reviews.

While I always enjoy the work in PLEIADES, I especially enjoyed this issue’s opening poem, “Sisyphus” by Jay Leeming.  Yes, it’s true, I take a bit of a shining toward anything sisyphean, but this poem delivers more than your standard mountain & boulder routine.  There is the rock, of course, and the incline, and Leeming primes us for an event by starting the poem at what we should expect to be the zenith!–at the moment when the speaker is about to collapse.  And what a wonderful moment it is: “…my whole body shakes / like a struck bell…”  (I won’t quote further, because it’s a short and excellent poem that deserves to be read on the page, but I had to share that resonant image as soon as I read it.)  Without spoiling the development of the poem, I’ll say something more: unlike the motion of many rewrites of the myth of Sisyphus, where the plummeting of the stone signals a descent back into hell, Leeming’s poem presents a descent back into life!  Joy, communion, celebration!  A deft reversal, and done in ways to which my description serves little justice.  The point is that I love the poem, and I am happy to see it lead off my contributor’s copy.

You can find PLEIADES available in cool bookstores, and even some not so cool ones.  Give it a gander, should you find the opportunity.

[Sisyphus]

I don’t really intend for this blog to be only a site for self-promotion, but lately there’s been some positive things to report; I promise to post material less ego-centric soon, but in the meantime…

I gave an interview here in Brașov several months ago, and the results have been published in online cultural review SISIF.  The journal seems interesting and varied, with interviews, essays, poetry, art, and other material.  Sadly my Romanian skills aren’t really up to snuff.  There are some English contributions, but the bulk of the work will be lost to you if you don’t vorbesti Romanesti.  If you do happen to speak the limba romăn, please check out the article written about my work, I’d be interested to hear some feedback (as would, I’m sure, the author, Ramone Tane).

I also want to get in touch with the magazine’s founders.  There’s a varied and interesting tradition of cultural reviews here in Romania, but I’m especially interested to speak with people doing it in the modern online idiom.  It also peaks my interest to have the magazine named after Sisyphus; regardless of his detractors, I’m a commited fan/student of Albert Camus*, and he has definitely convinced me to consider and reconsider the man pushing his boulder up the hill.

What does that act symbolize here in Romania?

*Is this what it means to be a student?