Great conversation on Armies by Stecopoulos and beginning of a discussion on The Book of Frank by Conrad! Terms/themes that kept coming up re TOB are below. And below that is the Kate Bornstein info. See you all at her talk. And then see you for an optional debrief on her talk in our normal classroom promptly at 7pm. First, on The Book of Frank so far:
–”blank”
–”Primary Frank” (the larger “narrative” arc of the poems as they pile up, forming a character-like entity, the normative or even cis-gendered life of which is in contradiction, or maybe subjugates, all the “little Franks” — the small uses of this name, standing in for people, animals, things, families, etc., living in “unlivable” conditions)
–Embodied poems, yet “Frank,” “Mother” etc as social constructions, as both social bodies and as “bodyless” in the corporeal sense….
–”Metamorphosis” — discussion of Ovid, of Kafka, of “haiku disfigured.”
–What is not on the page as what is (equally) important: what we cannot see, those we cannot describe. Can we touch what is not there? What is implied? Or what is omitted? [The magic between in the cracks between words, between circumstances made visceral...]
–”Allegory”
–”Narrative poetry”
–”Transformation and Trans-gendered” in relation to “narrative”
–”Pervasive social violence” in the poems in relation to the inclusive love implicit in them, as well as juxtaposed to love as expressed by Conrad in his activist and other writings: “it’s easy to die transgressing out there.”
–Frank as “hole” or “site” around which things or systems or feelings collect, thus only visible by way of what collects around a constantly shape-shifting (again) “blank.”
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Hey everybody,
In case you haven’t heard, Kate Bornstein will be on campus (in Lecture Hall 1) on Saturday, March 5th at 3pm. In case you don’t know, Kate is an author, playwright and performance artist whose work to date has been in service to sex positivity, gender anarchy, and to building a coalition of those who live on cultural margins. Kate’s book, “Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives To Suicide For Teens, Freaks, and Other Outlaws,” was published in 2007. Her ground-breaking books “Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us” and “My Gender Workbook” are taught in over 150 colleges around the world. A new anthology, “Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation,” co-edited with S. Bear Bergman, recently hit bookstores. Her memoir, “Kate Bornstein Is A Queer and Pleasant Danger” is due out before the end of 2011.
Hope to see you there!
The Evergreen Queer Alliance