IN WHICH The Girl Gets Poetic

If anyone were to ask me if I liked poetry or prose more, I would automatically say prose. When given the opportunity, I almost always choose to read stories and novels over poetry. However, it doesn't take much to remind me how much I truly love poetry.

For the first time in a while, I'm teaching a class with literature. As I started to prepare the poetry unit, I found myself going through the book exclaiming, "Oh we have to do this one... and this one too... and I love this poem... and how can they not be introduced to this one!" Needless to say, I had a list of way too many poems to cover in the time allotted. This is still a composition class, so we only have a few days to really focus on the poems before we revert back to talking about writing.

At the very least, I wanted them to actually listen to poetry and maybe appreciate the sound of it if nothing else. There were a few poems that I got really excited about in class. They probably just thought I was crazy. If you have never heard Gwendolyn Brooks read her poem, "We Real Cool," you are seriously missing out. It's probably my favorite reading of a poem ever. My own version of it never sounds nearly as "cool." Here's an audio version. She actually introduces the poem a bit, and that explanation is helpful. The poem itself starts around 1:45.




Some poems are fun to discuss because you can see students' faces as they realize what a poem is actually about. For example, most of my students didn't really get that "The Ruined Maid" by Thomas Hardy is talking about a girl who had sex before marriage and is likely a prostitute or mistress:

"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" —
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she. 

That revelation was pretty entertaining to witness. We also read Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 - "My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun," and one student actually said, "Oh no, he didn't!" when he starts making uncomplimentary comparisons. You know you want to Alan Rickman read this poem (and watch someone's YouTube tribute to him):



Reading "anyone lived in a pretty how town" by e.e. cummings is also fun because it sounds so nonsensical when you first hear it. Then I'm like, "Wait, wait, there is some semblance of order and meaning here! I promise."



Lastly, there's my all-time favorite of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot. I didn't actually make them do this whole poem because of time and difficulty. We just looked at one stanza as an allusion to Carl Sandburg's "Fog." There are multiple reasons I love this poem despite its pretentiousness. One is just the language itself and juxtaposition of beautiful imagery - "when the evening is spread out against the sky," with disturbing imagery - "like a patient etherized upon a table." Also, the whole thing is just about this dude's indecisiveness about making a move and fear of misinterpretation. I get that. If I ever get another tattoo, I want it to be the lines:

"Do I dare
 Disturb the universe?"

I found this really weird animated version of the poem to share with you. Not sure who thought this was a good idea:


Well there's a few poems for your weekend. Enjoy!

IN WHICH The Girl Goes Country

What a year? I think we'd all agree that 2016 has been a crazy roller coaster. While I've certainly been feeling those bumps along with the rest of America, I've also had quite a few changes in my personal and professional life in the last six months.

Last I wrote, way back in the spring, I was trying to catch my own heffalump of a college teaching position. Well that heffalump has been located, caught, and successfully trussed up with a bow! Does that sentence even make sense? It's finals week, so I'm down to about two working brain cells. In other words, I am now a tenure-track college professor. Yippie!

It's been quite the stretch of highs and lows. I spent all spring applying and interviewing for jobs across the country, swinging from hope to disappointment again and again. But then it happened! Someone wanted to pay me a real salary! With benefits! I was starting to think I'd be an adjunct forever. But getting my dream job also meant moving from bustling Chicago to a small town of about 12,000 halfway across the country. All the feels.

Come summer, I moved to the boondocks: a cute but very small midwestern town with lots of antique stores and no Starbucks. Yes, there are apparently places in the world without Starbucks. It's been an adjustment. It's possible I may have received an inaccurate picture of small town life from Gilmore Girls (did everyone watch the revival?) and Hallmark Christmas movies. It doesn't seem to be quite as quirky as I imagined and no cowboy has come to my rescue yet. Nevertheless, the portrayal of Christmas spirit seems on point. The main street, actually called Main Street, is adorably lit up and decorated. Plus, there's a big lighting display in the park that you can ride a horse and carriage through on the weekends. In the Hallmark movie, this is the time when I would accidentally trip while trying to step into the carriage and a strapping country boy would catch me and fall in love with me instantaneously.

As of yet, no Knitathon in Stars Hollow Style

But lest you think I've been wallowing in loneliness, the mad rush of new classes and students has kept me busy straight through to today. I'm very smart and decided that on top of learning all the intricacies of teaching new classes at a new school, I would also overload my schedule. When given the choice between a little more money and sanity, choose sanity.

In the midst of all this change, there's been little time or energy for writing. I have been reading though, and I'm actually closer to my Goodreads goal than I predicted. My reading has also reflected the chaos in that I've mainly only read light and fluffy books because I can't handle anything too dark and serious at the moment. If 2015 was the year of the young adult fantasy, 2016 was the year of the contemporary romance, both adult and young adult. Once finals are over, I'll post my favorites from the year.

Now, let me turn in this "What did you do this summer?" essay to my teacher... Heffa nice day!

IN WHICH The Girl Hunts Heffalumps

Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet imagine Heffalumps several times and even try to catch one, but to no avail. They never even see one. I've been trying to catch my own Heffalump - otherwise known as a real full-time tenure-track teaching gig with salary and benefits and all those adult things - recently. These jobs may just be imaginary as well. I've been in an applying frenzy for the last few months; hence, my blogging hiatus. 

I'm still on the hunt, but I just wanted to say "Hi" and that I'll return soon with new and booknerdy things to say. Feminist ideas about my recent Classic Club Women's Literature Event reads - Anne of Green Gables and Lucy - have been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now. I particularly want to talk about beauty (woe to the red hair) and education in Anne of Green Gables. I'm in the middle of both We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Bell Jar right now as well. While I started out the year slowly, I'm on a classics reading roll now, and I'm enjoying this women's lit excursion immensely. 

Young adult-wise, there are also a lot of exciting releases on the horizon about which I will have thoughts. Number one for me is The Raven King because this series gets better and better with each installment, and I can't wait to see where the final book takes Blue and her Raven boys. I recently reread the whole series in preparation. My fangirl heart beats #SaveGansey (NERD!). I'm also looking forward to The Rose and the Dagger, which gets released on the very same day. Can I read them both in one day?  

In the meantime, I'll keep trying to catch a Heffalump!

IN WHICH The Girl Broadens Her Horizons

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme created by The Broke and the Bookish. I feel my posts have been a bit too list-centric lately, but I haven't done a Top Ten Tuesday in a while and this one seems fun: top ten books I enjoyed recently that weren't my typical genre or were outside my comfort zone.

This prompt is a little hard for me for a couple reasons. For one, I was just thinking that I haven't been branching out as much as I should lately. I become obsessed with certain genres and primarily focus on those books for a couple years at a time. Recently, that genre has been young adult fantasy/science fiction, so about 70% of the books I read are from one subsection of literature. On the other hand, there is very little I won't read. Since I read a little bit of everything, few books are outside my comfort zone. Therefore, this list will cover some books I've read in the last year from genres I haven't been partaking in as much recently or that are fairly new to me.

Blood Red Road by Moira Young

One of the main reasons I wanted to do this particular list is because I was just saying yesterday how Blood Red Road took me in an unexpected direction. Clearly, I read a lot of young adult fantasy, so this book seems to fit right into my normal genre. However, Young writes a dystopian novel that reads like a western: characters journeying across deserts and mountains on horses with slingshots and arrows. I wouldn't normally say westerns are my thing, so I was surprised how much I liked this book. Young's descriptions are very cinematic, and the landscapes would make a beautiful film. The book is also full of action - and it's pretty thrilling action - with showdowns, cage fights, and even a Tremors-ish fight with a giant worm. I may find myself searching for more directly western-themed books in the future.

Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt

Another very recent read. On the surface, this also doesn't seem far from my comfort zone. Nevertheless, it is an adult book - so that in itself is a move away from my norm - and heck if I could tell you exactly what genre this is supposed to be. It's like an Arthurian romance in a 19th century Gothic setting with a quirky, modern sense of humor. Actually, the most unusual aspect of the book for me personally is the comedy. I can't say I read a lot of comedy, though I certainly should. Undermajordomo Minor is one supremely odd and captivating novel. What I loved most was the writing style, particularly the dialog, which is mostly done in a deadpan manner. It's brilliant and hilarious.

Paper Towns by John Green

Can John Green be considered his own genre? At this point, probably. I don't read nearly as much contemporary young adult as I do fantasy, but I've been branching out over the last couple months. I have found some gems, such as Anna and the French Kiss, but I didn't love Paper Towns, my first John Green novel. I've put off reading his work for a while now because of the hype and because I don't really want to read about kids with cancer. There were a few things here I liked, such as the interactions between Quentin and his two best friends and the ending. However, everything felt overly dramatic. I realize these are big moments in the characters' lives and they are self-actualizing or whatever, but I don't need ten different inner monologues about how people aren't how you imagine them in your head. And this is probably why I mainly stick to young adult science fiction/fantasy instead: I like the teen hormones balanced out by a fight against aliens.

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

The genre I read the least is non-fiction, particularly essay collections. I try to read a few a year, but that's about all I manage. It's not that I dislike the non-fiction I do read; I just always crave story more than facts. I enjoyed this collection though. Gay looks at the connection between her personal experiences, pop culture, and social issues, particularly feminism, sexual violence, and race. The essays vary significantly in tone from funny, nostalgic essays about the Sweet Valley High books to heartbreaking essays about rape. Overall, I found the essays both entertaining and insightful. In the future, I would read these types of essays one at a time over a longer period of time, however, because it's a little overwhelming in one shot.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

I haven't read too many contemporary literary fiction novels recently, so this was a nice change of pace. It took me awhile to get into this book, but eventually found myself enjoying it. In a way, I still think Egan is trying a bit too hard to be unique - though it obviously worked as she won a Pulitzer - and some chapters, like the Powerpoint slides, are downright gimmicky. However, I found a lot of the narrative perspectives interesting and wanted to know more about the characters, particularly Sasha. The narrative structure here is kind of a game of "Tag! You're it!" The narrator (and sometimes the style) changes each chapter often based on someone mentioned in the previous chapter. Therefore, you get threads connecting the chapters, but often vague threads that jump all throughout time. I kept trying to guess who would be next. Overall, there is a common theme of how we can't escape the changes of time - that old goon - nor can we escape our previous selves.

Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare

Oh hi, regency romance, I haven't seen you lately! I used to read a lot of romance, but then my obsession switched to young adult - though clearly those often have romance as well - and I put these books on the back burner. I know many people look down on the romance novel, but I'm a fan. They are a light, quick reads that you know will have a happy ending. And sometimes on a bad day, you just want a damn happy ending. This particular book was cute and funny with a My Fair Lady inspired plot. Maybe I'll add some more romances to my line up - after I finish the ten books I already have checked out from the library.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Not only is Wild non-fiction, it's about the outdoors: hiking and camping and all sorts of things I avoid at all costs. Personally, I have no interest in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, so this didn't really seem like my kind of book. But it had good reviews and a movie, so I checked it out, and actually it was quite nice. The book is well written and Strayed effectively mixes her experiences prior to the hike with her experiences on the trail. It's interesting, emotional, and suspenseful. But man, the descriptions of her feet were so detailed and disgusting that it reaffirmed my desire to stay inside and read.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Historical fiction with a LGBTQ main character. You don't see too many books in this genre, though luckily we are getting more fiction with queer characters recently, particularly in young adult. I found parts of this book interesting, but I didn't like it nearly as much as I hoped. Waters is an excellent writer and starts off the book with amazing historical details of post-war Britain and the slow burn of Frances' relationship. However, part way through it becomes a dramatic mystery that was somehow both over-the-top and boring. While I'd certainly like to read more books from this genre and from Waters herself, I was disappointed with The Paying Guests.

Watchmen by Alan Moore

I've only read a handful of comics/graphic novels in my entire life. I'd like to get into comics more, but it just seems so overwhelming. Some story lines include decades of issues. How do you catch up? Hence, I often read the more contained stories like Watchmen and Persepolis (and yes, a Buffy comic or two). Since I'm so used to reading words instead of pictures, it took some getting used to Watchmen, and I moved through it slowly. I'm also sure I missed many details the first time around. However, it was a lot of fun. Advice on how to enter the comic genre smoothly??

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

I get so caught up in the new releases that I tend to fall behind on the classics. I've been woefully negligent recently. I only read a few last year, including As I Lay Dying. While this is probably the easiest Faulkner book to follow (of the ones I've read at least), it was not my favorite. Oddly enough, it's a little too ridiculous. I prefer The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom! despite needing a road map to figure them out. Luckily, I have joined a Women's Classic Literature challenge. I'm being a bit slow with it though. I started Agnes Grey, which isn't the most exciting of books, and have switched it out for Anne of Green Gables at the moment. I'm halfway through it and liking it a lot. Hopefully, I'll be better about my classics this year.

Let's drink to trying new things! What new genres, styles, or books did you read recently?

IN WHICH The Girl Has Dolla Dolla Bling

Whenever the lottery reward reaches record heights, many people get swept up in the dream of suddenly rolling in the big money. I'm generally not a lottery player, but even I felt that need to put my two dollars in for a Powerball ticket. Unfortunately, I didn't get even one number right. At least give me the four dollar prize guys!

In the time leading up to the drawing, I did have a chance to play out multiple fantasies of wealth. Life with more than $10 in my bank account! Paying off those ungodly student loans! Food! A beautiful condo with a view! And books... books... books...

As a literary lover, I came up with several awesome things I could do with my millions. If you did happen to win the jackpot, here are some ideas:

Buy Things

Of course, now that I no longer need to worry about money, I can stop waiting on hold for the most popular books from the library. I can just buy them right away! What? That's crazy. I think I look at the library website every day to see if they have the new releases in yet. Yes, I know that I have a bazillion other books to read, but I want the pretty, new things. Plus, now that I won't need to work for a living, I will have all the time in the world to read all the books in the world.

But these are small potatoes. Why think about ten dollar books when you can think about ten thousand dollar books? Now is the time to start collecting rare books. For example, I could get a special first edition copy of Winnie-the-Pooh on Japanese vellum, signed by both the author and the illustrator for $51,941. 

Flickr/British Library

I'm a billionaire now - let's ignore the realities of taxes - so I can also try to get my hands on the most expensive books out there. Forbes list of the most expensive books ever sold lists the Codex Leicester of Leonardo da Vinci at $49.4 million and Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (1623), The First Folio by William Shakespeare at $8.2 million. Want to sell me that Codex, Mr. Gates?

Where shall I sit while reading Shakespeare's first folio? Why in Pemberley of course! For a mere $12.5 million - less than that Codex you might note - I can purchase Wentworth Woodhouse, which may have inspired Jane Austen's version of Pemberley in Pride and Prejudice and is currently for sale. I've already started auctioning off the 300 rooms to friends. I'm generous. 

Wentworth Woodhouse                Flickr/Allan Harris

For my additional homes across the world, there are several houses associated with famous authors that I could purchase. How about this lovely $35 million estate in California that once belonged to Thomas Mann and was in Scarface. Here's a list of additional literary housing options as well.

Visit Things

Real Gabinete Português de Leitura   Flickr/Mathieu Bertrand Struck

Now that I am comfortably settled in my Austen-style mansion filled with books, I can start traveling. There are hundreds of literary destinations. I could take a world library tour, for instance, including the Liyuan Library in Beijing, China, which apparently is built with timber to blend into the forest and sits on a lake, and the Real Gabinete Português de Leitura in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that is just darn beautiful. 

Liyuan Library Outside         Flickr/LiXiaodong Atelier

Liyuan Library Inside         Flickr/LiXiaodong Atelier

Or I could travel around to the literary museums. Did you know that there is Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem where you can view the Dead Sea Scrolls? Bustle has put together a list of several more. From here I also learned that The American Writer's Museum will be opening up in Chicago next year! Yay!

Shrine of the Book                         Flickr/Christyn

After all this museum and library hopping, I will probably want to sit back and take in a good play. I could then attend some of the greatest theaters in the world. There's of course the Globe Theater in England, but also the National Noh Theatre in Tokyo that is made out of cypress trees, the Minack Theatre that sits on a cliff in Cornwall, and the Palais Garnier in Paris where The Phantom of the Opera was set.

Palais Garnier                                 Flickr/Jonathan

Learn Things

In between my jet-setting, I might actually want to take some literature classes. Don't scoff! Learning is fun (says the teacher). With my winnings, I can pay off all my student loans and get as many degrees as I want - from as many schools that will accept me at least. I'd still love to get my Ph.D. Even if I don't want to get a full degree, however, I can now afford to take a random class here or there. I could even take one while traveling. Did you know Harvard has an online extension school? I could take American Dreams from Scarface to Easy Rider or Masterpieces of World Literature for $2,400, though it's unclear whether that is for the whole course or per graduate credit. By the way, they also have a bunch of free courses of which anyone can take advantage.

That was a nice trip through fantasy land. Well, these might not happen at this point, but life goals! Since I do still need to make a living, I suppose I should get working on those syllabi then.

What would you do with a jackpot win?

IN WHICH The Girl Becomes a Classic

Two of my reading goals for 2016 are to read more of the books I already own (I have a tendency to buy in bulk from used book stores) and to read more classics. To this end, I found the perfect 2016 reading challenge: The Women's Classic Literature Event hosted by The Classics Club.

Essentially the point is to read classic literature by women throughout the year and share your thoughts with other participants in the event. I perused my bookshelves and came up with these six books to get me started.

1. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
2. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
3. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
4. Sula by Toni Morrison
5. Persuasion by Jane Austen - Bonus: this one is on the book club list for this year too.
6. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

I think I'm going to start with Agnes Grey because I had actually pulled that one out to read soon anyways. Should I get through these books, I can always supplement my list with library books as well.

I'm looking forward to the event and a good reading year!

IN WHICH The Girl Picks Favorites

Happy 2016 everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful New Year's. Personally, after the obligatory drinking of New Year's Eve, I spent New Year's Day in a blissful lazefest with two of my best friends. We started the day off by eating Chinese food while watching Big Trouble in Little China. Then, because sitting up on a couch obviously was too much effort, we blew up an air mattress and all snuggled in for a marathon of Making a Murderer. I followed this up by going home and reading for the rest of the evening. It was beautiful.

Now that we are officially done with 2015, it's time for me to list my favorite books in the second half of 2015. Overall in 2015, I blew my original goal of 50 books out of the water but did not reach my second goal of 150 books. I successfully read 118, of which I'm fairly proud. On the other hand, this may just be a sign that I need to get out more. I kind of hit a book slump towards the end of the year. I found many of the books I was looking forward to reading somewhat disappointing. However, there were some definite jewels in the rough.

Best Books of 2015 Part II

I posted Part I of this list covering my favorites from January to July earlier in the year. Therefore, Part II only includes books I read since July. Also, these are books I read in 2015 - not books published in 2015. Few if any were actually published last year. My backlog is long enough that I rarely get to books that quickly. 

The Adult

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. Probably my favorite in this set of books, and ties with Never Let Me Go as favorite of the year (and they are both science fiction - imagine that!). Now I paid a lot more attention to this book than normal because I was using it for class, so that may have influenced my opinion. This is just great science fiction though. It asks the age-old question: what does it mean to be human? But in the futuristic sense of being compared to androids. Dick is able to bring up all sorts of serious topics - technology, religion, animals, government, love, disabilities, etc - while still writing an exciting, suspenseful, and humorous novel. I enjoyed every second of it.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver. Carver's work is somewhat of an acquired taste. The language is very sparse and understated with a lot of questionable endings to very short stories. Carver also presents an incredibly bleak outlook on love of all sorts - romantic, familial, friendly, and even violent. This collection mainly focuses on the aftermath of love, and it was hard to get into at first. However, by about halfway through I was completely invested. These will stick in my mind for quite awhile. It's definitely worth reading - though maybe not right before walking down the wedding aisle.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I loved this book. This is traditional storytelling at its best. It's a totally immersive experience in that you feel like you really are in 1940s Barcelona, walking down dark and foggy streets with mystery around every corner. The characters, particularly Fermin, are great and it's also all about book love and the act of storytelling, which gets me every time. Both the writing and the story can get a bit melodramatic, but that doesn't actually bother me. I would love to sit in front of a fire on a dark winter night and have someone read this novel to me (see I'm melodramatic too).

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. What a wonderful little book. Like Carver's work, this is also a series of very short stories - vignettes - but they are not nearly as bleak. Cisneros provides a look at Esperanza, a young Latina girl, and her community in Chicago. Through tiny windows in her life, we see Esperanza mature and come to understand both the beautiful and harsh realities of life. Cisneros' writing reminds me a lot of Amy Tan's in that the most emotional and heartbreaking moments are understated. You'll miss them if you don't look carefully, but they are incredibly important.

The Youthful

The Legend series by Marie Lu. When I binge read a series, it's hard to separate the books, so I'm grouping them together here. It's another young adult dystopian series in a long line, but it has engaging characters and tons of fast-paced action. They are simply a lot of fun to read. This series actually gets better as it goes along, and I liked the third book best because we start to see the characters mature into adults. The characters and situations gain complexity over time, and Lu even managed to surprise me at the end. And make me cry.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han. Just adorableness. I'm not always a big fan of contemporary young adult novels, but this one is super cute and low on the sob story/tragedy scale. This story has the feel of an 80's teen rom-com movie. To get over each of her adolescent crushes, Lara Jean wrote each one a love/hate "letter" she never intended to send. When they accidentally get sent out, she must do damage control, including adopting a fake boyfriend. It's silly and fun - plus it focuses on the sister relationship as much as the romance. I did not like the sequel nearly as much, but you need to read the first 20 or pages or so for the real ending to To All the Boys I've Loved Before.

The Raven Boys series by Maggie Stiefvater. I actually read this first earlier in the year, but since I reread most of the series again a couple months ago, I'm going to count it in this list. Here we have a cursed townie girl, Blue, who befriends a group of boys from the nearby private school who are on a quest to find a supernatural king. This is another series that gets better as it goes along, and each book gives us further insight on each member of the group. I particularly like Stiefvater's wit and that she provides a look at the complex friendships between boys, which I don't think we see nearly enough in young adult literature. I'm excited for the final book in the series, The Raven King, to come out this year. 

The Thousand Dollar Tan Line and Mr. Kiss and Tell by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham. For the novelized continuation of Veronica Mars, these books are surprisingly good. It helps that they are written by the creator of the show, and this book series actually relates back to the tv show better than the movie did. Both books get back to the base of Veronica Mars: the class disparity and corruption of Neptune that Veronica tries to crack away at one small victory at a time. There are also some great call backs to events in the original series, and Thomas does a nice job bringing in several of our favorite characters without it feeling too forced. I haven't seen anything about a third book, but I would certainly read more! 

Cheers to a happy new year of reading in 2016!