The land East of Eden

Well have been reading some fiction just finished Steinbeck's East of Eden...what a masterpiece beautifully written but an absolute pager turner as well!!!

My project seems to be coming from a wide view of resilience to a much more personal stance looking at my own resilience and that of my friend Eric...Think I may revisit Sharon Olds collection of poems around her Fathers death...the first time I read it was a bit close to the bone for me at the time, but Elizabeth has encouraged to write a series of memory poems around my mother and other family members. I have been working alot of found poems around family members and using photographs and written letters etc as a jumping off point.

Wow three weeks later back to this....mmmm reading have just finished Travels with Charley by Steinbeck...probably one of the first so called armchair travel books (written in 1961). He decides that living in New York has made his connection with the landscape he writes about tenuous so he decides to take his French Poodle (who was trained in French only....mmmm interesting) on a road trip through America to see if he can reconnect with the landscape. The book was usual Steinbeck, insightful, witty and riveting. He takes us through small town America to meet the everyday people...the salt of Steinbeck's American earth. He travels west to his home in Salinas California giving insights that only a native can about the people and the landscape. He finishes off in the deep south were he is witness to the ugliness of racial intolerance. It is interesting to read this work with the hindsight of the last nearly 50 years of American History....I wonder what Steinbeck would make of his country now....I fear he would not be pleased.
Poetry wise have been reading Elizabeth's A Year of Adverbs This is my second visit to this collection, the first time I was in a very different space and don't think I fully gave myself over to the simple brilliance of it. Now that my own writing has become much more anchored in memory of the past and the everyday occurrences that made up my life, I read these poems quite differently. They have a curviness a generosity which my angular poems lack. I had been feeling low as all my poems submitted to The 4th Floor were rejected Elizabeth's no nonsense words helped me over that obstacle as usual she encourages me to trust my own voice...we each write in the way only we can - it's pointless and futile to try to write differently as usual wise words from my mentor.
Holidays coming up and as usual more books lined up than I could ever hope to get through....thought I would have a fiction reading fest so will spending my holidays with: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, White Teeth, The House of Sand and Fog, Alice Hoffman's Local Girls (short stories) and finish Love in the Time of Cholera. First two days of the holidays off for writing retreat with friend in Otaki...two days of full on writing, yacking, critiquing, watching great movies and eating yummy food....sounds divine.
Well that about covers the month of June....Au revoir