Panliterary Award-Winner Kat Meads has a new book coming out, When The Dust Finally Settles, from Ravenna Press.
In The Invented Life of Kitty Duncan, Kat Meads created a 1950s-era Scarlett O’Hara in eastern North Carolina. Now, in when the dust finally settles, she speaks through Faulknerian voices as white and black members of her small eastern North Carolina community desegregate the schools in the 1960s. Meads’s Clarence Carter, speaking from the dead, provides a surprisingly upbeat (and humorous) perspective on the events unfolding in the community he has not yet quite left. The other voices, young and old, share Clarence’s openness to change—a refreshingly different Southern story.
—Dr. Margaret D. Bauer, Rives Chair of Southern Literature, East Carolina University; Editor, North Carolina Literary Review
Preview some of Kat’s writing in DB#8, “On Fighting the Temptation to Fictionalize Marina Oswald ”.
In anticipation of our new reviews section, Drunken Boat will be featuring mini-reviews on our blog every two weeks. You can subscribe to our RSS feed or check back in to see what our favorite writers have been reading.
I’m currently reading Yingelishi by Jonathan Stalling. Jonathan has composed poems whose sounds make simultaneous yet different poems in English and Chinese. For instance, the phrase, “Close your eyes,” read tonally as ke lu zi you er aisi, creates, in Chinese, the phrase “Jade dew appears as mournful memories.” You can find a performance here.
I’m also reading Rikki Ducornet’s lyrical, harrowing novel, Netsuke; King Lear (but I’m reading Acts V, IV, III, II and then I to consider its unfolding); Forrest Gander’s Core Samples from the World, haibun and other poems inspired by collaboration and travel; and Atsuro Riley’s Romey’s Order, whose sonically-rich poems are also memorable.
Asian Americans Remember and Re-Vision 9/11
“The sense of urgency to write often comes from a place of necessity – to discover truth, to challenge the simplification of stories.” — Hossannah Asuncion
The ten-year anniversary of 9/11 will bring an outpouring of emotions and remembrances. Together We Are New York helps to ensure Asian American community voices are presented and shared as a vital part of the fabric of city memory and the nation’s journey forward. Nine Kundiman poets have interviewed 10 Asian Americans on their experiences that day and in the decade since. The material, crafted into poems accompanied by audio and visual clips for a series of public performances and dialogues, uniquely combines historical documentation with artistic production and public engagement.
Featured poets: Hossannah Asuncion, Tamiko Beyer, Marlon Esguerra, April Heck, Eugenia Leigh, Bushra Rehman, Zohra Saed, Purvi Shah, R.A. Villanueva
WHEN
September 13, 2011
7-9 pm
WHERE
Fordham University, Lincoln Center McNally Auditorium, Law School 140 W. 62nd St. (Law School Entrance) Upon entering the double glass doors and informing the security desk that you are attending the English Department event, walk up the stairs and take a quick left. After going through another pair of double doors, take the first right and enter the Atrium through its glass doors. The Auditorium will be ahead of you to your left.
