FROM THE KR WEB SITE
AN INTERVIEW WITH REBECCA MCCLANAHAN

Rebecca McClanahan’s most recent books are Deep Light: New and Selected Poems 1987-2007 and The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings, which won the 2005 Glasgow Award for nonfiction. KR Fiction Editor Nancy Zafris talked with McClanahan about her new book and more.


McClanahan has also published four previous volumes of poetry and three books about the writing craft, including Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively. Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, The Best American Poetry, The Kenyon Review, Georgia Review, Boulevard, and numerous anthologies, and her awards include a Pushcart Prize in fiction, the Wood Prize from Poetry, and (twice) the Carter Prize for the essay from Shenandoah. She lives in New York and currently teaches in the M.F.A. program of Queens University in Charlotte, the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center. Her Web site is www.mcclanmuse.com.

Nancy Zafris: You’re one of the few writers who can write exceptionally well in all genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction (which I know you prefer to call literary nonfiction). Do you think you write equally well in each genre? Maybe that’s too direct a question . . .

Rebecca McClanahan: It’s not too direct a question, not at all. It’s just one that I am incapable of answering. Long ago I stopped focusing on how well I’m writing or, more specifically, how my writing would be perceived by others—readers, editors, critics. First off, I tend to agree with Marvin Bell’s notion that a writer should try to “write badly”; he illuminates this concept in “Three Propositions: Hooey, Dewey, and Loony,” one of my favorite essays about writing. Second, it takes all my energies to focus on the task at hand—the writing itself and all it requires. If I also had to stop and think, “Am I a better poet than a fiction writer? A better essayist than a poet?” I’d never get anything done.

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Think of this section as a bulletin from KR in which we brag about the accomplishments of the extended KR family and leave out the gall-bladder surgeries.
  • Mark Allen Cunningham has a second novel, Lost Son, due out from Unbridled Books in June. The novel is based on the life and art of Rainer Maria Rilke, author of Letters to a Young Poet and The Duino Elegies. It is set throughout Western Europe over a 42-year period, and features such characters as the sculptor Rodin and the famous Lou Andreas-Salome. Cunningham's blog, Dispatches, will feature a number of Rilke-related posts up to and through publication of the novel.

EVENTS
Literary Magazine & Small Press Fair Goes to Connecticut

Make off with all the magazines and books you can carry from CLMP’s Literary Magazine & Small Press Fair at Central Connecticut State University’s Writing Conference on April 27. Hundreds of regional and national independent literary publishers will converge to sell their journals for only $2 an issue and books for $4 each.

CLMP brings its national program of literary fairs to Recharging the Sensorium, CCSU's 6th Annual Writing Conference and the largest of its kind in the state. Many publishers will attend in person to meet eager readers. Don’t miss this opportunity to discover a huge assortment of literary magazines and small press books you are unlikely to find in a single store.

CLMP Literary Magazine & Small Press Fair is free and open to the public: Friday, April 27th, 2007, 9am-5pm, Founder's Hall, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT.

The fair is co-sponsored by Drunken Boat, Connecticut Review and the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. This program made possible in part through support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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The Kenyon Review
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kenyonreview@kenyon.edu

   EVENTS KR EDITOR DAVID LYNN TO INTRODUCE BRAD KESSLER AT "PERIODICALLY SPEAKING"

Periodically Speaking: Literary Magazine Editors Introducing Emerging Writers at the New York Public Library

The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses [ clmp ] and the New York Public Library present Periodically Speaking, a reading series providing a major venue for emerging writers to present their work while emphasizing the diversity of America's literary magazines and the magazine collections of the New York Public Library. Each event presents writers from three influential literary magazines—one poet, one fiction writer, one nonfiction writer—introduced by their editors.

Brad Kessler


Meghan O'Rourke

KR Editor David Lynn will introduce fiction writer Brad Kessler for Program II on Tuesday, May 8th, 6 - 7:30 pm. Also appearing will be Yale Review Editor J.D. McClatchy who will introduce poet Meghan O'Rourke and Chattahoochee Review Editor Marc Fitten who will introduce nonfiction writer Courtney Eldridge.

The reading takes place at DeWitt Wallace Periodicals Room, The New York Public Library, Humanities and Social Sciences Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd (please use Fifth Avenue entrance). Admission is free.

This series is made possible in part by support from the New York State Council for the Arts, a state agency; Deborah Pease; the New York Public Library; and Friends of [ clmp ], a diverse group of individuals committed to supporting independent literary publishing.

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EVENTS APRIL IS NATIONAL POETRY MONTH

Founded by the American Academy of Poets in April 1996, "National Poetry Month (NPM) brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture." Poets.org, the site of American Academy of Poets, features a map highlighting poetry profiles (though somewhat dated) of communities throughout the country. You'll also find a current listing of poetry events on the left side of the page when you get to your state. There are dozens of events still to come before the end of the month, including:


CELEBRATE NATIONAL POETRY MONTH WITH
THE KENYON REVIEW

Want to celebrate National Poetry Month without leaving the house? Check out some of these gems from KR issues, recent and past:

FROM THE ARCHIVES
Summer 1986


In the Summer 1986 issue of KR, Howard Nemerov offered up four poems. We thought it especially fitting to include this one in celebration of National Poetry Month. Nemerov (1920-1991) was U.S Poet Laureate 1988-1990. The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov (1977) won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Bollingen Prize.

to dante
HOWARD NEMEROV

To write an epic with an all-star cast,
Even the extras somebodies in their day,
To have for theme the whole of history
With plenty to spare, to finish all that up
By falling asleep in the divine mind
And disremembering everything at once,
With everyone you ever knew, as well
As everyone you didn't, dead;
You on that stage to be the only one
Alive among the crowding shadows, well,
We always figured that's what poets want,
And by God you got it, the whole damned blessed lot.

How lonely, though, between the eternities,
The long way down, and up, and over and out.

The Kenyon Review is supported in part by generous grants from the Ohio Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Smart Family Foundation, and the New York Times Company Foundation.