Meeting Neil Gaiman

So I have some catching up to do.

Several weeks ago, okay more like a month ago now, I had the extreme good fortune of being a ticketholder to what Neil Gaiman called his last US signing tour. It was in honor of the release of his novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and was held in my personal favorite Portland venue, the Crystal Ballroom. Or at least, it's typically my favorite.

We aren't sure who ordered the sweltering heat, but it certainly wasn't us - the Crystal Ballroom has no air conditioning, the ballroom is on the top floor, and they typically don't even open the windows upstairs - and it certainly wasn't Neil, who was in his customary all-black and long sleeved ensemble. Oops, Neil said that he was going to keep it a secret that Portland had days like that; I guess the cat's out of the bag.

Either way, it was a delightful afternoon with approximately nine hundred people packed into one room, which Neil informed us was about the maximum comfortable number to sign for. Apparently the event the night before had gone from 8:00 PM until 2:00 in the morning (ouch). He read from chapter three of Ocean at the End of the Lane as well as an excerpt from his upcoming children's book Fortunately, the Milk (which I will shamelessly purchase without having a little one to give or read it to).

However, one of the best parts of the afternoon was the question and answer portion. Every guest had the opportunity to write a question on an index card which could then potentially be drawn at random and asked on stage. The best, or at least most memorable, question went something like: "Summarize your writing process in three words or less." He thought about that one for a long moment, and then responded, glaring, "Glare," and finished with a nod, "Drink tea." Which just about summed up the feelings of everyone in the room, including mine.

And then of course came the moment of truth. The room was divided into sections based on colored slips of paper in the copies of Ocean at the End of the Lane we were given as we arrived, and each  group was called up to cue for the signing table one at a time. I had looked forward to meeting Mr. Gaiman, even for a moment, since the second I realized that tickets for the event had gone on pre-sale. Everything of his that I've read I've enjoyed, but just as importantly, he is an incredibly encouraging person. Many of my closest friends are writers and artists of some capacity, and there have been many times that we call or message each other looking for support; insecurity seems to come with most creative territories. And then, one magical day, we found Neil Gaiman's tumblr. He spends a lot of time answering asks from fans, which has always struck me as generous, and many of those responses have to do with encouraging others not to give up on their passion because they are afraid or nervous or insecure about their work, their education, or basically anything else. So going up to that table, I wanted to thank him. Not only for the encouragement and confidence I had personally taken from his internet outreach, but for the fact that he seeks to support everyone he can. It is so easy to feel constricted or crushed by the concept that you are not good enough, or that art is not worth your time because it will not make you any money, or that nothing is ever original, and seeing an author who is so successful express so much support is not only refreshing, it's vital.

I had all these things in mind when I went up there. I was calm up until the moment it was my turn. I was good and remembered that he's a person, not the clout that his name carries. But then I was there, he was signing my books, I got my thank you out, and my mind went blank. He was a good sport about it, of course, and after I stammered something else I asked if it would be alright if I got a quick hug, and he waved me over. And I am so, so grateful for that.

Just in case, I'll try again: thank you so much, Neil Gaiman, for visiting my city, for making such a long trek around the country, for bearing the hand cramps and long hours, for sharing your newest work and your stories, for answering nosy questions, and for listening to all of us blunder our way to telling you how awesome we think you are. Please never change.

Cheers,
-Maddie

If you are interested, and you should be, go visit Neil's Tumblr at neil-gaiman.tumblr.com and get inspired!

Boy with Flowers by Ely Shipley

Boy with Flowers is the 2007 winner of the Barrow Street Press' book prize and Ely Shipley's first published book of poetry.

Like the other collections of poetry I've read this year, Boy with Flowers is a vivid glimpse into another world. It may look familiar around the edges, but it's made up of change, strife and acceptance, and, especially, self-creation.

Like Southern Comfort, Boy with Flowers is very important for the Trans community: Ely Shipley himself is a Transperson, which he openly examines in his work. I can only hope that it helps to spread awareness and legitimacy for the community.

I admire this collection for many reasons, first and foremost for how unapologetic it is. It flows its course, regardless of what could be seen as taboo subjects, references, topics, musings, and it is beautiful in doing so. In this respect I am reminded of Elizabeth Colen, when she visited us, and the discussion we had about her use of the word "cunt" (a word I don't particularly like; she said that she divorces it from its offensive associations and prefers the sound of it over the sound of its synonyms). The universe which Shipley shows his audience in his work is full of violence, sex, memories, angels, rain, reflections, cities and dimes, and it has a kind of grit in its detail.

I would absolutely recommend this work. It's a wild ride, certainly, but well worth it, and liberating in its execution.

Here, take a look.

Postscript!
For anyone who is interested, below is a list of essays we read throughout the quarter. Some of them are simple, some of them are mind-staggeringly difficult, most are more than slightly outdated. However, they all have merit after their own fashion and I would recommend the majority of them to pretty much anybody.

Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality, by Gayle S. Rubin
Epistemology of the Closet, by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Chicano Men: A Cartography of Homosexual Identity and Behavior, by Tomás Almaguer
Imitation and Gender Insubordination, by Judith Butler
The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power, by Audre Lorde
Looking for Trouble, by Kobena Mercer
Capitalism and Gay Identity, by John D'Emilio
All of these, and many, many more such essays may be found in The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, published by Routledge.

Money for Sunsets, by Elizabeth J. Colen

2009 winner of the Steel Toe Books Prize in Poetry, Money for Sunsets is the first published work of Bellingham native Elizabeth J. Colen. What's really exciting is that, through my infamous English class, I was able to both hear her read her work and meet her - twice.

What I find very impressive is that Colen manages to work in what I have always regarded as a rather touchy, even volatile, medium, the elusive prose-poem. It's formatted like prose, which can have the accompanying effect of leaving a page looking empty, especially with short pieces. However, her poems more than stand up for themselves. Nearly every one carries with it that enigmatic quality that makes one want to read it over again as soon as it's done. That said, her imagery is vivid, sometimes in a dangerous or even chilling way. It's a very good thing.

This vividness, in my mind, is what holds the manuscript as a whole together. It is not a linear work, like most poetry collections, and a little light was shed on the subject by the author herself. When she visited our class she said she revised many of the pieces to make it easier for her audience to interpret the "I" voice as the same person all the way through. This made me narrow my eyes, and for good reason; she went on to explain that in her own personal interpretation the "I" voice is seldom meant to be the same character. The beauty of poetry - and art as a whole - is that once the work leaves the nest, so to speak, it is subject to a number of interpretations limited only by the number of people it reaches.

There are many things which are represented in Money for Sunsets, and I honestly think that, with an open mind, there can be something for everyone found in its world.

Pay Steel Toe Books a visit at their website!
And go buy Money for Sunsets!

Also, keep a weather eye on the horizon - she's going to be coming out with another manuscript soon! The working title as she told it to us is What Weaponry. Also, if the two characters represented in it end up reminding you of the ones in her poem 50 Miles of Shoulder you may well be on to something.

Happy Reading!

Freeheld

This was one of the many films we watched in my English GLBT literature class.

Released in 2007, Freeheld was directed and produced by Cynthia Wade, with the help of additional producers Matthew Syrett and Vanessa Roth. It has won several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary in 2008. Significant, suspenseful, and heartfelt, the documentary tells the story of Lieutenant Laurel Hester, a policewoman dying of lung cancer who is, despite it, fighting for the right to leave her pension to her partner, Stacie against the ruling of the Ocean County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders.

This film is shot with a brutal sort of honesty. Little is withheld, especially with regards to the physical and emotional deterioration of both Laurel and Stacie as their - and their community's - campaign against the Freeholders goes on. While Freeheld can be very empowering in the regard that a community comes together to try and make a difference in the face of adversity and discrimination, it is also starkly grounding: after all, 2007 was not that long ago.

I would recommend this film for all of these reasons, especially for its down to earth, unyielding honesty about the nature of communities, the nature of the American court system of not very long ago at all, and especially the nature of the human condition at its most sensitive time - at its close.

Additional Information at:
IMDb
Wikipedia

Crush, by Richard Siken

And so, dear readers, I once again arrive at the place in my life wherein I can review things which I read for school!

I read Richard Siken's Crush for my English 227 class, which focuses on GLBT literary works. We started off the quarter with theory, reading essays by Gayle S. Rubin, Audre Lorde, Kobena Mercer, and Judith Butler. Crush was a breath of fresh air.

Although it was refreshing, it was by no means an easy read. And to say it is not an easy read does not mean it is not a quick read: indeed, I could hardly put it down. But I've begun in the middle. Let's go back to the beginning.

Crush has won multiple awards, including the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Poetry in 2005. However, perhaps most notably, Crush was selected as the 2004 winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize, which speaks volumes in more than one way. Firstly, the contestant cannot have been published previously, and the contestant must also be under the age of 40. Secondly, the winners of this award are usually what my Professor dubbed "conservative" in their work - read structured, straightforward, classical, metered - and Crush is the antithesis of all that word stands for in our language today. It speaks for the strength of the manuscript in and of itself, a strength I cannot and will never doubt. Siken's work is compared to Silvia Plath's - Crush to Ariel - and I can believe it.

In the foreword of the book, Louise Glück (one of the judges of the aforementioned contest, I believe) asserts "This is a book about panic." I think this much is true, but I think it is also so much more than that. Siken's masterful use of imagery and surrealism immersed me as a reader in the universe of Crush and in it I saw much more than panic: grief, loss, denial, resignation, anger, desperation, desire, lust, and hopelessness. Some of these may be synonymous and I might be responding with vague and nebulous ramblings (as I am wont to produce) that are snatching at the coattails of insight, but really I can have little other response. Crush captured me. Not only in its brilliant use of imagery but in blurring the lines between literal and figurative and its use of the surreal and the sudden. It whisked me along and even though I tried to take it slow to see what I could see, it will take many, many more readings to formulate a more coherent response to it than the one you, reader, just slogged through.

For the slogging, I apologize.

I hope, however, that you find a copy of Crush to read, and read it carefully. Honestly I think that anyone who considers themselves a poet, ever dreamed of being a poet, or likes to profess that they are a poet should be required to read this book. It is infinitely powerful and I know it has changed how I look at poetry. I think it could open a lot of doors.

And even if you do not consider yourself a poet, I would recommend this to you. There is something so simply, so intrinsically human within each and every piece that each is a gem, and yet one cannot be plucked out from amongst all the rest. They are one and whole and heartbreaking.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy.