Author: bripike

Finding Our Way Back…

It has been a strange few weeks in my world. Just yesterday, I finished The Descendants, a novel about many things, but ultimately about the loss of a loved one. The news has been full of the death of 17 year old Trayvon Martin and not more than an hour ago I learned, via social media, that poet Adrienne Rich passed away today at the age of 82.

In 2008 I posted this poem by Adrienne Rich:

In Those Years
In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and, yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through rages of fog
where we stood, saying I

This poem seems particularly poignant to me this week. The news is full of Trayvon and Tyler Clementi and Dharun Ravi. There are politicians on NPR screaming about contraception and same sex marriage and the Supreme Court is currently debating on whether or not health care is constitutional. Forgive me for a slight moment of pessimism, but perhaps we have lost track. 
I discovered Rich as an undergraduate and read “Diving into the Wreck” just like every other budding poet. I admired her poems but I think I admired her guts more. She was brave. She was political. She was unapologetic and she wrote it all down. She gave voice to difficult subjects, subjects we don’t like to look at and she made us look them right in the eye. But now, she’s gone.
As I type this post, I feel my chest tightening. It could be because I am tired and slightly bogged down in the horrors from the world this week. It could be because I am oversensitive. It could be because I see Trayvon in the faces of my students but I think it is simply because another great voice, a voice I took comfort in, has been silenced and I’m not quite sure where that leaves me. 

Because It’s Important Part II…

On Thursday January 20, 2011 I posted the following poem by Randall Mann to my blog:

September Elegies

in memory of Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Billy Lucas, and Tyler Clementi

There are those who suffer in plain sight,
there are those who suffer in private.
Nothing but secondhand details:
a last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak.

There are those who suffer in private.
The one in Tehachapi, aged 13.
A last shower, a request for a pen, a tall red oak:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.

The one in Tehachapi, aged 13;
the one in Cooks Head, aged 15:
he had had enough torment, so he hanged himself.
He was found by his mother.

The one in Cooks Head, aged 15.
The one in Greensburg, aged 15:
he was found by his mother.
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me,”

the one in Greensburg, aged 15,
posted on his profile.
“I love my horses, my club lambs. They are the world to me.”
The words turn and turn on themselves.

Posted on his profile,
“Jumping off the gw bridge sorry”:
the words turn, and turn on themselves,
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.

Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.
There are those who suffer in plain sight
like the one in New Brunswick, aged 18.
Nothing but secondhand details.

Last Friday, March 16, 2012, a jury convicted  Dharun Ravi (Clementi’s roommate) of “of invasion of privacy, witness tampering and evidence tampering, plus bias intimidation…”*

I’m conflicted about this verdict. I admittedly do not know all the details of this case. What I do know is that Tyler Clementi threw himself off the George Washington Bridge and now his roommate is going to jail. What I do know is that lives are ruined and it doesn’t make me angry or vengeful. It just makes me sad. What I do know is that the final refrain of this poem is even more poignant to me now than it was last year.

Why audiobooks are cool…

I’m not the type of person who reads one book at a time. I like to have several books and/or magazines going at once, but sometimes this presents a problem in terms of time management. The first book I ever listened to on CD was Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I had read the book once but I was going to be attending a seminar for my MFA program that had The Road on the reading list but I knew I wasn’t going to have time to read it again, so I got it on CD and listened to it while I drove to Kentucky.

I like the idea of listening to books while driving, especially on my commute to and from work. I also like the idea of listening to a book while out running errands. I feel like I’m taking advantage of “wasted time” and that makes me feel better about running around all day.

One of the potential downfalls of listening to books on CD is that you can get caught up in the story and then end up sitting in the parking lot of the gym for a half an hour when you’re supposed to be doing sprints on the treadmill (I’m not saying I did this today. Oh no…). 

Right now I’m listening to The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings and I’m really enjoying it. There are 8 discs total and I’m on disc 3. It ‘s a really good story with solid characters. I’ve heard about the movie and I’d like to see it once I’m done with the book but I can tell already that the movie must have condensed a fair amount of the story because it is full of detail and character development. If they put all the detail in the first 8 chapters in the movie, it would be 3 hours long. I’ll have a longer post in a couple of weeks when I’ve finished the book.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Last night I finished reading the latest pick of the faculty book club that I belong to a school. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was a very interesting book and I learned a lot about the medical industry that I did not know.

The book is about the story of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cells became famous. Henrietta’s cells (HeLa cells) are used all over the world in medical research. Research done using her cells created the vaccine for polio and her cells have been used in research for cancer and AIDS. The books is crafted in a way that shows the separate stories of Henrietta and her cells and how those stories eventually converge and the havoc that it wreaks on her surviving relatives.

The book was written by Rebecca Skloot, who incidentally was at AWP this past weekend, and she began when she was just a student. She became interested in HeLa cells and how no one seemed to know anything about the woman from which these cells came from. Skloot’s research is dense and complicated but she does a good job of breaking the science down, making it accessible to a wide audience.

However, it is the personal narrative that Skloot constructs that will draw you into the book right away. It is a heartbreaking narrative that raises important questions about privacy, morality, poverty, education and health care. I think it is important book for people to read not only because Henrietta and her family deserve to have their story told, but also because people need to be aware of what the current laws are regarding human tissue. As Skloot says in her afterword, “When I tell people the story of Henrietta Lacks and her cells, their first question is usually Wasn’t it illegal for doctors to take Henrietta’s cells without her knowledge? Don’t doctors have to tell you when they use your cells in research? The answer is no–not in 1951, and not in 2009 when this book went to press.”

All books are meant to educate the audience in some way shape or form. This book opened my eyes to a lot of different issues occurring in the medical community and I think we owe it to Henrietta and all people like her to listen to her story.

Rebecca Skloot set up a scholarship fund for descendents of Henrietta Lacks. Donations can be made at www.HenriettaLacksFoundation.org.

Image of stained HeLa cells courtesy GE Healthcare (by way of Henrietta Lacks) via CC  
On May 29, 2010, there was finally a headstone erected at Henrietta’s gravesite. 
Henrietta and Day Lacks, circa1945. Courtesy of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

AWP Aftermath

Last Wednesday I boarded the Megabus in Indy with a couple dozen other writers from Ohio, Illinois and Indiana and trekked off to Chicago for AWP. What is AWP? Association for Writers and Writing Programs is what the acronym stands for and every year they hold an annual conference where writers of all kinds descend on a city for a few days. This year was the biggest AWP yet with 10,000 plus participants crowding into downtown Chicago for a few days of literary bootcamp.

I don’t use the term bootcamp lightly. AWP is a marathon of panels, readings and networking. I’ve gone the past three years (Chicago, D.C. and back to Chicago) and I always enjoy myself but I also feel at the end like I could sleep for two days straight. It is a lot to take in in short period of time.

This year I had the good fortune of being a panel with three other writers who I meant at the Two Year College Caucus meeting last year. The title of our panel was “Reconsidering/Recreating the Workshop in the Online Environment.” My particular part of the presentation focused on blogs and how they can encourage collaboration and communication in an online class, which can in turn improve group dynamics which can make for better workshops later on down the road. I think our panel went well and that we had a pretty good turn out considering they scheduled us for 10:30 AM the first day of the conference. They also put us in the Grand Ballroom at the Palmer House, so I felt very small (literally) when I got up to speak at the podium but I am grateful for the experience.

I went to two great readings while I was in Chicago. One was celebrating Carnegie Mellon Press’s 40th Birthday and Nicky Beer was among the group of poets reading. Her book, “The Diminishing House” is one of my favorites and I had the privilege of working with her while I was getting my MFA at Murray. I also went to a reading about apocalyptic literature and listened to Nicky’s husband, and my former mentor, Brian Barker, read from his book “Black Ocean.” These two readings were by far some the best events I attended during the week.

Honestly, my favorite part about AWP is getting to see friends that I don’t normally get to see. It’s fun to walk through the crowd and see a familiar face. I find that just as inspiring as any panel that I could attend.

As a final note, the bookfair was crazy as per usual. I know next year, in Boston, they are going to have it in a convention center so it won’t be so confusing to navigate but I don’t think it’s the layout that makes the bookfair daunting. I feel like the fair is just sensory overload. There are hundreds of journals and small presses doing really wonderful things with their publications and they all want to tell you about it. That can be a tad overwhelming after you’ve walked around for an hour and not even seen a quarter of what the fair has to offer. That being said, I meant some neat people this year and picked up some interesting journals to read.

I came home from AWP exhausted and carrying a stack of books, which means it was a good conference. Till next year…

Consider the Lobster

I like good food and I had some fantastic food last Tuesday for dinner. RJ and I decided that for Valentine’s Day we would cook dinner, so when a deal came up from Goose The Market, we were sold. Goose The Market is a local gourmet grocery store here in Indy and it is awesome.

Inside of Goose the Market. Photo courtesy of The Butler Collegian

If you have not visited Goose it is located at 2503 N. Delaware Street. You should go and eat lunch there (get the Batali sandwich) and then you should eat some of their made from scratch gelato. You can also check out the Enoteca and drink some wine while enjoying some delicious snacks.

Enoteca. Photo courtesy of Goose The Market.

Anyway. Back to our dinner. The deal that Goose was running was $75 for

  • Fischer Farms dry-aged 16oz boneless ribeye
  • 1 whole live lobster  (1.5 – 2 lbs each) ready for the pot
  • 2 servings housemade orange zest & cardamom bread pudding ready to heat & serve
  • 1 bottle Cercius Cotes du Rhone Villages 2010 (85% Grenache, 15% Syrah; 93 pts, Robert Parker)

RJ went and picked the food up from Goose and in the process apparently formed some sort of bond with the lobster who was shuffling around, alive, in a plastic bag in the back of his car. He named him Pete.

Pete

 Now I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with the essay by David Foster Wallace entitled Consider the Lobster, but both RJ and I have read it and it raised some brief concerns about dumping poor old Pete into a vat of boiling water. However, our reservations were short lived and we were hungry, so Pete went into the pot.

Pete. Cooked. 

During the cooking process, I uncorked the wine. It was really good wine, evidenced by the fact that we drank the entire bottle.

Delicious.

Finally our dinner was ready and it was worth the wait. I would personally like to thank Goose The Market for supplying one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten.