Community matters at your library

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No two libraries are alike.  I learned this young.  My family moved around a lot for my dad’s job when I was young, so we criss-crossed the country collecting library cards along the way–thanks to my mom’s deep love of reading combined with her frugal nature. Continue Reading

Our American nightmare: Detroit

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I didn’t want to pick the book up, but after I did I couldn’t put it down. Written by Charlie LeDuff, it is called Detroit: An American Autopsy. Detroit, in my youth the fourth largest city in the U.S., currently is on life support, casualty of a cancer in the American Dream. Continue Reading

Khary Jackson’s “Any Psalm You Want”: Moving multicultural mantras

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I spend a lot of time thinking about how creative writing will adapt to, with, and through the move from print to digital—but with Khary Jackson’s Any Psalm You Want, I was presented with a book of poetry that feels fresh and contemporary despite being printed on old-fashioned paper (that is, on any paper at all).Jackson is a Minneapolis artist whose career illustrates how freely one can move in our supportive literary community among the roles of “poet” and “performer.” The poems in Any Psalm are unmistakably from the pen of a man accustomed to live performance, but they live up to the mandate of the publisher (Texas-based Write Bloody) that their authors craft work that “soars on the page.”Among the many remarkable qualities of this book is the variety of the work—in both substance and texture. Poems range from the prose-like to the completely free, and vault across references ranging from classical mythology to Natalee Holloway. Jackson breaks boundaries and bends rules without being ostentatiously post-modern; the book’s press release cites similarities to Saul Williams, Pablo Neruda, and Langston Hughes, and it’s hard to imagine that the bard of the Harlem Renaissance wouldn’t recognize and appreciate the verve with which Jackson is using his African-American voice in the 21st century.Jackson’s poems are often high-concept, with titles that frame and telegraph their contents (“George Gershwin Writes Janis Joplin After Hearing Her Version of ‘Summertime,'” “From Leadbelly to Kurt Cobain”). Even within such tight frameworks, though, Jackson consistently surprises and engages. Continue Reading

New Jew in town: Meeting a “real” writer

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I was running late to Federation’s Young Leadership happy hour one evening last November, which meant I was able to skip the awkward but necessary introductions and small talk. Instead, I hijacked my way into a conversation where someone said, “Daci, this is Rebecca! She’s a writer too.” Continue Reading

Women having their say: Not a love poem in sight

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Last night I went out with my friend Patricia and we talked, as women do, over sushi and white wine. It’s an important ritual. We treasure the chance to sit and exchange our stories and have our say, at least with each other. What goes unspoken is that it’s a world where we do not always feel we get to have that. Continue Reading

Minicon at 48: Science fiction, aging attendees, and reverse shoplifting

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From facebook:

I was wearing a bright red turtleneck and black pants from J Jill yesterday, and I felt I was too talkative and assertive. I even talked through a guy in the audience, which I never do. So today I am wearing a dark brown turtleneck, jeans and pearls. I feel the pearls will induce decorum, and the dark brown turtleneck with mute my mood down to morose and withdrawn. Unfortunately, I have no panels, so won’t find out if this makes me a better panelist.

Along with the pearls I am wearing a 40-year-old Yves St. Laurant silk scarf that is brown, tan, green and bright reddish-pink. So the costume has a certain amount of cheer. The scarf is there to provide color and elegance. Continue Reading

“The Dakota Prisoner of War Letters”: Clifford Canku and Michael Simon illuminate a dark corner of Minnesota history

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After seeing Django Unchained, I wrote about how slow Minnesota has been to see the plank in its own eye when casting judgment on the cruel history of slavery in the south. Dakota and other Native inhabitants of our land were treated brutally during westward expansion, and that treatment precipitated the deadly Dakota War of 1862—perhaps the darkest moment in our state’s history.That sad history has been steadily coming to light, and the Minnesota Historical Society Press is making an important contribution to that process with the publication of The Dakota Prisoner of War Letters (Dakota Kaskapi Okicize Wowapi), a compilation of 50 letters written from the Iowa prison camp where 270 Dakota men were imprisoned from the war’s end until they were freed by President Andrew Johnson three years later. The letters are presented both in the original Dakota and in English translation.For all its historical importance, this is not a starter volume for those who know little of the war. Its greatest value—both to historians and to the causal reader—is in illuminating the complexity of these men’s lives. Neither blameless victims nor evil criminals, these were men who were caught in a terrible situation and who did what they felt they had to do for their families and communities.The letters contain much evidence of regret, which is natural since almost all of them were written to a missionary—Stephen R. Riggs—who was in contact with U.S. authorities and had some sway in influencing the men’s fates. Continue Reading