Welcome to Litsy!

Sometimes I can't get a thought out of my head. Friday it was, “wait are we a greek Chorus on Taylor Swift's new album?“ And here we are. https://youtu.be/_wWM3xuShR4

^p78 twisting language to preserve white character‘s agency & perspective in “To Have and Have Not.” Wesley can‘t even yell “Fish!”—Harry has to “saw he had seen” the fish.
“A better, certainly more graceful choice would have been to have the black man cry out at the sighting.” Observations, small details.

P30 “The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.”

Strong piece. “American Africanism” as an OTHERED Blackness, a “fabricated presence” as foil for white characters. 1992

P77 “Eddie is white, and we know he is because nobody says so.”

P93 “Studies in American Africanism, in my view, should be investigations of the ways in which a nonwhite, Africanist presence and persona have been constructed—invented—in the United States, and of the literary uses this fabricated presence has served.”

I feel this to my very core… I just need to make it to Friday and then I can enjoy 9 days off!! #teachersoflitsy

I‘m wrapping up the #pumpkinspicereadathon with some literary criticism in bed - it‘s cosy in the context of grad school!

So excited for Friday 13th tomorrow. I‘m celebrating my anniversary with my partner so I probably won‘t be reading loads but… in my soul I‘ll be spooky

#scarathlon #skeletoncrew

repost for @TheSpineView

Here are the July prompts for #PoetryMatters
Everyone is welcome to play along. Post a poem, song, quote, etc. That you feel fits the prompt. Please remember to tag me. As always, a big thank you to everyone who participated in June. I love reading what you find.

original post:
https://www.litsy.com/web/post/2603417

Last weekend I went to a reading called „The framework story“. The framework was an older house and its rooms. In every room single readings of authors took place, e.g. we started with a crime story in the laundry room in the cellar - an appropriate surrounding. 😱😱😱

One of the earliest examples of literary and aesthetic theory. Short and accessible and lucidly translated by Anthony Kenny. This edition also has some supplementary material at the end, of which Dorothy Sayers' "Aristotle on Detective Fiction" is the most fun: "But what, in his heart of hearts, he desired was a good detective story" she says of Aristotle, and it's hard to disagree with her, reading his theories on plot and action and catharsis.

In normal conversation, when the interlocutors are physically present to each other, they can add all kinds of meanings and nuances to their words by facial expression and body-language, or indeed communicate by…non-verbal means[…]. Until the recent invention of the videophone (which is still in a very early stage of development) these channels of communication have not been available.

(!!!)
(p170; ch 37: The Telephone)

This book isn't just about poetry and writing. It's about life. It's about originality (is there such a thing? We are all influenced and copy to some degree but yet our voice comes through). It's about deliberation and focus and exploration and paying attention. It's about learning to live with the demons in our minds. And the shadow and the light. And how poetry is all around us.