{"id":952,"date":"2023-03-29T15:15:21","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T19:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=952"},"modified":"2023-03-29T15:15:22","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T19:15:22","slug":"what-were-reading-from-associate-editor-mary-simmons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/what-were-reading-from-associate-editor-mary-simmons\/","title":{"rendered":"What We\u2019re Reading, from Associate Editor Mary Simmons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Whenever I need to reconnect with my personal sense of artistic inspiration, I revisit Anne Carson\u2019s Short Talks<\/em> (Brick Books Classics, 1992\/2015). Short Talks<\/em> was first introduced to me in a creative nonfiction course in undergrad, and later as a hybrid form in my senior seminar class. Over the years, I\u2019ve approached this text in many different ways, and the beauty of Carson\u2019s work in this collection is that it defies definition and begs to be revisited. The book opens with Short Talk on Homo Sapiens<\/em>, which starts with an early human \u201crecord[ing] the moon\u2019s phases on the handles of his tools\u201d and moves into a \u201cFace in a pan of water\u201d and the inevitable point in stories where the teller \u201ccan see no further\u201d (27). In just a few sentences, we leap through history, the self, and the very nature of stories as we approach Short Talks<\/em>, explorer and human and face and, perhaps, storytellers ourselves. In quick, flashing images, Carson finds that stopping point in the story, and it is the very start, the beginning of what we consider ourselves to be. The point from which we can go no further is our own reflection, shallow. There is no other world in the bottom of a pan of water; there is only self, and that self is rendered blind by the very nature of storytelling. I always find myself marveling at this very first short talk and how it speaks to the rest of the collection, setting us up for discovery beyond what can be discovered, and for story beyond what can be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my favorites is Short Talk on Ovid<\/em>. Carson transports Ovid into a more modernized setting so organically and casually, with the \u201cradio\u2026on the floor\u201d as the only concrete indicator that Ovid has somehow been displaced in time (38). But transported into an almost dreamscape between realities, Ovid carries his exile with him, as if his immortality within this short talk is another form of exile, or at least an extension of it. I am always struck by the understated and profound beauty of Ovid \u201cput[ting] on sadness like a garment\u201d (38). It is no longer a part of him, but something he wears and carries with him. There is a certain weight to grief that is outside of the self, but still intrinsically tied to you. Throughout this short talk, there is a certain gentleness within hopelessness. Though \u201cno one will ever read\u201d the epic poem Ovid is trying to teach himself to be able to write, there is still meaning to be found in the fact that he chooses to \u201c[go] on writing\u201d (38).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Mary Simmons, MAR<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whenever I need to reconnect with my personal sense of artistic inspiration, I revisit Anne Carson\u2019s Short Talks (Brick Books Classics, 1992\/2015). Short… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[121,118,122,119,120],"class_list":["post-952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-were-reading","tag-anne","tag-carson","tag-hybrid","tag-ovid","tag-short-talks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":953,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions\/953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}