Endowed in perpetuity by the Glenna Luschei Fund for Excellence

Brave New Reading List – Brave New World

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 02/18/2015 - 20:12
by Brita Thielen
Brave New World Cover

This week’s post should make it fairly obvious where I drew my inspiration from for the title of this blog series. Brave New World (1932; Harper & Brothers) is the oldest novel I will address in this series. I chose it in part because while it was not the first, it is probably the most well-known of the early dystopian novels. It also contains themes and social concerns that are still relevant today. 

Alberta Clipper 2/17/15: “A Visit to New England” by Jon Swan

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Tue, 02/17/2015 - 13:34

It is easy to get lost in the Midwest mentality – the humility and neighborliness, the passion for a state or sports team, the sense of family and community – and forget that the rest of the country is out there with their own styles and attitudes. In his 1953 poem “A Visit to New England,” Jon Swan emphasizes the pride that follows travelers as they venture away from home and encounter those with predispositions towards their region. February of 1953 in Lincoln was warmer than usual, with an average temperature of 40.5˚ F, while New England suffered the same fate with temperatures in the 30s and 40s. At least New Englanders and Midwesterners have the weather to commiserate about. --Daley Eldorado
 
Jon Swan
A Visit to New England
 
When I said I came from Nebraska
She looked at her vague shoes, down her invisible hose,
And smoke rolled from her nose.

Contributor Spotlight on Chris Ware

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Mon, 02/16/2015 - 12:12
by Dan Froid

Prairie Schooner is, of course, well-known for the many writers of poetry and fiction whose work appears in our pages. But we don’t so frequently acknowledge those whose work is, in fact, the most visible to us. I’m talking about our covers: this week, we’re going to draw your attention to a beloved artist who also happens to have a Prairie Schooner cover to his name.

Listen to This, Listen to That: Animals

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Fri, 02/13/2015 - 11:31
by Dan Froid

I was thinking about the divide between humans and animals recently—big subject, maybe, but I was reading Frankenstein and felt compelled to consider where the creature fits in. A classmate in the seminar asked us, Why do we read? We wonder, why does the creature read? Does it transgress against our nature to do so? Although animals lack rationality, they certainly do not lack curiosity—and curiosity could go a long way toward considering why a dog must investigate its surroundings, or why I must read. 

Women and the Global Imagination: Translating Sanitary Pads

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Thu, 02/12/2015 - 13:06
by Liz Granger

This post is the first in an ongoing series of blog posts on the theme of Women and the Global Imagination. In our Winter 2014 issue Alicia Ostriker curated a poetry portfolio on this theme, and we were so struck by its contents that we wanted to keep the dialog surronding this theme going on our blog. Liz Granger's essay does just that, and shows us that ideas that are global in scope can have their genesis in the individual imagination. We hope you enjoy reading.

Brave New Reading List: The Circle

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Mon, 02/09/2015 - 23:05
by Brita Thielen

I am not what you would call a tech-savvy person. I only joined Twitter this fall, and to date I don’t have Instagram, Tumblr, an e-reader or a smart phone. Needless to say, I’m a bit behind-the-times on the tech scene.

However, reading Dave Eggers’ The Circle (2013; Knopf/McSweeney’s Books) reassured me that maybe my relatively unconnected life is okay. The novel centers on Mae Holland, a young woman who has just been hired at The Circle thanks to her college friend Annie, who works in the company’s upper echelons. The Circle is basically a technological super-company: not only is it the leading social media and search engine platform, is also attracts the best and brightest minds to create everything from tracking devices that prevent child abductions to ultra-portable surveillance cameras and drones.

Contributor Spotlight on Ladan Osman

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Mon, 02/09/2015 - 11:22
by Dan Froid

This week, we want to spotlight someone who is something of a superstar on the Prairie Schooner scene: poet Ladan Osman. This is no surprise: her poetry is candid, passionate, and abounding with striking images. Last year, she won Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. Her winning manuscript, The Kitchen Dweller’s Testimony, will be published this year. Additionally, her chapbook Ordinary Heaven was included in the box-set Seven New Generation African Poets, published last year.

Listen to This, Listen to That: Side Door

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Fri, 02/06/2015 - 12:44
by Dan Froid

“If I go through that side door, if I go into the world via something magical, or heightened, or strange, or absurdist . . . I can access the emotional stuff more clearly,” Aimee Bender explains. In Air Schooner’s sixteenth episode, “Side Door,” the novelist and short-story writer discusses her surreal approach to fiction-writing: she seeks to capture not plot or characterization, but “something alive.” She compares writing to a terrarium, in which that “something” can grow from the page. 

Brave New Reading List: The Handmaid’s Tale

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 02/04/2015 - 11:05
by Brita Thielen

Confession: I have never before read a Margaret Atwood novel.

This feels like a gross oversight, possibly on par with a mortal sin. A simple online search of the “The Handmaid’s Tale” brings up over 400,000 results, and the novel has been reviewed nearly 16,000 times on goodreads with an average rating of 5 stars. And let me tell you, it’s worth the hype. I cannot remember the last time I have been so completely blown away by a novel.

Alberta Clipper 2/3/2015: ‘Ford Pickup’ by David Allan Evans

Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Tue, 02/03/2015 - 13:34

On February 3rd, 1947, the first truck rolled off of the new Highland Park Ford assembly line in Highland Park, Michigan.  At the time, the Highland Park Plant was the only Ford plant to be specifically producing trucks. The truck, Ford’s F-Series, remains North America’s best selling pickup truck to date.

In the winter of 1973, David Allan Evans’ poem “Ford Pickup” was published in Prairie Schooner. On that cool February day the temperature was 48 degrees Fahrenheit, a bit warmer than the monthly average of 40 degrees.--Evan Berry

David Allan Evans
Ford Pickup

call me the Valiant heading west on Fourteen into the frozen
Dakota January sun and the one suddenly ahead the red
Custom Ranger with Texas plates and his woman taking
their time and all of my eye as he sits straight and high
beneath a white Stetson nodding politely over frost heave

Pages

Subscribe to The Prairie Schooner Blog