Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Thu, 12/13/2012 - 09:10
Paradise in Broken Bow
by Marianne Kunkel
"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library," wrote Jorge Luis Borges and, wow, do I see his point. In the last five days, I've visited four Nebraska public libraries--in Fremont, Potter, Lexington, and Broken Bow--and like a big chocolate cake I keep snacking on for days, these modest spaces are consistently pleasant, sweet, and my idea of heaven.
Forget IKEA megastores. Better models of architecture and design are public libraries, where visitors can roam from one cozy corner to another. Oak banisters, full-length-mirror-size windows, soft track lights above bookshelves, a cappuccino machine--these are features that have tempted me to stay in Nebraska libraries long after Kwame and I finish our poetry readings. Add to the list crackling fires, found in the Lexington and Broken Bow libraries, and I never want to go home.
Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 12/12/2012 - 20:31
PS Intern Nisha Patel on the poet's visit
The final poet of Prairie Schooner’s Visiting Writer Series, Brian Turner, read selections from his books Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise in the Great Plains Museum last Wednesday. He began by encouraging the audience to add his phone number to their cell phones (so they could text him feedback) before diving into the first poem. The namesake of his first book, “Here, Bullet,” portrayed what PS Editor-in-Chief Kwame Dawes called a “disturbing urgency” in his introduction of the ex-Army poet.
Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 12/12/2012 - 10:14
Second Stop: Puzzling Potter
by Marianne Kunkel
Sometimes it's uncomfortable to ask questions, but what I'm finding more uncomfortable is not knowing what questions to ask. It's the difference between admitting, "I hardly know western Nebraska; what town did we just stop at for gas?" and looking out the car window at the rolling hills near Potter, Nebraska, and being so curious about the area I don't know where to start.
Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Tue, 12/11/2012 - 18:52
A Blog of Sorts
Kwame Dawes and Marianne Kunkel are embarking on a goodwill tour across Nebraska, from public library to public library to connect people with the journal and to celebrate the value of the literary arts in the states. Along the way, they are blogging about their journey. This is Kwame’s first blog entry after a visit to Fremont, Nebraska.
Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Tue, 12/11/2012 - 10:32
First Stop: Familiar/Unfamiliar Fremont
by Marianne Kunkel
I have an annoying habit of comparing new music to music I already know. For example, a few months ago when my husband introduced me to the band Tame Impala’s new album, my first response was, “They sound a lot like The Doves!” So I laughed at myself when during my drive into Fremont, Nebraska, the first stop in the journal’s library tour, I remarked to Kwame Dawes, “This looks a lot like Lincoln!”
Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Fri, 12/07/2012 - 12:22
Evangelical Comics and the Mystery of Thanksgiving
This is the tenth installment of an ongoing series written for the blog by Richard Graham. Richard is an associate professor and media services librarian at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he studies the educational use of comics and serves as the film and art history liaison. His posts examine UNL’s, Nebraska’s, and the larger literary world’s connections with the comics medium.
Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 12/05/2012 - 12:10
Dispatches from Blog Editor Claire Harlan Orsi
I was recently going back through old journals under the guise of “getting ideas” (read: getting out of doing actual writing), when I realized how many of my entries have been inspired by trips to art museums. “Invented organs for invented bodily functions!” reads one note attached to a description of a trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal. “Aluminum foil used to create illusion of depth,” and “floating terrariums” along with “character named Vaughn” accompany a Scotch taped-in ticket to Mass MoCA (5/24/08). I remember that trip: in one darkened gallery my friend Josh and I sprawled out on bean bags, illuminated phrases by Jenny Holzer rolling above us, and promptly fell asleep. When we woke up we felt refreshed, and not just by the 45-minute nap: it was as if in sleep those projected phrases had worked their way into our brains; we left the dark room blinking, the ordinary world newly transformed.
Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Mon, 12/03/2012 - 15:13
The Literary Substructures of Silent Hill 2 and Mass Effect
This is the ninth in a series of guest posts by Hali Sofala and Eric Jones on the connections between gaming (video and otherwise) and the literary.
If you’ve read our previous posts, we’ve been outlining how different game designs designate which paths players will choose throughout video games, and how those choices reflect the game’s literary relevance. As we've pointed out, whereas open moral game designs do not require the use of structured narratives, divergent path models depend on them.
Submitted by Prairie Schooner on Wed, 11/28/2012 - 13:24
Acclaimed author Sherman Alexie will be the featured author at the launch event for Prairie Schooner's Winter 2012 Issue, for which he guest edited a portfolio of poetry and prose by contemporary Native American authors.
Award-winning writer Jaylan Salah is a poet, translator, content expert, and film critic.Workstation Bluesis a collection from the cubicle for white-collar workers worldwide passing the ti
