Prairie Schooner

The other day I participated in a spelling bee. No, I’m not actually in third grade; I’m 27, and I’ll have you know I was in the bee for a good reason. Held at a downtown Lincoln bar and attended by decidedly geeky literary types, the competition was a benefit for the Nebraska Literary Heritage Association, an organization which supports Lincoln’s public libraries. I represented UNL’s English department along with fellow grad student Annie Bierman. We did quite well, if I do say so myself: Annie made it until about the final five, while I placed a solid second. I lost to an auto mechanic who could spell the word “ptarmigan” (the “p” is silent!), but I won myself a lightly used copy of the game Bananagrams.

This is the third 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.

Perusing Prairie Schooner's website recently, one could sensibly gather that it’s about that time of year again for the awarding of prizes and fellowships. Also, in light of the recent Pulitzer Prize for Fiction snub, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at some of the distinguished literary awards out there that have crossed paths with the comics medium.

Macedonian poet and translator Nikola Madzirov visited UNL as a Prairie Schooner visiting writer. Yesterday (Wednesday 4/18) he gave a talk on the characteristics of Balkan literature. Madzirov linked the formal developments in Balkan literature with the historical-social movements of the times. Balkan literature, he claimed, tends to gloss the personal with the epic, the intimate with the mythic. Madzirov also spoke of his own journey as someone grateful to be able to leave home "by choice" instead of by exile. Finally, he offered some advice to translators, including the following: "The imperfection of language is one of its greatest perfections."

This is the second in a series of blog posts by guest contributor Nabina Das on Indian books and authors.

A poet and writer in a university conference could perhaps be likened to a bull in the china shop. I’m told that often it is the writer who feels like the china shop! However, my first visit to Pondicherry couldn’t have been better. This former French colony on the eastern coast of India that still has the strangeness of a bipartite town/city defined by Ville Blanche (literally, White Town) and Tamil Town, the Indian side, is home to Pondicherry University (PU). My visit to PU in March was an academic one, so to say, but at the same time a unique literary opportunity.