Category: Reading

Summer Reading (and Writing)–Reflections

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A month ago I wrote about my summer reading and writing plans, mentioning that I was working my way through the Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry and also aiming to revise 5 poems a week. Because the summer class I’m teaching begins next week, I thought I’d offer a recap on how my plans have fared.

Regarding the reading, I’m on page 650-something of the anthology, and I’m optimistic I’ll finish it before my fall semester begins. In my previous post, I mentioned one of my “discoveries” (amidst the other poets I was already familiar with). I would have to say that my “surprise” during June has been Sylvia Plath. I’ve taught a few of her poems before (“Daddy” and “Metaphor”), and these were in the anthology, but I encountered so many poems new to me. As I read her work, I was struck mostly by her skill with figurative language. In “Blackberrying,” she describes a flock of crows as “bits of burnt paper wheeling in a blown sky.” Upon first reading this line, I decided to memorize it, feeling compelled to do so.

Other “discoveries” have been Ted Hughes, Geoffey Hill, Wole Soyinka, Okot P’Bitek, and Amiri Baraka. The work of these poets amazed me, as well as did the more familiar work of Mark Strand, Thom Gunn, Gary Snyder, and Adrienne Rich. My list of poets to read continues to grow, which I believe is one of the main objectives of an anthology. I definitely plan to read more Plath.

Regarding my writing, I have made significant progress on my goal, having revised nearly 40 poems since mid-May. Most of the revisions are a part of my working manuscript, Your 21st-Century Prayer Life. The bulk of revisions were from first-draft to second-draft stage, and I revised a few from second-draft to third-draft stage. The next part of the project involves determining which poems stay in the manuscript and which poems don’t make the cut. The summer has also been productive on the publishing end of the manuscript. One of the poems was just published in The Cresset. Two more were just released in the July/August issue of Perspectives Journal. 

Lastly, because I’m shifting (for right now) from individual poem revisions to manuscript assembly (and re-assembly), I’m switching my writing focus to revising short stories, in preparation for teaching Creative Writing: Prose in the fall. There isn’t the hard work of starting stories from scratch, but rather the fun work of writing second drafts of 7 new short stories I wrote last fall. How many years into this writing thing and I’m finally developing a more consistent writing rhythm: poetry from January-June, fiction from July-December.

On Hemingway’s Short Stories

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One of my summer reads has been The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, a 650-page gathering of 70 stories that I finished on Monday afternoon. Hemingway has long been one of my favorite writers. I’ve read four of his novels, along with the collection In Our Time. I’ve taught “Hills Like White Elephants” probably 2 dozen times. “Soldier’s Home” I’ve taught 3 times in my war-literature class.

When I read a collection and/or an anthology, I make two types of marks in the table of contents. A check mark indicates that I’ve read the piece, and a dot or a star means I like it a lot. Of these 70 stories, only 11 did not earn a “star.” It’s strange because I enjoyed the some of the “unfinished” and previously unpublished stories the most. Of course, there were stretches in the book were there was just one great story after another, and at different times I told my wife, “I can’t believe how good these are.”

Having spent weeks with these stories, I can say that my admiration of his craft has not diminished but has only increased. And the whole shtick about how he only writes simple and compound sentences is a crock. (I realize that not everyone critical of Hemingway makes this accusation, but I’ve heard or read it enough to know it exists.) There’s a sophistication to his style that I find commendable. I’m also drawn to the way he uses dialogue to advance the story, develop character, provide subtext (among other things the dialogue does). Both he and Carver have helped me sharpen my dialogue-writing skills.

Reading through these stories, I was struck by the way he kept using Nick Adams as a character. (I am aware that there’s a volume called The Nick Adams stories.) Readers glimpse Nick in various scenarios at different points in time, and because I have a recurring protagonist who appears in 12+ stories, I found it instructive how Hemingway “built” the character of Nick across these different stories.

In an earlier post, I talked about my reading of 200+ stories last summer, including collections by Ray Bradbury, Raymond Carver, Phil Klay, and Larry Woiwode. I’m not sure that I’ll reach that number this summer although I’m sure I’ll read at least 100. I can’t get through novels like I used to. There’s something I find so satisfying about reading well-written short stories, my favorite genre to teach, read, and to write.

On Editing

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Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to work in several editorial capacities, starting when I was a senior in college, editing the annual student literary journal. During my MFA, I worked on the graduate/undergraduate literary journal, Red Weather. During my PhD, I worked on South Dakota Review. For three years I edited The Blue Bear Review, an online literary quarterly. And since 2012, I have worked as editor of Windhover: A Journal of Christian Literature.

This April and May I had the opportunity to serve as a guest editor for Issue 2.3 of wonderful literary quarterly, Driftwood Press. They published my short story “On the Hi-Line” in issue 2.1, and a few months later, the staff asked if I was interested in reading submissions for an upcoming issue. Even though I have a significant workload with Windhover, I decided to pursue the opportunity.

Over six weeks, I read 50 short stories, giving each a “yes,” “no,” or “maybe.” Because of my editorial background, and because of my familiarity with the publication, I didn’t experience much difficulty with voting “no” on pieces. (I’m not trying to sound callous.) The challenge was limiting myself to no more than 5 in the “yes” category and no more than 10 in the “maybe.” As my reading of the submissions continued over the weeks, my “maybe” votes shifted. When I finally finished all 50 pieces, then I devoted time over a few days to “finalizing” my votes, including ranking my favorite 5 stories.

As a result of the process, some of the “maybe” pieces ended up being shifted to “no”s due to limitations, but those limitations forced me to consider why I was voting on pieces in a certain way. I agonized over some of my votes, but at the same time, I kept in mind why I like editorial work so much: discovering and supporting writers whose work I admire. It’s tiring work and time-consuming work, but it brings a level of satisfaction that I find in few other endeavors. You open a submission, begin reading, hoping to be surprised, hoping to be wowed. And sometimes you are. There were a handful of those stories in the batch, and I’m happy to say that my favorite piece of the 50 was eventually accepted for the 2.3 issue.

All of this discussion about editing brings to mind other types of editorial work I’ve done: copy editing and substantive editing. In the near future, I plan to write a post on these other kinds of editorial work I’ve done, work that is, of course, time-consuming but also very rewarding.