Robert Pinsky's retirement, Anne Waldman's new work, graphic novel lit festing

New England Literary News

New England Literary News comes a day late this week. I was elsewhere for minute and am back now with spring reaching its fullness in Cambridge, azalea petals on the sidewalk, apple blossoms along the river, tulip psychedelia in front yard gardens. I hope the color is finding you, too.

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Anne Waldman’s wideness of mind
“What / makes / us / take first look,” asks legendary poet Anne Waldman in her latest collection, Archivist Scissors, out this week from the strong-and-getting-stronger Cambridge-based Staircase Books, and the question serves as good jostle, cold water on the face. Poetry, at its best, gives us fresh eyes, alerts us newly to the world, and this is what Waldman’s work does. There’s a sense in the collection of being in a scene, as though she is talking to you, there, specifically, and also addressing all her pals and loves and influences and intimates, and everyone, everyone, we are entangled, torquing past each other, in the city, in all the cities, in every place, “the rigour / & notice our collective life beating / into soil.” She writes of the “highly / evolved / neocortex” (maybe part of what makes us take first look?), and a few stanzas later, echoes it: “insular is / core text, no fear but of / dissolving.” Another echo, so pleasing, involves a fox fur hat in one poem, and poems later comes the line, “fur protecting flame,” and our minds dash back to the fox fur, and the mindflame inside it’s protecting. She shows our minds working in multi-directions in their dim interiors, insular, and connecting — seeing, perceiving — with and among the whole wide human scene. She references a Buddhist sutra about not grasping at form (or sensation or perception or volition or cognition, for that matter), and reminds us, “We are here to benefit each other and disappear.”

Waldman will read and discuss Archivist Scissors at the launch on Tuesday, April 29 at 6 pm at Harvard’s Houghton Library in the Edison-Newman Room, Quincy Street, Cambridge. It’s free and open to the public. For more information, click here.

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Robert Pinsky’s retirement celebration

BU’s Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences rising like a stack of books over the Charles River

Robert Pinsky, three-time U.S. Poet Laureate, the only member of the America Academy of Arts and Letters to have been on both The Colbert Report and The Simpsons, has been on the faculty at Boston University since 1989. Prior to BU, he taught at UC Berkeley, Wellesley College, and Stanford. This spring marks his final semester; the poet is retiring from BU after 36 years. And BU is celebrating with a to-do on May 1. The party includes a reading by Pinsky and screenings of videos from his “Favorite Poem Project,” in which Americans were invited to share their favorite poem; over 18,000 responded, and from those they selected some to film reading the poem they’d selected. A reception will follow. And beyond honoring Pinsky, the celebration is also a chance to experience the Duan Family Center of Computing Data & Sciences, the stunning new building along the Charles which looks like a stack of books and changes with the shifting light. I see it as I run along the river and unlike other snoozefest glass-and-steel buildings rising on the Boston skyline, this has real appeal, a sculptural structure over the river. The celebration takes place Thursday, May 1, at 7 pm at 665 Comm Ave., 17^th floor, in Boston. Find more info here.

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Graphic Novel Festing at the Silver Unicorn
The Silver Unicorn Bookstore in Acton, Massachusetts is hosting the third annual Kids Graphic Novel Festival this coming weekend, bringing a number of artists and graphic novelists for a day of drawing demos, talks, and workshops. Artists on deck this year include Ben Clanton (the Narwhal and Jelly series); Gale Galligan (The Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels); Violet Chan Karim; Shaina Lu; John Patrick Green; Nathan Hale; and Cindy Chang, among others. They’re also continuing the Design Your Own Cover Contest, in which kids are invited to draw and create a book cover which’ll be judged by Rebecca “Tay” Taylor, editorial director of Inklore Books at Penguin Random House. Prizes include over $400 in gift cards. The contest, for ages 0-12, is open now through April 29. Winners will be announced at the festival. The Kids Graphic Novel Festival takes place Saturday, May 3, from 11 am-5 pm at the Silver Unicorn Bookstore, 12 Spruce St., Acton. For more information, click here.

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Books of Note Out This Week
Ginseng Roots by Craig Thompson (Pantheon)

Fireweed by Lauren Haddad (Astra House)

The Honditsch Cross by Ingebord Bachmann, translated from the German by Tess Lewis (New Directions)

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Bookseller’s Best: Staff Picks from New England Independent Booksellers
Elizabeth at RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison, Connecticut, recommends American Bulk: Essays on Excess by Emily Mester (Norton): “In this self-aware, discerning, yet tender reflection of her experiences with consumption, possession, and excess, Mester explores consumerism as a generational tradition, passed down from her grandmother to her father to herself, as she came of age during the rise of online shopping, social media branding, and Yelp reviews. Without a word wasted, this collection will encourage you to look at your own excesses, not with judgement, but rather with consideration and care.”

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