Seeing as yesterday was Donald Barthelme’s birthday, it’s as good a time as any to remember the short fiction icon. At Brain Pickings, Maria Popova reads Barthelme’s essay “Not-Knowing,” which you can find in the author’s collection of essays and interviews. Sample quote: “Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult, but because it wishes to be art.”
The Art of Not
Interview with A.S. Byatt
Guardian posts an interesting video interview with A.S. Byatt about poetry, her novel The Children's Book, and our persistent interest in ourselves.
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Writing Indifferently
How was Charlotte Brontë at 8? According to her school reports, she "'[wrote] indifferently' and '[knew] nothing of grammar, geography, history, or accomplishments". Of course, she went on to write Jane Eyre, and as The Guardian points out, many a famous writer received middling reports in school, so maybe there's hope for other "indifferent' writers.
The Bard of Florida
After passing through the House, a new bill establishing a four-year term limit for the state’s Poet Laureates is set to reach the Florida governor’s desk in the near future. The Sunshine State has been without a Poet Laureate since Edmund Skellings died in 2012.
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Human Complications
"Complacencies of the peignoir, and late / Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, / And the green freedom of a cockatoo / Upon a rug mingle to dissipate / The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. / She dreams a little, and she feels the dark / Encroachment of that old catastrophe, / As a calm darkens among water-lights." Wallace Stevens's "Sunday Morning" is the perfect poem to kick off the day of rest. Here's a a brief profile from The New Yorker on Stevens' life and art.
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Going Bananas Over a Piece of Cake
Ever wonder where the phrase "worth his salt" came from? How about "spill the beans"? At The Smithsonian Magazine, Lisa Bramen traces the origins of food-related idioms. (via.)
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The anticipations of a Most Anticipated book
Not every worthy book finds the audience it deserves as quickly as Edan Lepucki's California. John Warner writes about the long aftermath of finding his debut, The Funny Man, featured in our 2011 Most Anticipated Book Preview: "I wondered, what if? Maybe this was going to be the next phase of my life, and when people asked me what I did, I’d say that I wrote novels." His new collection of short stories is Tough Day for the Army.
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