At the Creative Independent, Sabrina Orah Mark shares how her writing style evolved over the years, and how the blurring of poetry and prose gave her freedom to explore. “I think when I started writing prose poems,” Mark says, “that was when I felt like I could have the real and the unreal live inside of a little box together. Charles Simic talks about the prose poem as being this impossible form. It’s the coming together of prose and poetry and it shouldn’t exist, but it does. And finding that form allows for this marvel, for the impossible to live inside of a space. And that was really how I accessed that aesthetic or mindset or dream I was always after.”
In Search of the Impossible with Sabrina Orah Mark
A Life in Books
“Reading is a type of reckoning with the self. That may sound like a simplistic platitude, but platitudes exist only because they are true, our self-serving intellectual mirrors be damned.” Cher Tan shares a lifetime’s reading history with Catapult, tracing her trajectory from “[k]eeping up with the boys” during high school to this past year, in which she made a personal pact to read only books written by people of color. Pair with our own Nick Ripatrazone in conversation with six authors on their childhood reading.
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“Paralysis of willpower”
Granta has a new series in which authors explain how they arrived at successful opening sentences. In the latest installment, Colombian author Héctor Abad links the brain chemistry that inspired him to write his chosen sentence with the chemistry that inspired him to fall in love with his wife.
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Very Brief Respites from the Darkness
Want to learn filmmaking from a self-proclaimed “soldier of cinema”? Then sign up for a class with Werner Herzog. The enigmatic director, whose films include Grizzly Man and Fitzcarraldo, announced he’ll be teaching a course in the summer through the online provider Masterclass.
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“A life spent at one’s desk is a life spent alone.”
Recommended Viewing: Charlie Rose sits down with Donna Tartt for the author’s only American television interview since releasing her latest novel, The Goldfinch. (Related: Adam Dalva fears that Tartt may have been “following me around with her notebook in hand for the last 14 years.”)
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Whowasit
Haven’t read Agatha Christie? The Oyster Review will get you up to speed. Their latest Reader’s Guide, written by Lili Loofbourow, delves into the writer behind Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and countless other iconic characters. You could also read Daniel Friedman on the ending to every mystery novel.
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Ich Ni San Chi Go!
Recommended Reading: “Supernova” by Dani Shapiro, who was just interviewed for our site this past week.
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“Maybe a mixtape will help.”
Recommended Reading: Rafe Posey’s Rumpus essay, “Coming Out, Again and Again, in 27 Easy Steps.”