Tag Archives: imagination

In Praise of Not-Knowing by Ginger Moran

Winter trees through a glass ball
 

Write what you know. That was the mantra when I was in graduate creative writing school. We were admonished to write from our own experience, not to try to reach beyond our boundaries and try to re-create worlds about which we had no real knowledge and which would, thusly, come across as fake. But like all mantras, this one has its limits. For instance, my first book, The Algebra of Snow, is about a mathematician alone in the Adirondacks in winter. Anyone being less mathematical than I would be hard to imagine—I struggle with addition. … Continue reading In Praise of Not-Knowing by Ginger Moran

Of Darkness and Angels  


 

The premier poetry event of this year’s Festival of the Book in Charlottesville was “Shrines to Longing,” the March 20 reading by Charles Wright, America’s current (20th) poet laureate, and Mary Szybist, who was a student in the University of Virginia’s MFA program when Wright was on its faculty. Both poets attended the Iowa Writers Workshop. Both have a distinctly Judeo-Christian flavor to their work. The 79-year-old Wright read from his 24th book of poems, Caribou, Szybist from her prize-winning second volume, Incarnadine. Although the full house at UVA’s Culbreth Theater was clearly entranced by … Continue reading Of Darkness and Angels  

“Whose Boundaries Are That of Imagination”


 

A couple of weeks ago I discovered the original “Twilight Zone” series was available on Netflix Instant. Needless to say I have (happily) surrendered hours of my life re-watching this classic series, which I still believe is one of the very few truly great things to have aired on television. (“The Muppet Show” is probably a close second.) The far-reaching influence of the show is undeniable. The twists and bitter ironies for which the show was famous have informed dozens of tropes in film and popular culture (including fiction). A quick survey of the first season, … Continue reading “Whose Boundaries Are That of Imagination”