Jean Harkin's Blog - Posts Tagged "brian-doyle"
Ordinary Becomes Extraordinary
I return to blogging after a long break, to praise Oregon authors and publishers, many from Portland, such as the poet Carolyn Martin and the late Brian Doyle. Brian’s essays and Carolyn’s poems, full of lovely and lively words, elevate the ordinary to extraordinary through their piercing vision and acute observations of people and nature.
Carolyn’s book is “The Catalog of Small Contentments,” published this year by The Poetry Box publisher. Brian’s essay collection is “One Long River of Song,” compiled by his friend David James Duncan and others, approved by Brian shortly before his death in 2017. The essays are among Brian’s best.
I am adding a short list of books from Oregon authors and a publisher this year, but it’s only a sip off the top foam. There were many good reads published this year. Here is a taste:
Other 2021 books by Portland poets:
“Poems and Po-Yums” by Catherin Violante of Portland and Iain Yuill of Scotland. A collaboration by two writing friends that spans distances and themes from sublime to ridiculous, joy to grief.
“The Color of Goodbye” by Pattie Palmer-Baker. In poetic imagery this book tells the story of three characters in a family plus Jim Beam, finding memories and witnessing life.
2021 novels by Portland authors:
“The Point of Vanishing” by Maryka Biaggio is historical fiction based on the life of prodigious writer Barbara Follett and her mysterious, unexplained disappearance at age 25 in 1939.
“The Night Always Comes” by Willy Vlautin tells of the impact of corporatism and gentrification on ordinary Portland citizens, as a young woman struggles to save her family.
“Ghost Cat of Ocean Cove” by Mollie Hunt. First in the author’s newest cat mystery series, ‘A Tenth Life Cozy Mystery #1.’ A ghost cat and cold case murder complicate a peaceful beach venue.
From Independence, Oregon publisher Not a Pipe Publishing:
“See You at the End of the World” by cyber-punk author Simon Paul Wilson (from England) is a novella with romance, comedy, weird dreams, and a supernatural threat.
“Brief Black Candles” by Lydia K. Valentine, poet laureate of Tacoma, Washington, gives poetic shape to questions of family, loss, justice, and survival in not-yet-post-racist America.
“Incandescent” by Ayodele Nzinga, poet laureate of Oakland, California, brilliantly fires questions at the reader about justice, freedom, and existence.
“Denial Kills” is Not a Pipe’s anthology by 23 authors, revealing how forms of denial can be toxic to humans.
Happy reading! And stay tuned to next year’s news that will hopefully include the release of my novel, “Promise Full of Thorns” by Sunbury Press.
Meanwhile, I’ll blog again in a few months.
Carolyn’s book is “The Catalog of Small Contentments,” published this year by The Poetry Box publisher. Brian’s essay collection is “One Long River of Song,” compiled by his friend David James Duncan and others, approved by Brian shortly before his death in 2017. The essays are among Brian’s best.
I am adding a short list of books from Oregon authors and a publisher this year, but it’s only a sip off the top foam. There were many good reads published this year. Here is a taste:
Other 2021 books by Portland poets:
“Poems and Po-Yums” by Catherin Violante of Portland and Iain Yuill of Scotland. A collaboration by two writing friends that spans distances and themes from sublime to ridiculous, joy to grief.
“The Color of Goodbye” by Pattie Palmer-Baker. In poetic imagery this book tells the story of three characters in a family plus Jim Beam, finding memories and witnessing life.
2021 novels by Portland authors:
“The Point of Vanishing” by Maryka Biaggio is historical fiction based on the life of prodigious writer Barbara Follett and her mysterious, unexplained disappearance at age 25 in 1939.
“The Night Always Comes” by Willy Vlautin tells of the impact of corporatism and gentrification on ordinary Portland citizens, as a young woman struggles to save her family.
“Ghost Cat of Ocean Cove” by Mollie Hunt. First in the author’s newest cat mystery series, ‘A Tenth Life Cozy Mystery #1.’ A ghost cat and cold case murder complicate a peaceful beach venue.
From Independence, Oregon publisher Not a Pipe Publishing:
“See You at the End of the World” by cyber-punk author Simon Paul Wilson (from England) is a novella with romance, comedy, weird dreams, and a supernatural threat.
“Brief Black Candles” by Lydia K. Valentine, poet laureate of Tacoma, Washington, gives poetic shape to questions of family, loss, justice, and survival in not-yet-post-racist America.
“Incandescent” by Ayodele Nzinga, poet laureate of Oakland, California, brilliantly fires questions at the reader about justice, freedom, and existence.
“Denial Kills” is Not a Pipe’s anthology by 23 authors, revealing how forms of denial can be toxic to humans.
Happy reading! And stay tuned to next year’s news that will hopefully include the release of my novel, “Promise Full of Thorns” by Sunbury Press.
Meanwhile, I’ll blog again in a few months.
My Year of Books, and Goodreads to You!
I’m starting off the new book year and looking back to share some of my 2021 reading highlights with you. Maybe you’re looking for a short book or a long book, a popular one or one you’ve not yet read, a book by an Oregon author—or something else. Here we go:
I read 36 books in 2021, equaling 9,197 pages! My average rating was 4.3 stars; I gave 5 stars perfect ratings to about 12, so not such a grumpy critic, was I!
The shortest book I read was “The Catalog of Small Contentments,” 120 pages by Portland poet Carolyn Martin. The longest was best-selling “The Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles. (576 pages.)
The most popular of books I read was “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro. Over one million readers on Goodreads shelved this book. The highest rated on my booklist was “The Point of Vanishing” by Portland-area author Maryka Biaggio.
All of my 36 books are reviewed on Goodreads; my first review of 2021 was “The Girl and the Bombardier” by Susan Tate Ankeny of Newberg, Oregon. I gave this book 5 stars. My last review of the year, also rating 5 stars, was “The Snow Child” by Alaska author Eowyn Ivey.
Other books I read in 2021 by Portland-area authors were “Claws for Concern” by Sheila Deeth, “One Long River of Song” and “Chicago” by the late Brian Doyle, “The Night Always Comes” by Willy Vlautin, “Fuzzy Logic” by Maren Anderson, “The Sound of Murder” by Cindy Brown, “Cat Conundrum” by Mollie Hunt, and “Where Lilacs Still Bloom” by Jane Kirkpatrick.
Happy New Year and Good Reading to All in 2022! If you’re browsing, take a look at the Writers’ Mill’s latest anthology, “The Floor Above,” available on Amazon. Profits go to the Portland-area Cedar Mill Library.
I read 36 books in 2021, equaling 9,197 pages! My average rating was 4.3 stars; I gave 5 stars perfect ratings to about 12, so not such a grumpy critic, was I!
The shortest book I read was “The Catalog of Small Contentments,” 120 pages by Portland poet Carolyn Martin. The longest was best-selling “The Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles. (576 pages.)
The most popular of books I read was “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro. Over one million readers on Goodreads shelved this book. The highest rated on my booklist was “The Point of Vanishing” by Portland-area author Maryka Biaggio.
All of my 36 books are reviewed on Goodreads; my first review of 2021 was “The Girl and the Bombardier” by Susan Tate Ankeny of Newberg, Oregon. I gave this book 5 stars. My last review of the year, also rating 5 stars, was “The Snow Child” by Alaska author Eowyn Ivey.
Other books I read in 2021 by Portland-area authors were “Claws for Concern” by Sheila Deeth, “One Long River of Song” and “Chicago” by the late Brian Doyle, “The Night Always Comes” by Willy Vlautin, “Fuzzy Logic” by Maren Anderson, “The Sound of Murder” by Cindy Brown, “Cat Conundrum” by Mollie Hunt, and “Where Lilacs Still Bloom” by Jane Kirkpatrick.
Happy New Year and Good Reading to All in 2022! If you’re browsing, take a look at the Writers’ Mill’s latest anthology, “The Floor Above,” available on Amazon. Profits go to the Portland-area Cedar Mill Library.
Reconsidering Shakespeare
As my college friends and fellow English majors would attest, I was never a Shakespeare fan, even though I once attempted a spoof of “Hamlet” entitled “Omelet.” It must have had a Humpty Dumpty-ish sort of plot.
Now, eons after college and having endured a few of Shakespeare’s plays, I have been introduced to the bard in new ways. Thanks to a new Writers’ Mill friend from England and a book by Mark Forsyth*, I have re-discovered Will Shakespeare as a fellow practicing writer and one with astonishing creative talent.
According to a recent presentation by Lyndsay Docherty, a writer, teacher, artist, musician, and lifelong Shakespeare fan, of Lancashire, England, the young Shakespeare was not much for classical scholarly academics. On the other hand, he was intrigued by the Renaissance studies of Greek rhetorical figures (figures of speech patterns that punctuate written language with style.)
Fascinated with these stylistic patterns, Shakespeare practiced and worked diligently to perfect his craft using figures of speech such as alliteration, irony, antithesis, rhymes, rhetorical questions, and much more. His best plays show his mastery of elegant and eloquent writing. No matter what he wrote, he wrote it with style.
I appreciate a writer who works hard, thinks, contemplates, revises, and revamps to make his writing the best it can be. With the help of Forsyth’s delineations of the figures of rhetoric, I’m trying to consciously incorporate more of these figurative techniques into my own writing.
Lyndsay revealed another of Shakespeare’s talents, one I’d never heard about: He was an inventor of new words! Here, thanks to Lyndsay, are a few of Shakespeare’s 1,705 words he added to the English lexicon and the plays they appeared in: (Not all of his newly minted words caught on, such as “armgaunt” meaning having skinny arms.)
Bandit, “Henry VI” part 2; critic, “Love’s Labor’s Lost”; dauntless, “Henry VI” part 3; dwindle, “Henry IV” part 1; lackluster, “As You Like It”; Elbow (as a verb,) “King Lear.”
In his ability to enliven the English language with new words, I find Will Shakespeare a kindred soul to the late Portland writer, Brian Doyle, whose lively mind also sprinkled made-up words throughout his works.
Some have asked how publication of my novel “Promise Full of Thorns” is proceeding at Sunbury Press. I now have a blurb for my back cover that might see publishing daylight before the end of this year. I’ve exchanged cover blurbs with a fellow Sunbury author, James R. Dubbs, whose novel “Confessions of a Farmers Market Romeo” will be released soon.
More on Jim’s novel in my next blog, along with comparisons of modern publishing with Shakespeare’s publishing concerns.
*Mark Forsyth, “The Elements of Eloquence”
Now, eons after college and having endured a few of Shakespeare’s plays, I have been introduced to the bard in new ways. Thanks to a new Writers’ Mill friend from England and a book by Mark Forsyth*, I have re-discovered Will Shakespeare as a fellow practicing writer and one with astonishing creative talent.
According to a recent presentation by Lyndsay Docherty, a writer, teacher, artist, musician, and lifelong Shakespeare fan, of Lancashire, England, the young Shakespeare was not much for classical scholarly academics. On the other hand, he was intrigued by the Renaissance studies of Greek rhetorical figures (figures of speech patterns that punctuate written language with style.)
Fascinated with these stylistic patterns, Shakespeare practiced and worked diligently to perfect his craft using figures of speech such as alliteration, irony, antithesis, rhymes, rhetorical questions, and much more. His best plays show his mastery of elegant and eloquent writing. No matter what he wrote, he wrote it with style.
I appreciate a writer who works hard, thinks, contemplates, revises, and revamps to make his writing the best it can be. With the help of Forsyth’s delineations of the figures of rhetoric, I’m trying to consciously incorporate more of these figurative techniques into my own writing.
Lyndsay revealed another of Shakespeare’s talents, one I’d never heard about: He was an inventor of new words! Here, thanks to Lyndsay, are a few of Shakespeare’s 1,705 words he added to the English lexicon and the plays they appeared in: (Not all of his newly minted words caught on, such as “armgaunt” meaning having skinny arms.)
Bandit, “Henry VI” part 2; critic, “Love’s Labor’s Lost”; dauntless, “Henry VI” part 3; dwindle, “Henry IV” part 1; lackluster, “As You Like It”; Elbow (as a verb,) “King Lear.”
In his ability to enliven the English language with new words, I find Will Shakespeare a kindred soul to the late Portland writer, Brian Doyle, whose lively mind also sprinkled made-up words throughout his works.
Some have asked how publication of my novel “Promise Full of Thorns” is proceeding at Sunbury Press. I now have a blurb for my back cover that might see publishing daylight before the end of this year. I’ve exchanged cover blurbs with a fellow Sunbury author, James R. Dubbs, whose novel “Confessions of a Farmers Market Romeo” will be released soon.
More on Jim’s novel in my next blog, along with comparisons of modern publishing with Shakespeare’s publishing concerns.
*Mark Forsyth, “The Elements of Eloquence”
