[Marilyn Taylor]

A terrific annual book festival is coming up next week in Madison, Wisconsin, hosting the likes of Kooser, Marilyn Nelson, Marge Piercy, etc.-- plus great hordes of good ficton writers-- plus Yours Truly, who's been interviewed (by an excellent interviewer) for the current issue of Isthmus, Madison's weekly arts newspaper. I'm posting the URL here, in case you're sitting around with time on your hands. Go to: www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=4355

Marilyn

[Julie Steiner]

Taylor then facilitates a workshop on "Resuscitating the Hopeless Poem" at 1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20 at the Madison Public Library's Main Branch.

Aw, come on, I visit Madison twice a year--why can't they schedule these things then?

(Oh, wait, maybe they do--I skipped the Independence Day "Rhythm and Booms" show because I thought it was strictly pyrotechnic in nature, but maybe it was actually about dud metrical poetry.)

Seriously, though, congrats!

Julie Stoner

[Jennifer Reeser]

Beautiful commentary, too, on the ED "Nobody" piece:

"I still think it expresses with astonishing grace and straightforwardness the insecurities of youth, of being a young girl and thinking you are and always will be a terminal loser."

For anyone wishing to see more of Marilyn's work, there is also a relatively new site called "Famous Poets and Poems Online," where she can be found anthologized:


Famous Poets and Poems Online



[This message has been edited by Jennifer Reeser (edited October 11, 2006).]

[Marilyn Taylor]

Thanks, Jennifer! Your very generous words of approval are much appreciated. And Julie, thanks to you as well-- and please TELL me when you think you'll be in Madison. I'd love to touch bases.

Marilyn

[Roger Slater]

Very fine!

But Marilyn, doesn't Emily praise the idea of being nobody rather than complain about it the way an insecure youth might? To me that's the marvelous and original take the poem offers, along with its characteristic empathetic reaching out to other nobodys, as if to say that being a nobody is the best way to be a somebody, or that being a somebody actually undermines one's ability to be one's self.

[Marilyn Taylor]

Yes, precisely, Roger! That's why insecure young girls-- and perhaps even not-so-young girls, and maybe boys, too-- find the poem so reassuring, so empowering (which is a trendy word that I ordinarily avoid using, but it seems appropriate here). In other words, "I'm Nobody" suggests that it's OKAY to be a loner, a middle-school outcast, a nerd. I.e. who needs an admiring bog? Not me!, etc. This, obviously, is the essence of the poem's appeal (in addition to its graceful mode of expression), and why I took it to heart.

Marilyn