Dr Mishlove's Psi Development Systems

On his slow-as-treacle but otherwise marvelous blog, Dr Jeffrey Mishlove has recently posted the preface to his now out-of-print classic, Psi Development Systems. His "Rainbow Ying Yang" (pictured here) has a very special meaning. To read his blog post about that, click here.

Apropos of the Cinco de Mayo: Sara Yorke Stevenson on General Achille Bazaine

No, the Cinco de Mayo is not Mexico's Independence Day. It is the commemoration of the Mexican victory against France in the first Battle of Puebla, May 5, 1862. The second battle of Puebla, a year later, was won by the French Imperial Forces, which then went on to occupy Mexico City and install Maximilian von Habsburg on the Mexican throne. Curiously, most Americans have no idea that France invaded our sister republic. It's quite a story (and one with many parallels to the current U.S. imbroglio in Iraq). I've been marinating my imagination in it for the past few years, as I am writing a novel set in Mexico City during the period. Apropos of the Cinco de Mayo, a little note here about General Achille Bazaine, who is turning into one of my favorite characters. Perhaps you will see why when you read this excerpt from With Maximilian in Mexico, a memoir by Sara Yorke Stevenson, an American who was resident in Mexico City at the time. She writes:

He was a plain-looking man, short and thick-set, whose plebian features one might search in vain for a spark of genius or or a ray of imagination; and yet under the commonplace exterior dwelt a kindly spirit, an intelligence of no mean order, and, despite a certain coarseness of thought and expression too common among Frenchmen, a soul upon which the romance of life had impressed its mark in lines of fire.

For more on Cinco de Mayo, check out The Happy Booker's TGIF Cinco de Mayo Edition.

The Daily 5 Minute Writing Exercise Gets The Rubber Chickens

Ever since October 1st I have been posting a daily 5 minute writing exercise on my website, www.cmmayo.com It began as a nudge for my writing workshop students, and also for myself. (Why five minutes? Read all about it here.) Today's exercise: A Rain of Rubber Chickens.

Felicidades to Tony Cohan!

Tony Cohan's latest, Mexican Days: Journeys Into the Heart of Mexico, has just been published. My sister Alice went to his booksigning at Kepler's in Menlo Park, CA and got me a signed copy. Madam Mayo is very much looking forward to reading this one.

J.M. Servin, Por Amor al $$$

From Mexico City David Lida writes: "The best Mexican book I've read recently is Por amor al dólar by J.M. Servín, published by Joaquín Mortiz-Planeta. It is very sardonic memoir of his years as a "mojado" in and around New York, working in restaurants, as a babysitter and in a gas station. Servín strikes me as a very special, unexpected writer." Hmmm... anyone translating this?

Un dia sin mexicanos (A Day Without Mexicans)

Un dia sin mexicanos: This is the movie everybody in Mexico has been talking about-- indeed, it's the second most popular movie in the history of Mexican cinema. What happens when the Mexicans disappear? Los gringos lloran (the gringos cry). Chairman Mayo is Mexican, so I felt mucha solidaridad with the marchers yesterday. All the same, I was very glad that my cleaning ladies, who are from El Salvador (and legal as far as I know), showed up. Chairman Mayo went on a business trip, so for me, it was a day without a Mexican.

Cupa Literary Translation News

This just in:
--->From Spanish language literary translator Elizabeth Gamble: there will be an Interpretation and Translation Conference in La Antigua, Guatalemala May 24-27th. More information about that at www.agitguatemala.org
--->Apropos of Guatemala, Richard Schaaf writes that he's just published Margaret Randall's translations of the Guatemalan poet Otto Rene Castillo in a bilingual edition entitled Let's Go! For more about the book, visit Azul Editions.
--->From Santa Barbara, California: Suzanne Jill Levine announces UC Santa Barbara's May 10-12 conference, "Translation in a Non-Literary Age" with Bei Dao, herself, and many others. For more about that conference, click here.

Cupa Blog News

This just in:
--->Translator Toshiya Kamei signals Hilda Veznor's La Canasta, an excellent Spanish language blog on literary translation.
--->Yet another new blog-- and this also looks like a very good one: Critical Mass, the National Book Critics Circle blog, featuring publishing and criticism news and commentary, noteworthy reviews, tips, useful products, and anything else NBCC related.
--->Revived blog: Washington DC poet Bernadette Geyer's.
--->Noteworthy blog: Jeffrey Mishlove's blog is slower than treacle than on a cold day, but the content is pure candy for anyone into the human potential thing, which I am. Message to Dr Mishlove: I am so glad you are blogging, but please change to blogger.com or typepad.

DC Poet Jacklyn Potter

A great loss for the DC poetry scene: Jacklyn Potter recently passed away of a sudden heart attack. From her Washington Post 4/18/06 obituary:

"Jacklyn Wayne Potter, 62, a poet and teacher of English as a second language, died of a heart attack April 10 at Holy Cross Hospital. She lived in Silver Spring. Ms. Potter was born near Camp Lejeune, N.C., and grew up in Alexandria. As a child, she performed as a singer on radio, television and the stage. She was a graduate of the old Groveton High School and of George Washington University. She received a master's degree in creative writing from American University in the early 1980s.Ms. Potter was director of the Joaquin Miller Cabin Poetry Series in Washington from 1984 until her death. She won a number of prizes for her poetry, which appeared in the Washington Review, the Hollins Critic and several anthologies, including "Whose Woods These Are," "Quiet Music" and "Weavings 2000: The Maryland Millennial Anthology."

When I first came to DC, Jacklyn selected my work for the Joaquin Miller Cabin Poetry Reading Series. She called me up and I think we must have talked-- literally-- for three hours. I remember her as thoughtful, vivacious and genuinely commmitted to poetry. Joaquin Miller was a DC poet of the 19th century. His cabin, which is in now in a grassy meadow within Rock Creek Park, originally stood in what is now Malcolm X Park. Read more about Jacklyn and the reading series at the WordWorks.

Revision: Take a Chainsaw to Those Little Darlings, Prune, Do No Harm, Be an Archeologist, Move the Furniture Onto the Front Lawn, Flip the Gender

Revision on my mind... as I am revising the revision of the revision (of the revision) of my novel... which has already undergone a few chainsaw massacres... more than Texas-sized... Australia-sized (I'm talking 250 pages)... I am also gearing up to give a special one day workshop on Revision at the Writers Center this May 14th... So I recently asked a few writer friends for their thoughts on revision. Novelists Mary Kay Zuravleff and Carolyn Parkhurst were both in my writing group; first-hand I've seen how good they are with revision. Check out their websites to see what they're up to-- both have wonderful new novels out. Dinty W. Moore is the author of many books, most recently The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction. Dawn Marano is fine writer of creative nonfiction and, bless her heart, the editor of my memoir, Miraculous Air. Known to all in literary Washington DC but the brain dead, Richard Peabody is a poet, fiction writer, editor, publisher and writing teacher. Check out his website-- he's offering a novel writing workshop.

Here's what they had to say on revision:

MARY KAY ZURAVLEFF
"The prose on my pages doesn't match what I've envisioned for drafts and drafts. Near the end, I make a pass for each of the senses. There's the smell pass, the hearing pass, etc., as I try to vivify every sidelong glance. Then it's time to prune it back so readers don't choke on details!"

CAROLYN PARKHURST
"When facing revisions, I think it's useful for a writer to begin from the same starting point as a doctor: first, do no harm. Revision is a vital part of the writing process, but it's possible to revise all the life out of something if you're not careful. Never lose sight of what was artful and compelling about the piece in its purest state: when it existed only in your imagination."

DAWN MARANO
"Substantive revision—as opposed to line-editing, that is, moving commas around and such—begins when a writer returns to a draft of her work with the curiosity of, say, an archaeologist. Arrayed before her are the traces of a lost civilization—in this case, sentences and paragraphs instead of material artifacts—that are waiting for her to see them with the fresh and patient eye of possibility: ‘What larger meaning or context might this perplexing fragment of thought I left undeveloped be a part of? What is this clever demurral or summarization disguising or helping me avoid writing about? What story am I really trying to tell myself with this assemblage of words on the page?’"

DINTY W. MOORE
"Simply proofreading your second or third draft and fixing a few awkward sentences is similar to remodeling a room by dusting the end tables and rearranging the pillows on the sofa -- not much changes. The true act of revision comes when a writer is willing to move each piece of furniture out onto the front lawn, roll up the area rugs, take the pictures down from the wall, and then, on a case by case basis, decide what returns to the room, and where it will be situated. Sometimes a favorite table has to be left out on the curb for recycling, because it just doesn't fit anymore; maybe some new furniture is purchased (a new scene is written); perhaps the walls are painted a new color (voice or point-of-view shifts); or maybe all of the furniture is returned but in a different configuration -- what's important is that nothing goes back inside the metaphorical living room until and unless the writer makes the conscious choice that it belongs."

RICHARD PEABODY
"I think revision is about testing the boundaries of what's on the page, having no fear of pushing to the logical extreme. You need to jettison your baggage about plot, invest in your characters (and their voices), and trust your guts. When all else fails flip the gender."