Poetry workshop with Rhina Espaillat today

Newburyport poet Rhina Espaillat—founder of the Powow River Poets and winner of the 1998 T. S. Eliot prize for her volume Where Horizons Go—leads a free poetry workshop tonight at the Hamilton-Wenham Public Library.

Wednesday, March 4, 7-9 pm
14 Union Street
South Hamilton, MA 01982
978-468-5577 (pre-registration is required)

March 8 is John Updike Day

March 8, 2009 was unanimously declared John Updike Day in Ipswich, the writer's home for more than 20 years before moving to Beverly Farms in 1982.

On Sunday, March 8 at 2 p.m. at the Ipswich Performing Arts Center, Ipswich students and residents will present a dramatic reading of John Updike's pageant, "Three Texts from Early Ipswich."

Written in 1968 for that year's 17th Century Day, Updike's work draws upon the work of Ipswich historians Thomas Franklin Waters and Joseph B. Felt and the early literary works of residents Nathaniel Ward and Anne Bradstreet.

More talks, a remembrance of Updike, and a patriotic sing-along are all also on the bill in what is the first of several events celebrating of Ipswich's 375th anniversary. Tickets are available at essexheritage.org.

PS: Did you know that ABC is developing a pilot based on the Witches of Eastwick?

Word of the day: resistentialism

Essayist Gail Hamilton (née Mary Abigail Dodge, 1833–1896) is largely unknown today and has probably never come up before in my RSS feeds for news about North Shore authors. So I was surprised to see her referenced in a recent post on Words, Words, Words (and Phrases) about the word resistentialism.

Resistentialism is a jocular theory in which inanimate objects display hostile desires towards human beings. —Wikipedia

Think of the coffee table that stubs your toe on purpose, or, in the another extreme, Stephen King's Christine. Word, Words, Words links resistentialism to what IT help desk employees call IPIO—"the innate perversity of inanimate objects" aka the reason your computer doesn't work—and suggests that Gail Hamilton is the earliest author to use that phrase.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell Hamilton only used "the total depravity of inanimate things" as an epigram (I can only find it as a Wikiquote, no mention of what book) after reading the essay of the same name by Katherine Kent Child Walker in the September 1864 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. Walker writes:

I believe in the total depravity of inanimate things... the elusiveness of soap, the knottiness of strings, the transitory nature of buttons, the inclination of suspenders to twist and of hooks to forsake their lawful eyes, and cleave only unto the hairs of their hapless owner's head.

L. M. Montgomery uses the phrase again fifty years later in Anne of the Island from 1915.

"It is when my umbrella turns inside out that I am convinced of the total depravity of inanimate things," she said gaily.

So there you have it. A 18th-century essayist originated the phrase that defines resistentialism and explains most of the 21st century's technological problems, but I'm not sure that Hamilton gets the credit.

Lunch break reading: Nathaniel Hawthorne

Another gothic short story, this week by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Rappaccini's Daughter (full text on a single page) was written in 1844 when the Hawthorne family was living in Concord. It was published in the 1846 volume Mosses from an Old Manse.

A mad botanist, his poisonous hothouse flower of a daughter, and her smitten suitor do battle in this tale set in Padua, Italy, in some distant past. As he wrote in the preface to his 1860 novel The Marble Faun, also set in Italy, "actualities would not be so insisted on, as they are, and must needs be, in America." The romantic and only somewhat authentic setting freed him from the confines of realism.

For similar themes, try the political drama The Mudra-Rakshasa (The Minister's Signet) by ninth-century Indian poet Vishakadatta or the 1622 philosophical text The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton. Poet Octavio Paz translated Hawthorne's story as La Hija de Rappaccini in his only play, first produced in 1956; Mexican composer Daniel Catán transformed Paz's work into an opera in 1994.

Less highbrow homages include the recent Marvel Comics villian Monica Rappaccini, who studied biochemistry at the University of Padua before becoming an environmental terrorist who uses her own poison-suffused daughter as a biological weapon. Monica first appeared in a 2005 issue of Amazing Fantasy.

Elaine Showalter's "A Jury of Her Peers"

A few North Shore literary figures show up in Elaine Showalter's recent history of American women of letters, A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx.

This L.A. Times review by Susan Salter Reynolds mentions Bradstreet:

"The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America" is a collection of poems describing the difficulties and joys of being a settler, wife and mother. It was published in London and required no fewer than 11 testimonials by male friends, family and critics to convince the publisher that it was indeed written by a woman and worthy of publication.

Harriet Beecher Stowe is quoted:

Nothing but deadly determination enables me to ever write—it is rowing against wind and tide.

As is Nathaniel Hawthorne (whose least flattering anecdotes make him sound like a prickly chauvinist):

Ink-stained women are, without a single exception, detestable.

The book comes out in late February. Looking forward to it.

“Dearest Dove: The Courtship of Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne”

Literary lovers can celebrate Valentine's Day at the House of the Seven Gables with theater, a cappella, and a string quartet. Marblehead's Anne Lucas performs her specially commissioned piece, “Dearest Dove: The Courtship of Nathaniel and Sophia Hawthorne,” based on the couple's love letters. A cappella group The Noteworthies from St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church and Salem High School's string ensemble The Quintessential Quartet follow.

Saturday, February 14, 5-7 pm
House of the Seven Gables, Derby Street, Salem
Tickets $15 members, $20 nonmembers
Call Heidi Webb at 978-744-0991, ext. 104, for tickets.
More details at the Salem Gazette's event calendar

Sophia's portrait from the House of the Seven Gables.
Nathaniel's portrait from the Peabody Essex Museum.

Powow River Poets moving to Jabberwocky

Not even published and already the book needs an update... The Newburyport Daily News reports that the Powow River Poets are moving from Wednesday nights at the Newburyport Art Association to Saturday mornings at the Jabberwocky Bookshop.

The readings will go from monthly to bimonthly at Jabberwocky, with the first one planned for Saturday, March 14, at 3 p.m. and featuring a national magazine editor as one of the readers.

But before that, the Powow River Poets say goodbye to the art association with the help of featured readers Jennifer Rose and David Davis on Wednesday, Feb. 18. The reading starts at 7:30 p.m. in the art association's galleries at 65 Water St. in downtown Newburyport.

More info about the February 18 reading at the Newburyport Art Association. No info about the March 14 reading yet at Jabberwocky's site.