Dreamworld

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/news/newsDetail.asp?ID=182

This is long. Sorry.  But it's a lecture I gave last month at the University of Michigan.

 

A beautiful Easter Sunday here in Cambridge, with yellow tulips in bloom in my front yard. I remember childhood Easters in Pennsylvania  and the frustration of having to wear a coat, covering up the new dress that I would wear to Sunday School. New clothes were a big deal then. Twice a year we would take a trip to Harrisburg---I think only about 18 miles, but it seemed a huge excursion---my sister, mother, and I, (it was a ritual that my sister and I held our breath while we drove across the bridge that crossed the Susquhanna River)  and go to a big department store to get new clothes.  Following the shopping we would go to the park in front of the capital building, and feed the pigeons with peanuts from a vendor with a cart. Everything seemed adventurous and exciting back in those days when kids were not overloaded with advetures and excitement.  

I am always aware when I start to fall into "in my day..." tales of simpler times, and how I rolled my eyes in feigned boredom as an adolescent when my mother did the same thing. How I treasure her stories now! Some years ago, in a book called The Silent Boy, which is set in a small Pennsylvania town in the early 1900s, I used some of those childhood stories of my mother's. She was gone by the time I wrote that book (which is illustrated with old photographs, including some of her).

My mother's aunt, my Great Aunt Mary, was a photographer in the early twentieth century and left some remarkable photographs, including this one from 1910.

Happy Easter.

Comments

[ojimenez]

A long, but interesting lecture. The poems are a clever device to keep the audience in check. I'll have to borrow that next time I have to lecture (which happens almost never, but when it happens I have to ad lib to keep the audience from snoring loudly.)

The University of Michigan has an MFA program on creative writing where Peter Ho Davies teaches. I first read his work in an issue of Harpers (2001) and found his writing just amazing. His work (Equal Love, The Welsh Girl, The Ugliest House in the World) reminded me of Joyce's Dubliners-particularly The Dead- it is that good. I exchanged a few e-mails with him about his work fairly recently. I wish I had the time to travel to Ann Arbor to take one of his classes. :(

Cheers!

BTW- you've accomplished so much!

[anne]

Weaving impressionable realities with inspired imaginings seems to be the magic of good fiction. I think our memories do this quite seamlessly at times, but only an accomplished writer can share the results so powerfully. Thanks for doing just that and for sharing your speaking engagement here.