November 2005

Greetings from Inkberry!

What a whirlwind this fall has been. Last week we got our first snowfall of the year; now everything’s green and yellow again. We hardly know whether we’re going or coming. Then again, maybe that’s just because it’s been so crazy-busy around here!

October brought two big events. First we joined forces with the Williams College English Department to present essayist Phillip Lopate. Phillip read both nonfiction and poetry to an enthusiastic crowd in beautiful Griffin 3 on the Williams campus. (We blogged about the event here.)

A mere two days later, we regrouped to present Jane Yolen, author of more than two hundred children’s books, young adult novels, and fantasy novels for adults, with help from the Words are Wonderful program at Williamstown Elementary School and with generous funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. (The blog post about that event is in the pipes; check inkblog soon for artistic director Emily’s report about Jane Yolen’s presentations.)

And now we’re heading into a busy November. This upcoming Saturday brings the third and final installment in our NEA-funded series, poet Jack Gilbert, who will speak about sense of place and the writing life (and take audience questions) at 4pm in Stetson Faculty Lounge, then give a reading of his work at 8pm in Thompson Memorial Chapel, both on the Williams campus. The events are co-presented with the Williams Chaplains’ Office, as part of the celebrations of the centennial of the stone chapel, and we’re awfully excited about the chance to meet Jack and hear his work in person. Jack is author most recently of Refusing Heaven; his earlier books include The Great Fires: Poems 1982-1992 and Monolithos, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Meanwhile, our ongoing Thursday Night Salon Series continues. Each Thursday night of the month brings a different focus (you can read about the schedule here) — this week, since it’s the first Thursday of the month, we’ll be featuring Thursday Night Crit. Come swap your stories, poems, and other original works with local writers who’d like to give and receive thoughtful criticism in a low-pressure environment! That’s at 7:30pm in the Inkberry Library Lounge, 61 Main #223 in North Adams.

We’re also gearing up for our fall fund drive, which is always a big production. This is our biggest opportunity to connect with our whole mailing list, show off some of our accomplishments of the year now ending, and seek support for the year to come, so we take it pretty seriously. We’ve ordered new letterhead, our intern Cassie has been diligently stamping our address on the wee reply envelopes, and Jill and I have been slicing and dicing Excel spreadsheets to make sure everybody’s information is correct and all the letters and labels will print properly. On Saturday the 12th we’ll be gathering here to assemble the mailing itself; if you’re in the area and want to donate some time, drop us an email! Many hands make light work, as the saying goes, and we’re always happy to order pizza for our volunteers.

That night we’re presenting WordPlay at Papyri Books. Emceed by Inkberry board member Gail Burns, WordPlay is one of the region’s longest-running literary phemonena; I remember reading poems at WordPlay open mike nights ten years ago back when the series was called “Paroles” and was run by Michael Bronder at the used books store on Water Street! Anyway, now it’s an Inkberry and Papyri Books co-production, at Papyri on the second Saturday of every month. On November 12th we’re featuring poet Irene Willis, author of At the Fortune Cafe, followed by an open-mike.

We usually close editions of inkmail by talking about books we’ve been reading. For my part, I’ve been dipping into Jack Gilbert’s poetry in preparation for his event, and I absolutely adore Refusing Heaven. These poems are powerful and direct, speaking with the authority maybe only age can offer. Jack writes, the book jacket says, “compellingly about the commingled passion, loneliness, and sometimes surprising happiness of a life spent in luminous understanding of his own blessings and shortcomings.” I couldn’t agree more. As the book’s title suggests, though Jack is intimately familiar with the sufferings and difficulties of this incarnate existence he prefers this life to any paradise. His poems affirm life in all its complexity. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite poems from the book; I hope to see you soon! Thanks for being a part of Inkberry.

— Rachel

A BRIEF FOR THE DEFENSE

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

— Jack Gilbert, from Refusing Heaven