Please help me welcome Serena, of
Savvy Verse & Wit to Lit and Life! I'm delighted to have, as my Book Blogger Appreciation Week interview partner, a blogger who is very instrumental in convincing other readers to read outside of their comfort zones. Serena is the co-host of the War Through The Generations Challenge (now seriously, how many of us would have thought: "I know - let's get people to read books about war!"). I'm in my second year with this challenge and very glad that Serena and her partner-in-crime, Anna (Diary of an Eccentric), had that very thought. Serena is also the host of the Fearless Poetry Exploration challenge, is a poet herself and is a new mother.
1. With your writing, photography, all of the things you're involved with in the blogosphere plus a little person to care for, you've got a lot on your plate. How do you find a way to balance everything?
Gosh, I have no plan whatsoever. I try to keep a calendar of
hard dates for certain books, but lately, it's been fly by the seat of
my pants. The War blog is a toss up between Anna and myself and who has
time to get some posts of reviews scheduled and linked on the reviews
pages...we tried to have a schedule, but life gets in the way and we
just take over for each other when the time comes. Photography is more
on the back burner these days, unless its photos of the little one, and
those get posted on Facebook for the families to see, etc. I miss
photography, but I have little time for it, but I do take the camera out
with us when we go places.
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| Property of Serena Agusto-Cox |
2. War Through The Generations is such an interesting challenge. You and
Anna always have so many resources for participants to draw from - how
far ahead do you start working to plan the challenge for the coming
year? Where do you find your book suggestions? Can you give us a hint
about next year's challenge?
When we started the blog, we
knew the first year would be WWII and the second would be Vietnam War
because those are the wars we were most interested in. For the third
year, we wanted to have the participants decide and Civil War won the
poll. For this year, we went with the other big war, WWI, which we
figured out a couple months before.
As for book suggestions, those actually come from a number of
places, recommendations from participants, publicists who email us books
about wars we aren't currently doing, and our own shelves. We've also
done Internet searches to find book titles, and for Vietnam, we asked a
former professor from Suffolk University, who taught our Vietnam and
Literature seminar, for suggestions.
We've decided on next year's challenge, but will not announce it
until mid-November. We'll definitely be doing another read-a-long, but
that's up in the air as to which book.
3. As the host of the Fearless Poetry Exploration challenge, are there
any suggestions you might offer readers for getting the most out of a
collection? For example, do you read straight through a book of poetry
or do you prefer to read a few poems a day? Some people think that it's
not necessary to "get" what a visual artist is trying to say in their
work as long as it speaks to a person. Do you think poetry is the same
way? Do you have any poets or collections that you always find yourself
going back to?
To get the most out of a collection, I
always suggest reading the first poem out loud. I know that sounds
funny, but it really helps to hear the rhythm of the poem, which often
can lead you to feel the poem's meaning and understand it better. I
personally read poetry collections straight through the first time and
mark certain poems that strike me when reading them, and those I go back
and read first to find out why I liked them best or why they resonated
with me. Then I'll reread others to see what I missed on the first
pass.
I think poetry can be about getting what the poet is trying to tell
you, but also about what the reader understands about themselves by
reading the poem. It is a reciprocal relationship with poetry, which in
its earliest forms was an oral tradition.
Collections that I often return too are
Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa, which is about his time in Vietnam during the war, etc.;
Blake's Poetry and Designs
by William Blake, which has the original sketches he did with his poems
and it includes criticisms of his work that I used when I began reading
poetry before reading it in school;
Delights and Shadows by Ted
Kooser, a collection I love to recommend to beginning readers because he
has some great observations about life and death that don't get lost in
technique;
A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who in my opinion was the better Beat poet; and
City of a Hundred Fires
by Richard Blanco, which is an excellent look at the Cuban immigrant
experience through the eyes of a younger generation trying to fit in
with American society, while an older generation is trying to keep
traditions alive.
4. You live right in the hot bed of politics. Does your interest in
books include books about politics or those written by politicians?
Ah,
yes. Politics. I do read some political books, but rarely review
them. They are more to inform me of the political world around me and
to make more informed voting decisions. I'm originally from the hot bed
of Democrats in Massachusetts and loved reading about local Mass.
politicians like Tip O'Neill, Ted Kennedy, JFK, John Kerry, etc. I
still love learning about the Kennedy mystic, etc., but I also have a
greater sense of how flawed politicians are and how their ideals are
less than ideal after being in office for a long time. I'm not a
registered Democrat and do read Republican books as well.
5. You read a lot of different kinds of books. Were you raised in a
household of readers? Are there books that you find yourself
recommending again and again?
I was not raised in a house
of readers. My nana was a reader and encouraged me to read by letting
me pick out any book I wanted when we went to
Spags,
a local store, and she always made sure she bought me books for
birthdays and holidays, etc. My mom actually did not read much in front
of me and my father does not read. My mom does read more now that
she's retired, and I always thank James Patterson for that because had
she not picked up one of his books one day, she might not have read.
I recommend tons of books based on the person's likes in dislikes,
but I'll mention some of my more recent favorites in poetry, YA, short
story, and fiction:
Beth Kephart's
Small Damages or
Undercover
Thrity Umrigar's
The World We FoundAlma Katsu's
The Taker and
The ReckoningCarolina De Robertis'
PerlaJoshua Graham's
DarkroomPatricia Falvey's
The Yellow House
Sarah McCoy's
The Baker's DaughterEric D. Goodman's
TracksJanel Gradowski's
RevengeSusan Dormady Eisenberg's
The Voice I Just HeardLaurie Soriano's
Catalina
Osip Mendalstam's
Stolen AirErica Goss'
Wild PlaceNatalie Diaz's
When My Brother Was an Aztec
Not only has Serena added to my list of books to pick up, I think she's talked me into giving poetry another chance. Of course, I hope she understands that if I don't "get it," I know where to find her now! Thanks, Serena, for the interview and for all you do to make the blogosphere a more interesting place!
