E. Rowan Mena

Overheard 1

June 14, 2013 by E. Rowan

Overheard, at a cafe, while a young (maybe black, but definitely not white) couple with infant was interviewing a potential (white) nanny. Mother: How comfortable are you being out with a black child? Nanny: Excuse me? Mother: How comfortable are you being out with a black… Nanny: Oh, very comfortable. I’m really into the whole culture, and I’m sad that you even have to ask that… Mother: It’s just that… Nanny: Oh, I know, I understand, I’m white, obviously, and… […]

Categories: Uncategorized

Ch-ch-changes, a talk on publishing for emerging writers

June 7, 2013 by E. Rowan

This is the draft of a talk I’m going to be giving on publishing later on tonight. I wasn’t given any particular parameters, except that I was expected to talk for about 20 minutes, and this is clearly longer than that and kind of rambling. But I figured I’d just get down some of the things I’ve been thinking about, and see what the audience wanted to explore. ——– Many, if not all, emerging literary writers get their start by […]

Categories: Publishing

My Nomadic Workspace

June 5, 2013 by E. Rowan

Matt and I are moving, again. In the last five years we’ve moved more than five times. All this nomadry has helped me develop some strategies for being productive despite displacement, living out of boxes, suitcases, and under immense amounts of stress. In fact, at a conference for literary translators last year I was invited to be on a panel in which several extremely busy, multi-tasking translators shared their tips for building a routine that allows them to be productive. […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: productivity, strategies

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Speed & Fragmentation

May 29, 2013 by E. Rowan

I had a long conversation last night with a good friend of mine. We’d had this conversation before, and we’ll have it again. I am pulled in too many directions, have too many projects going on simultaneously. He says I need to slow down, focus. This I’ve been told again and again by almost everyone who I discuss my artistic practices with. And the thing is I know they’re right, but I can’t help myself. I’m like an addict. Anyway, […]

Categories: Teaching

Collage: Assembling Contemporary Art

May 15, 2013 by E. Rowan

A beautiful book with excellent reproductions of some of the most interesting works of collage in contemporary art. I found it slightly lacking in context. Though the two essays that were included were interesting they could have been more thoroughly developed. The O’Reilly essay made some really surprising reductions of the development of early twentieth-century collage techniques. Still a lot of good concepts raised – a good introduction for undergraduates beginning to think critically about collage. The second essay posited […]

Categories: Reading Journal • Tags: art of stealing, collage

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Notes on Conceptualisms by Richard Fitterman and Vanessa Place

May 11, 2013 by E. Rowan

Was considering assigning this for The Art of Stealing, but though there are moments that are very interesting, as a whole the book fell short of my hopes. The Fitterman section seemed a little too enamored of its own brilliance, as evidenced by the reliance on fairly obtuse language and a lot of the kind of name-dropping reference that is fine for notational purposes but I think is really a kind of self-satisfied flouting of ones’ own library. Though I […]

Categories: Reading Journal, Teaching • Tags: art of stealing, conceptual writing, manifesto, notes on conceptualisms, richard fitterman, translation

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To Do As Adam Did by Ronald Johnson

May 8, 2013 by E. Rowan

The introduction to this book did exactly what any introduction to a selection of poetry should do: made me very, very excited to discover the poetry within. Contextualizing it in the Olsonian projective verse tradition, and then explaining how Johnson’s work evolved into the world-wide concrete poetry movement, before finally emerging into a “big” poem he imagined in the tradition of A, The Cantos, and The Maximus Poems. I was absolutely enticed, and some of my anxiety (that it was going to be […]

Categories: Poetry, Reading Journal • Tags: concrete poetry, experimental poetry, long poems, poetry, ronald johnson, to do as adam did

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The Art of Stealing

May 4, 2013 by E. Rowan

This summer I’m once again teaching a course of my design at my alma mater, UMass Boston. Go Beacons! (Ok, that may be the lamest mascot ever, but since I never cared about sports, I just think it’s funny.) The course starts in a little under a month, and frankly, I’m feeling a tad panicky. But the good, stage-fright kind where I’m so excited about the course, and have so much I want to do that I’m panicking that we […]

Categories: Teaching • Tags: art of stealing, creative appropriation, syllabus, teaching, uncreative writing, unoriginal genius

Travel Guides – Do You Have a Favorite?

May 1, 2013 by E. Rowan

So in the past few years I’ve done some pretty wonderful travel, thanks to some great opportunities and my amazing husband. This year we’ve been in the process of a huge transition, and though things are finally coming together and we’ll be moving into our more-permanent apartment in June, the thought of planning and taking a big trip (much less applying for research funding, etc.) has not been overly appealing. For the first summer in my academic career, we’re staying […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: eyewitness, fodors, frommers, lonely planet, moon, travel, travel guide comparison

Fortino Sámano by Virginie Lalucq

April 25, 2013 by E. Rowan

This complicated little book is actually two in one – a poem and an “overflowing” of the poem, a poem and its poetic exegesis. The first section is an ekphrastic poem written by Virginie Laluq and translated by Sylvain Gallais, written in response to a photograph of the Mexican guerilla and counterfeiter moments before his execution by firing squad. I have not seen this photograph (in fact, when I googled it while writing this, the page refused to respond, and asked me several […]

Categories: Reading Journal, Translation • Tags: art, cynthia hogue, ekphrasis, fortino samano, jean-lug nancy, philosophy, poetry, sylvain gallais, translation, virginie lalucq

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