Pure Manaʻo

As I continue to reflect on a humanities conference that I just attended, I understand better why I got my two graduate degrees in education and not in English to match my BA. The problem that I have with literary scholarship is that sometimes we have to forgive the improbable, seemingly fantastical leaps in critique. As a poet, I would always be astounded when I would do a reading and someone waits around for me to tell me that they know how this character feels because (and then they give me their interpretation). Sometimes the connection is so bizarre that I am not sure where they are getting that connection from and I find myself going through my pieces again trying to find that reading that is invisible to me. However as someone who has been made to feel stupid, literally told "that's wrong, stupid" I also need to honor Rosenblatt's argument that each reading is a transaction between the reader and the text and this interaction is unique to the reader. To me...

This is only day 1 in my year of sacred reading and writing. I have 364 days left so based on my experience with the year of Sunday dinners (that has continued for six years in two different households now), I know there are certain key elements for success: Blogging makes me accountable, even if no one is reading it but me Tagging helps me (the main reader) find things easily, whether it's a recipe or an article that I need for a paper. Figuring out the logistics and format early on helps alleviate the chore of writing. That is why romance novelists can pump out more books than say George R.R. Martin . Not everything is going to be or has to be profound or totally earth shattering. I just need enough so I remember what I was thinking. Organization is not a suggestion. I keep my highlighted articles in my Evernote (above) and keep my Adobe Acrobrat Pro subscription current at all times. I am working on organizing my Evernote into folders and tag, tag, tag. Key words ar...