Rebecca Solnit + Margaret Atwood | Orwell's Roses
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ส.ค. 2024
- Join us for a virtual event with critically acclaimed author Rebecca Solnit for the launch of her new book Orwell’s Roses. Joining Rebecca in conversation will be award-winning and celebrated author Margaret Atwood.
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A lush exploration of roses, pleasure, and politics, and a fresh take on George Orwell as an avid gardener whose political writing was grounded in his passion for the natural world.
"In the year 1936 a writer planted roses." So begins Rebecca Solnit's new book, a reflection on George Orwell's passionate gardening and the way that his involvement with plants, particularly flowers, and the natural world illuminates his other commitments as a writer and antifascist, and the intertwined politics of nature and power.
Sparked by her unexpected encounter with the surviving roses he planted in 1936, Solnit's account of this understudied aspect of Orwell's life explores his writing and his actions--from going deep into the coal mines of England, fighting in the Spanish Civil War, critiquing Stalin when much of the international left still supported him (and then critiquing that left), to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism. Through Solnit's celebrated ability to draw unexpected connections, readers encounter the photographer Tina Modotti's roses and her Stalinism, Stalin's obsession with forcing lemons to grow in impossibly cold conditions, Orwell's slave-owning ancestors in Jamaica, Jamaica Kincaid's critique of colonialism and imperialism in the flower garden, and the brutal rose industry in Colombia that supplies the American market. The book draws to a close with a rereading of Nineteen Eighty-Four that completes her portrait of a more hopeful Orwell, as well as a reflection on pleasure, beauty, and joy as acts of resistance. - บันเทิง
Excellent. Recently read Orwell's Roses--love that book. Brilliant conversation here--two brilliant writers / thinkers. Thank you.
What a great conversation! Amazing book. Love it. I love Solnit books, and this one is perfect. I also love George Orwell very much. And the way she connects different subjects in a fluent and attractive narrative. She's open to what's going on, and she has enormous sensitivity. Really one of my favorite writers today.
Wonderful interchange bet two great authors. Great reminder: even modern day warriors (democracy, healthcare, civil obedience) need to nourish their souls frequently with nature, beauty and humor to balance the dark side.
Excellent conversation! Thank you!!
wow what a treat, both of the brilliant women!
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Thank you for this interview.
So interesting, thank you so much!
Enjoyed Odell’s unique poems and reading. Your unique word choices enhanced the emotional impact and kept me engaged throughout. I’ve always loved Margaret Atwood’s books.
I’m a poet specializing in Japanese forms: haiku, tanka, haibun, kyoka, senryu. I hope you don’t mind me sharing a tanka and my haiku, a tribute poem to Bashō’s frog with commentary by the late AHA founder and poet Jane Reichhold who considered my Basho haiku among her top 10 haiku of all time. What an honor.
Here’s the Bashō poem and commentary:
Bashō’s frog
four hundred years
of ripples
At first the idea of picking only 10 of my favorite haiku seemed a rather daunting task. How could I review all the haiku I have read in my life and decide that there were only 10 that were outstanding? Then realized I was already getting a steady stream of excellent haiku day by day through the AHA
forum.
The puns and write-offs based on Basho's most famous haiku are so
numerous I would have said that nothing new could be said with this
method, but here Al Fogel proved me wrong. Perhaps part of my delight in this haiku lies in the fact that I agree with him. Here he is saying one thing
about realism-ripples are on a pond after a frog jumps in, but because it refers back to Basho and his famous haiku, he is also saying something about the haiku and authors who have followed him. We, and our work, are just ripples while Basho holds the honor of inventing the idea of the
sound of a frog leaping is the sound of water
As haiku spreads around the world, making ripples in more and larger ponds, its ripples are wider-including us all. But his last word reminds us that we are ripples and our lives ephemeral. It will be the frogs that will remain.
~~
And my tanka:
returning home
from a Jackson Pollock
exhibition
I smear my face with paint
and morph into art
~~
-All love in isolation
from Miami Beach,
Florida.
Al
Brief Bio:
I’m Al Fogel born in 1945 and at an early age began writing poems. In 1962 I was introduced to a neighbor who just returned from Avatar Meher Baba’s “ East west” gathering and handed me a book titled “The Everything and the Nothing” that included brief but powerful passages by Meher Baba that touched me deeply and i became a “ Baba Lover” In 2010 while on Jane Reichhold’s AHA website workshopping poems I befriended a Chinese man who helped me perfect my Senryu and Haibun. I am now considered one of the nations leading authorities on Tanka , Senryu, and Haibun.
Here are some examples of each of my specialties
senryu
~
dentist chair
the hygienist removes
my Bluetooth
~
Internet argument
all his words in CAPS
hers in EMOTICONS
~
after the divorce
he spends more time
at the dollar store
~
damsel in distress
clarke kent still searching
for a phone booth
~
cauliflower ears
once a contender
now boxing vegetables
~
under
the influence -
moonshine
~
Audubon sale
all variety of seeds. . .
early birds welcome
~
Buddhist fortune cookie
the unfolded paper reads
“ better luck next birth!”
~
sudden downpour. . .
the adults run
for shelter
~
sidewalk cafe
the birds and people
tweeting
~
busy crosswalk
the seeing eye dog
leads the way
~
**senryu is usually humorous, but it can also be serious. For example, the following two of mine are horrific and heartbreaking ( dealing with the Holocaust):
~
cattle cars
between the slats
human eyes
~
stutthof -
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~
thrift store purchase
inside the leather jacket
a tarnished half-heart
~
deserted train depot
a long line of rusted tracks
leading nowhere
~~
return to my youth
lit by the tracks
of Lionel trains.
~
Tanka:
returning home
from a Jackson pollock
exhibition
I smear my face with paint
and morph into art
~
crowded bus
a young lady offers me
her seat
it seems like only yesterday
I was offering mine
~
deserted train depot
a conductor once shouted
“ All Aboard!”
but now it’s just a long line of tracks
leading nowhere
~
Haibun:
The Mathematics of Retribution
“Karma is i fathomable,”
I inform her
It’s late and our conversation turns heavy
“ Seems simple to me, “my girlfriend responds.
“If I murder you, then it’s reasonable that I will be murdered in this or another life to balance the ledger.”
“ Not necessarily so” I’m quick to rejoin.
“What if you murdered me in this life
because I murdered you in a prior life
karmic debts and dues are now equalized.”
“But what if I get caught and I go to jail for life. Where’s the equal payback in that?”
“As I said, karma is unfathomable.”
We continue discussing reincarnation and then add the possibilities of “group karma” to the mix
Finally, at about midnight, we fall asleep
Stutthof -
the stench of burnt hair
from the chimneys
~~
Mama
There were days when I pretended to be too sick to go to school - - just for mamas loving embrace -her arms the heat of home
Even with the onset of dementia, her cheerfulness was so contagious it was a joy being around her despite the illness.
She made everyone laugh with her spontaneous unpredictable behavior.
nursing home
bumper wheelchair
her favorite pastime
Once a week I would whisk her away from the assisted-living facility and we would spend several hours together -grabbing a meal or frequenting some of her favorite second-hand stores where she loved to shop and donate clothes.
When we drove to her favorite thrift in November, her dementia worsened.
thrift store
the dress mama donated
she wants to buy
On a cold December morn mama passed.
The funeral was simple. There was a light drizzle as the family gathered at the gravesite. One by one, with eyes full of rain, we said our last goodbyes.
autumn twilight -
oh mama tuck me under
hug me one more time
~
‘Round Midnight
It was a huge ballroom on the top floor of a building on Broadway --an important midtown crossroads in the heart of the Great White Way.
My uncle still talks with reverence about how -in his heyday -he would travel by rail to the corner of Lenox and walk inside to the beat of jungle music. Who knew what to expect? One night you might be listening with rapt attention to Theloneous Monk and Dizzy Gillespie the godfathers of bebop in their signature beret caps, or the Nicholas Brothers flashing their wild acrobatic spins and splits, or enchanted by the sweet taste of Brown Sugar -with Bojangles out front. And when the Bird was in flight, even the moon was not high enough.
But in 1940 the ballroom closed its doors to make way for a commercial housing development and another kind of night.
new Harlem
the a-train replaced
by the bullet
~
Atlantic City New Jersey
I had just graduated from high school
I remember stopping for saltwater taffy -as evening journeyed slowly into night. Nearing curfew, we sat on a protruded sandy enclave--holding hands, looking out at the ocean, not saying much. In the distance the lights from an ocean liner flickered as the night kept coming on in...
first “french kiss”
under the boardwalk
“over the moon!”
~~
All love,
Al
Pleasure activism is where it's at.
Orwell was a very political Journalist by training and journalists using write about serious political things so of course some who writes in that style is going to be seen as Grumpy >