I was saddened to learn today that Lloyd Alexander, the renowned author of fantasy novels for young adults, had died May 17 at age 83, from cancer. A good long life, to be sure, but one can only hope that a favorite writer will be as immortal as his books!
I grew up reading and rereading his Prydain Chronicles, a five-book series set in an imaginary kingdom inspired by Welsh mythology, which deserves comparison to The Lord of the Rings. Like that famous trilogy, it takes a humble protagonist (a likeable, gawky assistant pig-keeper) on a hero’s journey to defeat the lord of death.
Alexander’s other fine works include the Westmark trilogy and The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen. The former series (Westmark, The Kestrel, and The Beggar Queen), which takes place in an invented European country with an 18th-century period feel, is a dark and morally complex tale of republican freedom fighters against a tyrant. It’s really mis-labeled as a young adult book; more like a Victor Hugo novel with a length and vocabulary that a mature teen could enjoy, but substantial enough to captivate and inspire readers of all ages. Prince Jen is a witty, profound fable about a young Chinese prince who roams his kingdom incognito to learn wisdom.
One thing I loved about Alexander’s books was his wise, sassy and competent heroines, a welcome update to the classics of sword-and-sorcery fiction. They’re the foremothers of Harry Potter’s Hermione. His novels are works of philosophy embodied in a humorous and exciting tale. Alexander gave young readers a vocabulary to ponder the big questions, like “what does it mean to be human rather than animal” or “when does the end justify the means in wartime”. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. I’ll miss you.
Category Archives: Site News
Northampton Pride March 2007
If you’re registered to vote in Massachusetts and support gay marriage, contact your state representatives and ask them to keep the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment off the ballot this year. The Constitutional Convention reopens on June 14. If this doesn’t apply to you, just enjoy the picture of my fabulous Laila Rowe handbag.
World’s Fattest Cat Wins Prize
Good news: My poem “World’s Fattest Cat Has World’s Fattest Kittens” has just won Second Prize, plus an award for Best Rhyming Poem, in the 2007 Utmost Christian Writers poetry contest.
This Canadian website, which aims at improving the literary quality of work produced by Christians, offers thousands of dollars in prizes (over US$4,100 this year). The deadline is usually February 28. First Prize this year went to Jan Wood for “just as you are in me and i am in you“. Read all the winners here.
World’s Fattest Cat Has World’s Fattest Kittens
–tabloid headline
A man walks into a bar and that’s
how I meet my father. Thirty years’ prelude
to a first date, in the amber mood
of brass and cognac, philosophic chat
spins the barstool back and I could be my mother
making us something intimate and undefined,
making someone you would leave behind.
My job-interview smile like butter
over the Riviera snaps of your daughters,
an alternate normalcy unreeled
by their tan arms, nothing concealed
behind your soft, proud chest but beach and blue waters.
But my awkward sister, dark-eyed – can’t you find
her moon-round face in yours, and yours in mine?
Tapas and wine, and God to take his turn
building the polite fortress of conversation;
two ex-Jews still wedded to disputation
and self-pity. The theatre crowd, as unconcerned
as you with tabloid reunions, disperses
into Manhattan’s blue lure. I say Jesus ended
life for our trespasses, but you’re offended
at this old, barbarous economy of verses.
You glow with gurus, out-of-body flight
and sinless man – convenient to believe
the soul can shed the seeds the body leaves.
And I, lacking the charity not to hate your
smooth life apart from us – who am I to spite
the last lawyer who has faith in human nature?
Dumb girl, ludicrous heredity
making me hang on your kisses like a teen,
then ask, like the boy-father to the child unseen,
who is this one, this virtual life, to me?
True father, tell me now, don’t we both nurse
our entitlements like a spitting-image son,
me judging life’s gift by how it was begun,
you grasping after apples with no curse?
Atonement’s just about dousing a blaze
someone else started. Till then, the wheel and snare
of karmic alleles conspires down the years
to put our eyes in an accusing face.
Tabloids and Genesis agree on that:
fat kittens must have come from fatter cats.
The Cross Is Only the Beginning
In this week’s free email newsletter from Relevant Magazine, web editor Jesse Carey asks why Christian iconography puts so much emphasis on the cross, a symbol of death, when our faith is about new life. Carey suggests that understanding sin and punishment comes naturally to us, whereas God’s grace exceeds the bounds of logic and human control:
[I]n a way, the crucifixion makes sense. For most people, judgment is logical. Death is inescapable. Witnessing a man die only takes observation. Believing He rose from a tomb requires faith. Maybe the reason many Christians seem to embrace the crucifixion and put little emphasis on the resurrection is because Jesus dying on the cross makes more sense than Him coming out of the grave.
G.K. Chesterton said in Orthodoxy, “Poets do not go mad; but chess-players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom…Such is the madman of experience; he is commonly a reasoner, frequently a successful reasoner.” Chesterton makes it clear earlier in this work that he is not attacking reason, but a reliance on logic can counter the idea of faith. In other words, it is easy to make sense of the crucifixion; it is something that we can feel guilty for. Our sin put Christ on the cross. We are responsible for His death. But the gift of eternal life (which is represented by the resurrection) defies logic.
Christ rising after death grants believers the gift of eternal life, eternal life that we don’t deserve, that we didn’t earn. It is only granted by God’s grace. Trying to logically reason through the idea of grace is what would turn Chesterton’s mathematician into a madman. There is no formula for grace; we did nothing to earn it. God loved us, so Christ died and rose so we could live. After we accept His sacrifice, we owe Him nothing in return. It is poetic; it is a loving Father’s gift that can’t be figured out. Christianity is not based on works; it is based on grace, and it’s that grace that takes faith.
Amen!
Starting tomorrow, I’ll be enjoying four blessed computer-free days at Wheaton College’s “Ancient Faith for the Church’s Future” conference on the early church fathers. Coming up next: quotes from Mark Galli’s Jesus Mean and Wild; more favorite poems; “Saving Jesus” Episode 11 (and why there won’t be an Episode 12). Meanwhile, in the tradition of the sitcom “clips episode”, enjoy these posts from the recent past:
Same-Sex Love and the Bible
Learning From Art’s Flaws
Christians Writing and Reading the Forbidden
Support Housing Works and Other Cool Vendors
I’m back from a fabulous weekend in NYC. Thanks again to Housing Works Used Book Cafe for hosting our poetry and fiction reading last Thursday. I encourage everyone to shop there when in Manhattan. They have a great selection of books, including genres that aren’t always well-represented in used bookstores, such as performing arts and graphic novels. All profits are donated to provide housing and social services for poor people with HIV and AIDS.
I’d also like to give a shout-out to the folks at the Rainbows & Triangles bookstore in Chelsea, for helping me with some (fully clothed) research for my novel; On the Ave Hotel, which belongs to the CleanHotels network whose members refuse to offer in-room adult movies; and Laila Rowe, because you can never have too many magenta accessories.
Our regularly scheduled bitching about the Episcopal Church will resume tomorrow. Meanwhile…wear all the sequins you got!
Jendi to Read at Housing Works Cafe in NYC, Jan. 18 (Program Change)
I’ll be reading my poetry at Housing Works Used Books Cafe on Thursday, Jan. 18, in an event sponsored by the Saint Ann’s Review. Housing Works is located at 126 Crosby Street. The reading starts at 7 PM. Find out more here. My co-readers are now Hugh Seidman, Nelly Reifler and Sara Femenella.
Hugh Seidman is the author of six books of poetry, including Somebody Stand Up and Sing (Western Michigan University, 2005), which won the 2004 Green Rose Prize. His first book, Collecting Evidence (Yale University Press), won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize (1970). Nelly Reifler the author of See Through, a collection of stories. She codirects the reading series at Magnetic Field in Brooklyn with Jonathan Dixon and is a regular columnist for Nextbook, a Jewish literature and culture website. Sara Femenella is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at Columbia University. And I am, well, me.
Jendi to Read at Housing Works Cafe in NYC, Jan. 18
I’ll be reading my poetry at Housing Works Used Books Cafe in Manhattan on Jan. 18 along with John Yau and Sara Femenella, in an event sponsored by the Saint Ann’s Review. Housing Works is located at 126 Crosby Street. The show begins at 7 PM. Find out more here.
John Yau is a leading art critic, poet, essayist, and prose writer whose books include The United States of Jasper Johns (1996), Borrowed Love Poems (2002), and Ing Grish (2006). He has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets and the Guggenheim Foundation. Sara Femenella is currently an MFA candidate in Poetry at Columbia University. I’m very excited to be reading with these talented writers, and hope to see lots of poetry fans there. Spread the word!
Power Madness
Our backyard is a little boy’s dream today, with a big green bulldozer and an even bigger orange cherry-picker for some very brave folks to repair our aging roof and install lightning rods. Which means that the electric power will be down for several hours, for the third day in a row. (I was proofreading the Winning Writers newsletter by flashlight yesterday – somehow setbacks like this become tolerable and even an adventure when you work for yourself.) So, dear readers, if your comments don’t appear right away, please be patient till the weekend. Actually we should all be patient all the time, but let’s start small.
Holiday Shopping for Pessimists
Is there someone in your life who’s just too happy? You know, that person who’s been wearing a sparkly reindeer sweater to the office every day since Thanksgiving…who began addressing his Christmas cards in October…who doesn’t realize that “Jingle Bell Rock” is the leading cause of atheism?
That person clearly needs a copy of A Talent for Sadness. For maximum effect, we also recommend Jean-Paul Pecqueur’s The Case Against Happiness. Just because we care. But not too much.
New Site Launched
Welcome to the new JendiReiter.com, which differs from the old JendiReiter.com in that (1) it is a blog, and (2) it has no content. I hope to do something about (2) presently. My older poems and legal articles from the old site will be migrated over in the next month or so. Meanwhile, check out my other web ventures to find markets and contests for your poetry, or get your consciousness raised good and hard.