Features « The Offending Adam

Features

094.2: The Red Pen Project:: From Sonnet 55 to Bonkers 55

7 March 2012

Features

The Red Pen Project was a collaborative poetic evolution undertaken in Chicago during the AWP Conference, 2012. What began as William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 55" became an ongoing production of new poems. Participants replaced words, pasting over them with a piece of fresh paper and writing a new word in red pen. The final poem, "Bonkers 55" by Loretta Scodspear, reflects the combined poetics, aesthetics, humor, and politics of the participating writers. Here, we present both the beginning and ending poems as well as a photographic retrospective of the three day long evolution of the poem.

087.2: The Offending Adam:: 2011 Pushcart Prize Nominees

30 November 2011

Features

Is 2011 really almost over? It's easy over here at The Offending Adam to lose track of the time, our minds focused on preparing each week's content. But here we are at the end of November, which means Pushcart Prize nominations time. Making these selections is difficult, as our intimate relationship with each piece we publish makes us want to nominate pretty much everything. We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank all our contributors this year, who have made our second year of publishing a huge success. And, in particular, we would like to thank our Pushcart Prize nominees Jaswinder Bolina, Randall Horton, Amorak Huey, Lauren Ireland, Keetje Kuipers, and Johnathon Williams for sharing their remarkable work with us and our readers. We invite you to read or re-read their poems, and we hope that you find them as engaging and uncommon as we did.

In “Signs of Being: A Chamoru Spritual Journey,” acclaimed Chamoru writer Cecilia “Lee” Perez writes: “I always come back to the idea of cultural survival. We are here. We are now. But what is it that brought us, as a people, to this point? Despite years of governance by colonial powers, our language and our ways persevere. We are not pickled, preserved, or frozen in time. We are not measurable or validated by blood quantum, ethnic breakdown, physical characteristics or DNA. We are vital, and vitalized by our tenacity and joined inner strength." Join us this week as guest editor Craig Santos Perez presents a contemporary Chamoru poet each day this week, Monday through Thursday.

This conversation with Mark Irwin emanated from a re-reading and discussion of his essay “Poetry and Memorability,” which is part of this week’s issue. Memorability is an aspect of poetry that has guided Irwin’s own writing career as well as his teaching career. Books and works of art are chosen to populate a syllabus based on their memorability rather than their popularity or hipness or critical “depth.” Workshops are run with the central question: What will we remember from this poem? If all of this sounds like mulling over the eternal quality of poetry, then that is probably a correct assumption. It is our hope that the following questions expand upon and elucidate concepts and claims made in “Poetry and Memorability.”

To those readers who have faithfully read along with us throughout our second year of publication, and to those readers who have just arrived for the first time, we thank you for making our publication successful and enjoyable. With summer in full swing, and friends and family taking time out of their busy lives to enjoy a few moments of rest and respite from the heat, we here at The Offending Adam are likewise hitting the pause button for a brief two week sojourn. So fear not, dear readers: TOA returns with its usual force Monday, August 1. Until then, here are a selection of works that we have published in the first half of 2011, to either read for the first time if you missed them, or to rediscover.

To those readers who have faithfully read along with us for forty-six issues, and to those readers who have just arrived for the first time, we thank you for making this first year of publication successful and enjoyable. With the holidays fast approaching, and friends and family taking time out of their busy lives to enjoy a few moments of rest and community, we here at The Offending Adam are likewise hitting the pause button so that we can fully enjoy the holiday season. Fear not, though, dear readers: TOA returns with punch and power Monday, January 24. Until then, here are a selection of works that we have published in 2010, to either read for the first time if you missed them, or to rediscover.

This year has been a year of surprises. We began the year as a fledgling publication, hoping to gain a few loyal and excited readers. Now, as the year comes to a close, we have been given the opportunity to select the first Pushcart Prize nominees from The Offending Adam. As we had developed a strong connection with every piece of writing we published over the course of the year, this task daunted us. We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank all our contributors this year, who have helped make our first year of publishing such a success. And, in particular, we would like to thank our Pushcart nominees Melissa Kwasny, Laura Mullen, Kelli Anne Noftle, Craig Santos Perez, Chris Shipman, and William Stobb for sharing such striking work with us and our readers. We invite you to read or re-read these poems, and we hope that you find them as interesting and enjoyable as we did.

We here at The Offending Adam consider ourselves so lucky both to be a part of the literary community in our various ways, as well as to have so many loyal readers come here to make this journal a vibrant space for literature. We now invite you to browse nine books that have impressed or excited us, in the hopes that some of them might find a home either with your friends and loved ones or, also, on your own book shelf.

While we normally feature poetry here at The Offending Adam, we are delighted today to present Chuck Rosenthal's piece of magic journalism, "My Chicken, Obsidian," set in Topanga Canyon, a funky residential enclave located outside of Los Angeles. Historian Carey McWilliams' seminal work on California is entitled Southern California: An Island on the Land and while reading Rosenthal's funny, ironic, and poetic portrait, one cannot help but appreciate that sentiment of one who inhabits such a baffling and beautiful island on the land that is Los Angeles and its surrounding locale.