Texas Book Festival 2005

The Texas Book Festival this year is a veritable smorgasbord of literary delights and there would be not time to see all even if one had all the time in the world, which I don't. However, I did manage to spend six blessed hours in my own company traipsing the Texas Capitol grounds and feasting my eyes and ears. I haven't ever attended any talks or readings at the TBF before and today I was able to enjoy two: Alexander McCall Smith and Dana Gioia.

giggling

Alexander McCall Smith

If I ever have to listen to someone talk about themselves and their work for forty-five minutes first thing in the morning, let it be Alexander McCall Smith, he of The Number 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. The charm and gentle wit of his novels are indeed an accurate reflection of the author's own personality. He has a delightful sense of humor and a wonderful giggle. I confess a weakness for men in kilts who giggle. True, I only just now discovered this. The question and answer period was very funny- he seemed to have a humorous take on everything. He is a professor at the University of Edinburgh and someone asked how he does everything that he does. He replied that, in reality, he accomplished that by not doing everything that he does, for instance, he has taken an unpaid leave of absence from the University for a number of years, an arrangement which seems to suit everyone: the University gets to not pay him for not doing any work. That's as opposed to the University paying him for not doing any work, in which case he would be a researcher. Another woman asked him what was "bush tea." It's a tea called rooibos, red bush, and it has no caffeine and is very good at mopping up free radicals, so it's a conservative tea and aptly named, didn't we think?

Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia is the Chairman of the National Endowment of the Arts. He is a poet and critic when he's not in public service. I knew very little about him before I did some cramming in the form of skimming an essay he wrote in 1991 called "Can Poetry Matter?" and an interview that someone had done (sorry- it's just background, all blur at this point.) This was a reading of his own poetry and really, it would have been nice to be more familiar with his work but sometimes you just have to go with what you got.

GioiaIt was completely delightful. It was very nice to listen to his poetry before the questions started about his work, which is very promotion-oriented, very worthwhile, of course, but I was just as happy to hear the art. Second confession: this was the first poetry reading I had ever been to. I am happy to report that not all poets read in that pretentious death cadence that the NPR National Poetry Month authors use. Mr. Gioia had facial expression, inflections, rhythm that varied and verses that rhymed. Yes, there was some free verse, maybe most of it was free verse, but still poetic. He also recited some Shakespeare and Tennyson, in keeping with his own notion that poetry readings shouldn't be limited to single authors (I second that.) So I would say that my first time was a success: the poetry was good, I met the poet who, btw, is a muckety-muck, got my picture taken with him, and oh yeah, he is really good looking (really- and for once I was wearing lipstick and the now-famous extremely flattering sweater. Sadly, this did not make me look better in the picture.) And he has my name and address and I have a promise from him to get some stuff that my kids will enjoy. Tah-dah.

Unsaid

So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.

-Dana Gioia, 2001

Aside: Mr Gioia'a talk was signed by a woman who, to my untrained eye, was doing a wonderful job. I asked her about it afterwards to see if she just translates the poetry or if she thinks about it and she said she really had to think about it. I asked her if there was rhyming in sign language and she looked at me strangely. I pointed out that in one of the poems Mr. Gioia spoke of hunger in one line and in the next he spoke of desire; she did the gestures for each in rapid succession. The sign for hunger is the right hand passing from the top of the chest (at the throat) to the stomach with the index finger and thumb tracing parallel lines downward. The sign for desire is the same gesture but the hand stops at the heart. She looked at me and said, "Yeah, I guess it does rhyme."