Congratulations, Alice Munro!

Congratulations, Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize. Alice Munro began writing short stories as practice for a novel--she didn't feel she had time for the whole thing--but she soon realized that she could do basically anything she wanted in a short story. In fact, editor of Best American Short Stories 2012 Tom Perrotta singled her out for just that ability. The Munro story he chose for inclusion in that collection shifts perspective dramatically among three characters--something you never used to see done in short formats. Well, she does, and others do, too, in that collection. Thank you, Ms. Munro, for inspiring other writers for decades. May the fabulous medium of short stories continue to grow thanks to your work.

David and Goliath? Think again

As it typical from Malcolm Gladwell's work, my mind is reeling after watching his TED talk on David and Goliath. It doesn't make the story any less about David's faith, but it does explain how the story was possible. So interesting.

Bruce and Me

Two video story/poems posted in a row. Both about the same length, but claiming to belong to two different genres. Here's "Bruce and Me" by film maker Trent Harris.

Happy Halloween

Motion Poems strikes again!

Poem of the Week: Eduardo C. Corral

         

           

Cayucos

            boats used by African emigrants

            to reach Spanish islands 

A girl asleep beneath a fishing net

Sandals the color of tangerines

Off the coast of Morocco

A moonlit downpour, God's skeleton

Bark, dory, punt, skiff

"Each with a soul full of scents"

Day after day spent shaping

A ball of wax into a canary

Little lamp, little lamp

The word "contraband" arrived

In English in the 16th century via Spanish

Throw your shadow overboard

Proverbs, blessings scratched into wood

The tar of my country better than the honey of others 

-Eduardo C. Corral

From Slow Lightning (Yale University Press, 2012)

Used by permission.

Eduardo C. Corral is a CantoMundo fellow. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry 2012, Ploughshares, Poetry, and Quarterly West. His work has been honored with a "Discovery"/The Nation Award, the J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize from Poetry, and writing residencies to the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo. He has served as the Olive B. O'Connor Fellow in Creative Writing at Colgate University and as the Philip Roth Resident in Creative Writing at Bucknell University. Slow Lightning, his first book of poems, won the 2011 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. The recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, he currently lives in New York City.

Please feel free to forward Split This Rock Poem of the Week widely. We just ask you to include all of the information in this email, including this request. Thanks!

If you are interested in reading past poems of the week, feel free to visit the blog archive.