My Favorite Literary Finds
Week of 3.19.22 Writing It Up in the Garden-News from Nerissa Nields,
This Week’s Prompt and Finds:
Hi Writers,
Happy World Poetry Day!
Like a lot of you, I keep thinking about the WH Auden poem “Musée Des Beaux Arts.” Auden wrote this poem in 1938, when Europe was approaching the Second World War of the century. Though he never mentions the growing Nazi threat, it’s implicit in the words. The New York Times recently did a beautiful job showing the work of this ekphrastic poem, along with the Breughel paintings that inspired it.
And the painting by Breughel:
Cloud Cuckoo Land
I just finished reading Anthony Doerr’s latest novel Cloud Cuckoo Land, and I can’t stop thinking about it. I keep watching new interviews with him, perhaps because he’s writing about precisely the “end of the world” moments we’re all experiencing. What does one do when one is confronted with last days? NPR reviewer Jason Sheehan writes,
“The book is a puzzle. The greatest joy in it comes from watching the pieces snap into place. It is an epic of the quietest kind, whispering across 600 years in a voice no louder than a librarian's. It is a book about books, a story about stories. It is tragedy and comedy and myth and fable and a warning and a comfort all at the same time. It says, Life is hard. Everyone believes the world is ending all the time. But so far, all of them have been wrong.
It says that if stories can survive, maybe we can, too.” -Jason Sheehan
One Spot Left in Songwriting Class!
The spring session of my Writing It Up in the Garden workshops begins next week. The only spot left is one that just opened in my songwriting workshop. This workshop is open to anyone who has an interest in the art and craft of songwriting. Each week we’ll discuss an element of the building blocks of songs, then practice what we’ve learned.
Class will meet on Zoom Tuesday nights from 7-9pm Eastern Standard Time.
Class starts Tuesday March 29 and meets for eleven weeks, though we will skip Tuesday April 19. Last class Tuesday June 7. On Zoom only. Sign up here!
How I Procrastinate from Writing
If you are as glued to the news in Ukraine as I am, you might be curious to review the changing borders of Europe over the past millennium. I find this 3.5 minute video fascinating!
Or this one on Russian history. How exactly did a group of Vikings come to take over the greater part of the world’s largest continent?
Substack App
You can now read Symbols & Cymbals: Nerissa’s Newsletter in the new Substack app for iPhone. Yippee, skippee!
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.