The Embarrassment

Stephen and I had a good conversation at lunch today that was initially about the heidi lynn staples book i just bought (guess can gallop) and then drifted toward this somewhat nebulous idea i had about 'embarrassing speech' - i suppose it comes out of my love for duncan's effusions, but i really have a soft spot (let's call it a sugar spot, since the closest metaphor i can come up with for the effect is an overripe banana, and the question of greenness to yellowness to yellow and blackness -ie, hawkeyeness-) for occasionally bad writing, sentiment, awkwardness, failures of tone, that kind of thing. this staples character, while more directly conscious of what she's always doing, uses some of the most horrible puns i've ever seen - it's so fun and bad that i can't resist it. steve was, i think, unconvinced because of the problem of opacity that the book presented, and at any rate, i'm a bit faded on the actual content of the conversation and should probably let him speak ... i think we agreed that her book was a bit too calculated, but, that there is room for 'badness' in poetry - i can't really remember much right now though, b/c my blood sugar is low and my workshop is about to start.

anyway, i'm going to do a wittle weading for the kiddies, and a q&a and will read from the chappy booky - really, i'm such an ego(t)ist that this will probably be my favorite part of the evening.

wo ist einen kau?