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Monthly Archives: November 2023

The Poems of Jay Jacoby

November 27, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

Shortly after I joined UNC Charlotte’s English Department in 1984, I met Jay Jacoby.  He had joined the department six years earlier, so I naturally looked to him for guidance as I set out to build my career as an English professor.  I remember talking with Jay about publishing, and I was surprised to learn that he regularly published poetry in addition to his scholarly articles on the teaching of writing and on Jewish literature.  He shared with me a few of his poems at the time, and I liked the way he drew on his teaching experiences in his poetry. 

Jay retired some years ago and moved to Asheville, where he hosts a monthly book group at Malaprop’s Bookstore, leads a weekly study group associated with his local synagogue, participates in three different writing groups, teaches literature and creative writing classes at UNC Asheville’s College for Seniors, and plays competitive Scrabble as a member of the Asheville Scrabble Club. However, he remains in touch with his former colleagues at UNC Charlotte, and he continues to write and publish poetry.  Earlier this year, ArsPoetica brought out a collection of Jay’s poetry titled Lessons Learned & Unlearned. For more information about Jay’s collection, please click here.

 I recently contacted Jay and asked him for more information about this collection.  Here is what he sent to me:

Most of the poems in this collection, written over a period of nearly sixty years, reflect many things I have been taught and that I have gone on to test, either through experience or imagination. They represent not only lessons I have learned over the years, but also those I have not.  Several of the poems were written during my 27-year tenure at UNC Charlotte, including elegies for former colleagues and reflections on my writing conferences with students.

In many of the poems, I have followed the advice of Sir Philip Sidney: “Look into your heart and write.” In many more, I was just messing around with language, engaging in wordplay but, as Frost once noted, “play for mortal stakes.” There are a number of “found poems” and centos in this collection, occasioned by my “stealing” and juggling words of other writers. There’s an acrostic, a few anagrams, dictionary poems, shaped poems, and ekphrastic poems inspired by works of art. And there are poems constrained by fixed forms: haiku, tankas, sonnets, villanelles, even a golden shovel.

Jay also shared with me one of the poems in his collection.  Titled “Untethered in Dixie,” this poem was written on the occasion of his leaving Pittsburgh for his tenure-track position at UNC Charlotte:

UNTETHERED IN DIXIE

Ten years of marriage finally gone South

and so, to my greater surprise, will I.

Despite early vows otherwise, I will

now traverse that Mason-Dixon line

though still haunted by Life’s images

from childhood:  Emmett Till, Little Rock,

Pickrick’s Drumsticks, and bodies managed

so easily with firehoses and vicious dogs.

My pride and prejudice now also managed, 

worn down by the promise of a paycheck.

***

An itinerant Pennsylvania Yankee will soon

descend to serve in Queen Charlotte’s court.

***

Farewell Steel City, a.k.a. “City of Bridges,”

all four hundred and forty-six of them

spilling us into ninety-one enclaves.

Gert Stein, your native daughter, was right:

“A Holubky is a Gołąbki is a Golubtsy.”

A cabbage roll by any other name 

would smell as sweet. In Blitzburgh,

they’d tell me, “These lines need fixed.”

***

So I roll down from your sooted hills

And into the khaki piedmont flatland.

***

Hello Queen City, a.k.a “City of Churches.”

There’s one or more at every intersection,

all ready to serve me country ham biscuits,

seven-layer salad, Cheerwine or sweet tea.

I am now a stranger in a strange land, like

Geronimo stranded among the white-eyes

Indeed, everyone is blond; here we cannot

sing of ochi chyornye or schwartze oygen.

***

I explain that I am a recent transplant,

happy to exchange my “yinz” for “y’all.”

***

I am amazed by all this southern charm.

I wasn’t expecting Deliverance, but this?

other than my asking “What’s Cheerwine?”

At every 7-Eleven, they all invite me to

“Come back and see us.”  And I always do.

I asked myself why I stayed north so long?

In a year or so I would have my answer.

I thank Jay for the information about Lessons Learned & Unlearned and for sharing “Untethered in Dixie.” Although Jay is now a resident of Asheville, as far as I am concerned, he is still tethered to Storied Charlotte.

Tags: poetry

Giving Thanks

November 20, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

I recently received an email message from a former student who used to live in Charlotte but has since moved to a mid-sized, midwestern city.  In her email, she commented on how much she missed Charlotte’s literary community.  She said that she missed her old writing group from Charlotte, and she mentioned how hard it has been for her to find a comparable writing group that she could join since she made her move. She said she missed going to the book signings at Park Road Books and taking her kids to the EpicFest literary festival at ImaginOn.   After reading her email message, I realized how fortunate I am to live in Charlotte.  Since Thanksgiving is around the corner, I decided to list ten reasons why I feel thankful that I am a member of Charlotte’s community of readers and writers.

I am thankful for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.  Our public library is one of the best in the country.  It provides books and other resources to the residents of every neighborhood in our city, and its free public programming enriches the lives of thousands of people in our community.  It is also a steadfast defender of the freedom to read.

I am thankful for Charlotte’s excellent writing groups and organizations, such as Charlotte Lit and the Charlotte Writers Club.  These groups provide area writers with guidance, support, and a sense of belonging to a community writers. 

I am thankful for Charlotte’s independent bookstores.  The bookstore I visit most often is Park Road Books, but there are more than a dozen independent bookstores in the Charlotte area.  Every April these businesses work together to celebrate Indie Bookstore Day and collaborate on the Greater Charlotte Book Crawl.

I am thankful for Charlotte’s literacy groups, such as Promising Pages, Read Charlotte, and Smart Start of Mecklenburg County.  These groups work hard to improve children’s literacy skills. In the process, they help instill in children a love of reading. 

I am thankful for the Charlotte-area book publishers, such as Falstaff Books, Main Street Rag Publishing Company, and Warren Publishing.   Although these publishers work with writers from around the country, they have an impressive record of publishing books by Charlotte-area authors.

I am thankful for the Charlotte Readers Podcast. Founded by Landis Wade in 2018, the Charlotte Readers Podcast is now co-hosted by Landis, Sarah Archer, and Hannah Larrew.   Over the years, many Charlotte-area authors have been featured on this entertaining and informative podcast.

I am thankful for the Arts & Science Council for providing area writers with grants to support their creative work and for their support of cultural programs in the Charlotte area.

I am thankful for North Carolina Humanities and their NC Center for the Book.  Although North Carolina Humanities is a state-wide organization, it is headquartered in Charlotte.  Through their award-winning North Carolina Reads program and their other projects, North Carolina Humanities makes many contributions to Charlotte’s literary community.

I am thankful for Charlotte’s literary journals, including Litmosphere: Journal of Charlotte Lit, The Main Street Rag, Nova Literary-Arts Magazine, and Qu: A Contemporary Literary Magazine from Queens University. These journals often publish stories and poems by Charlotte writers.

Finally, I am thankful for all of the wonderful literary works created by Charlotte’s many writers.  Without their contributions to Charlotte’s literary scene, there would be no Storied Charlotte blog.     

Tags: Thanksgiving

Stories for Veterans Day

November 11, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

I am writing this Storied Charlotte blog post on Saturday, November 11, 2023.  I waited until 11:00 in the morning to start writing this post in honor of Armistice Day, which is now known as Veterans Day. It commemorates the end of World War I.  On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, all of the countries involved in World War I agreed to an armistice resulting in the cessation of military operations.  The next year saw the observance of the first Armistice Day, which took place on November 11, 1919.  In 1954, Armistice Day was renamed Veterans Day, but it is still observed on the eleventh day of November.

Veterans Day provides us with an opportunity to recognize and honor those who have served in the military.  As I see it, one way to honor military service is to read and reflect on the stories about people in service during wartime.  Several Charlotte authors have published such stories in recent years.  Three examples are Gary Edgington’s Outside the Wire, Meredith Ritchie’s Poster Girls, and Nancy Northcott’s The King’s Champion.

https://pages.charlotte.edu/mark-west/wp-content/uploads/sites/322/2022/09/Outside-the-Wire-Final-Cover-scaled-1.jpeg

Gary Edgington’s Outside the Wire deals with America’s involvement in the Iraq War. The novel opens in Baghdad in 2008, and it immediately immerses the reader in the chaos and complexities of the war.   The novel is marketed as a military thriller, but it also a story about a burgeoning relationship between a counterterrorism expert named Rick Sutherland and a military physician named Nancy Weaver.   For more information about Gary and his debut novel, please click on the following link:  https://garyedgingtonauthor.com/

https://pages.charlotte.edu/mark-west/wp-content/uploads/sites/322/2021/12/PosterGirlsCover-scaled.jpg

Meredith Ritchie’s Poster Girls is a historical novel set in Charlotte during World War II. The novel focuses on the women who worked at Charlotte’s Shell Plant where they manufactured ammunition for the war effort.  Meredith tells the story from the perspectives of two military wives—one black and the other white—who both find employment at the Shell Plant.  The novel delves into the nature of life on the home front, but it is also story about an unlikely friendship.  For readers who want to know more about Meredith and Poster Girls, please click on the following link:  https://www.meredithritchie.com/

Nancy Northcott’s The King’s Champion concludes her Boar King’s Honor historical fantasy trilogy.  Although this novel’s main characters are wizards, the book centers on the real history of World War II from the Dunkirk evacuation through the Battle of Britain. Kate Shaw, one of the central characters, is an American photojournalist posted to her agency’s London office. With British Army officer Sebastian Mainwaring, she and others with magical Gifts work to stop the intended German invasion of Britain, Operation Sealion.  For more information about The King’s Champion and Nancy’s other work, please visit her website, www.NancyNorthcott.com.

As all three of these novels make clear, war stories involve much more than a series of battle scenes.  They are also stories about complex human relationships.  As we observe Veterans Day here in Storied Charlotte, it is important that we remember that wartime service affects veterans and their families and to be grateful for what they have done.  

Sarah Archer, Landis Wade, and Their Podcasting Mystery

November 06, 2023 by Mark West
Categories: Storied Charlotte

It’s a mystery to me if Mark Twain really said, “Write what you know.” However, I know that this bit of writing advice is often attributed to Twain, and I also know that Sarah Archer and Landis Wade have followed this advice when writing their new novella, Death by Podcasting.  Sarah and Landis (along with Hannah Larrew) are the co-hosts of the popular Charlotte Readers Podcast, where they regularly interview authors.  Sarah and Landis know the world of podcasting inside and out, and they make extensive use of this knowledge in Death by Podcasting. 

In many ways, Death by Podcasting fits within the sub-genre of the cozy mystery, but instead of taking place in a country estate or a quaint village, this mystery largely takes place in the virtual setting of a podcast. The central characters in Death by Podcasting go by the names of Raspy Fuse and Salty Remarks.  Like Sarah and Landis, Raspy and Salty are the co-hosts of a podcast featuring author interviews.  A few days before they are scheduled to record a live episode, Raspy and Salty receive a mysterious warning that one of the three authors whom they are scheduled to interview intends to kill them.  At first, Raspy and Salty don’t take the warning seriously, but they soon learn that threat is real.  What follows is a fast-paced and humorous account of their efforts to solve this mystery before it’s too late. 

I contacted Sarah and Landis and asked them for more information about this mystery.  Here is what they sent to me:

As co-hosts on Charlotte Readers Podcast, we thought it would be fun to co-write a mystery involving the intersection of podcasters and writers. We had plenty of inspiration to write a comedic mystery novella about podcasting, writing, and the sometimes-cutthroat world of modern publishing–though thankfully, no real-life murder inspiration.

We came up with a story about two podcasters, Raspy Fuse and Salty Remarks, who receive an anonymous text warning them that one of the authors they’re set to interview for their year-end live finale event plans to kill them. They must use their experience reading and writing mysteries to figure out which of the suspects–poet William Z. Wisp, thriller writer Edwin Nocturne, or romance novelist Della Molasses–might have deadly motivations. Along the way, they uncover the secrets connecting these writers to their own podcast team, and to another podcaster who died mysteriously.  

This was a fun experiment in co-writing for both of us. In our November 7th episode, we talk about the process of taking turns writing and editing each other’s work, and the factors that can make co-writing both easier and harder than writing solo.  None of our real-life podcast guests are believed to be murderers, so we plan to continue podcasting, as dangerous as it may.

The book comes out November 14th and will be available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook. We’ll be at Park Road Books on November 15th at 7 PM to celebrate the launch. We can’t wait to share it with readers and listeners, and hope they enjoy the tongue-in-cheek writing references and Charlotte Readers Podcast Easter eggs sprinkled throughout the story!

I congratulate Sarah and Landis on the publication of Death by Podcasting.  I have long thought that Charlotte Readers Podcast is one of Storied Charlotte’s treasures, but now I will also think of it as the inspiration for a very entertaining story.

Tags: mystery novel
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