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Signature: Contemporary Southern Writers (review)
- Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature
- Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association
- Volume 53, Number 1, 1999
- pp. 130-132
- Review
- Additional Information
day is more sophisticated — and therefore more helpful — than what poets knew and wrote then. Selinger is closest to poetry in his final chapter on James Merrill. His respect for and obvious love of Merrill's poetry allows him to read it more carefully as poetry. Selinger is at his most explicit here with his idea that American solitude and ideas of love are played out in American poetry, and carefully distinguishes between person and poem. He "addresses what human company, in apoem, looks like" (165) as opposed to pushing poems into being human company. If the author had been content to read the other poets with this in mind, he would have written a fascinating book on the limits ofAmerican love as engaged in its poetry. As it stands, the book does yet another disservice to poets who, like Emily Dickinson, deserve readings oftheir poetry, and not examinations oftheir sexuality , marriageability, or personal life. ?fc Signature: Contemporary Southern Writers. Videos on Barbara Kingsolver and George C. Wolfe. South Burlington, VT: The Annenberg/CPB Collection, 1997. Jeannette E. Riley Kent State University, Stark Ompus About two months ago, two videos came across my desk courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association editors. Sheepishly, I have to admit they were lost for a bit under large piles of paper that managed to obscure anything resembling entertainment and a chance to sit back and enjoy a respite from the daily routine (angst?) ofa new assistant professor. When I finally managed to rescue the videos, remember to bring them home, and slip them into my VCR, I found myselfwillingly and happily transported to the worlds ofArizona, NewYork City, and Kentucky through the eyes ofBarbara Kingsolver and George C. Wolfe thanks to the Signature Series' Contemporary Southern Writers produced by the Annenberg/CPB Projects company. The Annenberg/CPB Projects' mission statement asserts their position as the nation's leader in assisting colleges, universities, secondary schools, and community organizations with student learning through telecommunications. Created sixteen years ago, the Annenberg/CPB Projects offers a variety ofresources on areas ranging from economics to geography to history to literature to psychology, among others. The Signature Series is composed ofone-hour videos on writers, one each on BobbieAnn Mason, Ed McClanahan, Marsha Norman, George C. Wolfe, Lee Smith, and Barbara Kingsolver. These video portraits invite viewers to step into 130 # ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW H- SPRING 1999 Reviews the writer's life, to hear about the writer's influences, roots, successes, and ideas about the world in which he or she lives. Even better than a traditional interview, the videos offer the writers reading their work, responding to questions, visiting their hometowns and showingviewers around, as well as commentary from people who have worked with or know the writers personally. In many ways, the videos are more like a montage of the influences and ways ofthinking and knowing the world that drives these writers' talents. Furthermore, for students ofwriting everywhere , each video offers insights into the writer's writing processes and strategies — a sharing of personal experience that may spark a viewer's own creative writing powers. If the video programs on Kingsolver and Wolfe are any indication, the Signature people have created a valuable resource for teachers of literature. From the moment I heard Barbara Kingsolver's voice saying "What I want is so simple I almost can't say it — elementary kindness," as she read from one ofher works, I was captured. Mixing footage of Arizona, Kingsolver's chosen community, and Nicholas County, Kentucky, Kingsolver's childhood roots, along with commentary by a myriad of people, among them author Amy Tan, Virginia Kingsolver (her mother), Katherine Seagraves (Kingsolver's English teacher growing up), and Frances Goldin (her New York literary agent), the editors present a comprehensive discussion ofKingsolver's influences, experiences, political beliefs, and dreams for the future. Moreover, the video touches on Kingsolver's best-known fiction, The Bean Trees, AnimalDreams, Pigs in Heaven, and her non-fiction work, a surprising success in terms ofnumber ofbooks sold, High Tide in Tucson. As in all of her work, Kingsolver continually returns to talk ofcommunity, the haves vs. the have-nots, the need for activism on the...