![]() And if they don’t have this, it doesn’t matter what the genre is, you’re going to come up with very ordinary stuff. Which is to say, you get a good writer, or a writer who’s interested in dealing with marginal peoples and marginal situations working in whatever genre that he chooses, be it poetry, drama, science fiction, comic books - it doesn’t really matter - if they are decent workers, and they also are committed, and they have a vision that they want to put forward, then you will get good art about these things. He says there are no significant art forms, there’s only art, and precious little of that. But they are not significant because they exist. As Raymond Chandler says in one of his most popular essays in “The Simple Art of Murder,” at the beginning of his collection of the same name, “there are no vital art forms.” That is to say, there are no significant genres. ![]() “You know, you’re Black and you’re gay, do you think that working in a marginal genre makes it easier to write about those people?” To which the answer is, absolutely not. ĭelany: - is “Do you feel that as a person who works in a marginal genre, and who is a marginal person, because you’re Black” -īernstein: The reason I didn’t ask that question is that that’s news to me. Probably one of the questions I’m asked most frequently about genres, and I’m glad to say that you did not ask the most frequently asked question, you get points for that, Charles -īernstein: Oh. But what is your commitment to the specific genres? Both the differences and the possibilities of each and the relationship of the ensemble in what you’re written?ĭelany: Well one thing I’ve thought about genres for a long time is that we probably put too much faith in their ability to solve various problems for us. ![]() In The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, of course, you talk in the most illuminating way about understanding science fiction, or speculative fiction, as a genre that circulates in a way that I found comparable to the way I think poetry circulates. It’s one of the most basic questions but you work, probably, in more different genres than any writer I can think about and have a deep commitment to their specificity. Chip, welcome to Close Listening.īernstein: As poets we’re celebrating you here today and as was just mentioned in the toasts, you don’t write poetry - but I wonder if you could talk about the relation of genre to your work. He has been teaching at Temple University’s creative writing program since 2001, coming to Temple after a short stint in the Buffalo Poetics program. Delany is a towering figure in contemporary science fiction, fantasy, fiction, memoir, social commentary, and literary theory and criticism. And as such is being taped before, what has every appearance of being, a live audience … though, I’m not one-hundred percent sure. Delany” to honor Delany’s contribution to Temple-Penn Poetics. Today’s show comes to you live from theKelly Writers House of the University of Pennsylvania as part of “The Motion of Light: A Tribute to Samuel R. Julia BlochĬharles Bernstein: Welcome to Close Listening’s Clocktower Radio’s program of readings and conversations with writers presented in collaboration with PennSound. The conversation was transcribed by Tracie Morris. Delany,” a program hosted at the Kelly Writers House in April 2014. Editorial note: The following has been adapted from a Close Listening conversation recorded as part of “The Motion of Light: A Tribute to Samuel R.
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