Comments on: poetry book club: nick flynn’s poetry and memoir

By: sam

sam — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:24:04 +0000

nick flynn is so effing sexy i almost cant take it. and the way his poetry speaks so beautifully about such things is incredible.

By: memoirs and poets « maría cristina poesía

memoirs and poets « maría cristina poesía — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:31:29 +0000

[...] reading Jessica Fox-Wilson’s review of Nick Flynn’s memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City , I went straight to the [...]

By: A~Lotus

A~Lotus — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:48:06 +0000

I don’t think I’ve ever read memoirs, though excepts of them. I certainly find this interesting to think about. In many ways, a poet’s work parallels with the poet’s autobiography/memoir, so it’s not surprising that they can tell the same story but in different ways. What’s interesting about memoirs is that you get the detailed version of whatever story it may be, and you find how it happens to be what it is in a poem.

But anyway, I may have to take up on reading one one of these days. I’ve also read a couple of Flynn’s work and enjoyed his writing style and the way he captures youth. “Cartoon Physics, Part 1″ is one of my favorite poems, and I was happy it’s there in that link in your entry!

By: Catherine

Catherine — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 21:17:44 +0000

I hadn’t heard of Nick Flynn before this - I’m not sure if his poetry is available here (other than on amazon, which I don’t have funds for at the moment).
However, I have been reading Natalie Goldberg’s “Old Friend from Far Away” which is supposedly about writing memoir, and felt it would be just as useful for gathering subject matter for poems. So yes, I do think memoir and poetry are very close. Poetry is either memoir of one’s actual life, or one’s imagined life, with considerations of musicality of the language thrown in.

By: Linda Jacobs

Linda Jacobs — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 13:41:40 +0000

Thanks for this well-written review, Jessica! Now, I’ve got to check him out!Wish it could be in person, though, after reading Dana’s message!

By: Dana

Dana — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:32:04 +0000

OMG, Nick Flynn is so hot. I was at a week-long workshop where he was teaching, and I was able to talk to him directly, which was a dangerous thing, given how magnetic he is and his watery blue eyes and all that.

AND! I talked him into giving me a copy of one of his unpublished poems. Sweet!

Oh, and at the conference he said he wrote the memoir because people kept thinking the poems in Some Ether weren’t real and weren’t based on his life. So he decided the memoir was a better place to share those stories.

At least, I think that’s what he said. He is so hot it’s hard to listen to him. For serious.