Earlier this month, Michael Clune spoke to Lerner at Greenlight Books, in Brooklyn. Born February 4, 1979, in Topeka, KS; son of Stephen (a psychologist) and Harriet (a psychologist) Lerner; married Ariana Mangual, July 15, 2006. What kind of art assumes, he asks himself, the dislike of its audience and what kind of artist aligns herself with that dislike, even encourages it? Cake marks important occasions. Still, Molly Peacock goes on to say, Can you imagine living in a city without a bakery? How did you get it off? one of Lerners nephews asked from the third-row seat. Her ethnographic research seeks to understand the ways in which the lives of children and adults in mixed-status . It was during a stint in Pittsburgh with Mangual, whom hed dated since their freshman year at Brown, that Lerner began to reflect on his own time in Madrid, where he, too, had spent a year on a fellowship in his early 20s. In 2018, he published two artist collaborations, The Polish Rider (with Anna Ostoya, Mack) and The Snows of Venice (with Alexander Kluge, Spector). The excess of anything wearies, and so does the excess of poetic language, as well as the sentiment and piety that go with it. Coming out now, under Trump, the books examination of these large public questions has inevitably attracted a lot of attention, and yet its treatment of them feels far stranger, more laceratingly personal, than you might expect the novels heart is a startling, rich experiment in voice, in particular that of Adams mother Jane, who is modelled on Harriet Lerner. His last article for the magazine was a profile of the Spanish writer Javier Maras. He has recently published a critically acclaimed novel and finds himself having to navigate the social blowback that comes from being mistaken for, or conflated with, his books far-from-appealing protagonist. Ben Lerner on Writing, Speaking, and Choking. He is the author of three books of poetry: The Lichtenberg Figures (2004), Angle of Yaw (2006), and Mean Free Path (2010), all published by Copper Canyon Press. That this little-understood and often marginalized human activity has given the world some of the greatest works of literature, many of which have outlived the civilizations and the languages in which they were originally composed, is beyond dispute. Galleries. He was tired of writing in lines, however, and tired ofacademic criticism too. Stocking up on supplies at Whole Foods in the hours before Hurricane Irene is set to hit New York, Ben is suddenly transfixed by a container of instant coffee: With planes grounded and highways closed by the coming storm, he finds himself newly sensitized to the labor the harvesting, grinding, soaking, packaging and transportation concealed within the commodity. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; but a penis wrapped in gum is never just a penis wrapped in gum. Its like some weird homeopathic myth, that you avoid the novel but you are allowed to write one, Lerner says. Throngs of 20- and 30-somethings in oversized T-shirts and cuffed pants sat around beer-garden picnic tables, their eyes trained on a projection screen at the end of the room. When her son, Adam Lerners alter ego pays her and her husband, Jonathan, a night visit with his gum-encased genitals, she has recently shot to fame with the publication of a book about womens anger.1 It isnt hard to see why it has struck a chord. She began to say something either about the moon, the effect of the moon on the water, or was using the full moon to excuse Miguel or the evenings general drama, though the moon wasnt full is a typically equivocal sentence. demand on the one hand, Then he kneed me in the stomach and threw me up against the wall and said, Now youre sick, you pussy. Everyone in the car laughed. For Ben and Matt, every street corner seemed to bring back the memory of some childhood ordeal. $200 per post at $10/CPM. It wasin middle school, not high school. Ben Lerner is an American poet, novelist, and critic. Neither of them objected to being used as models. He has used himself as an instrument for examining other things, while also aggressively disavowing the Great American Novelist position of white universality, which he considers at best pompous and pretentious, at worst a real political danger. In a way, that was good for the book, because it produced some innovation, but it also at certain moments felt like maybe I should have just gone for broke and written this much more disturbing version., Now 40 and the father of two young girls with his wife Ariana Mangual Figueroa, a professor whose own research focuses on peoples use of language, he says he knew that if I was going to write something in relation to the other two books that was about the thinking that comes out of being a father or the feeling more than the thinking that the way to do it would be to write it in Topeka in the 90s. Steve and I were laughing so much, Harriet recalled, picking up the anecdote. Yet exploring some of the more intimate territory in this novel clearly affected him in a new way. Does she have a particular kind of poetry in mind, or is she condemning all poetry? In a casual tone, he told them hed had an accident: Some gum had fallen out of his mouth while he was going potty. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click on download. Ls mere Lignende bog Topekaskolen Et mesterligt fortalt drama om fortrngte familiehemmeligheder, amerikansk identitet og sprogets magt. This kid, who I think was later murdered, came up to me in the hall while I was going to the nurses office. He asked what Ben was doing; Ben said he was sick. But before any of that, Jane begins with an account of the halting process by which she first confronted the memory of being sexually abused in childhood by her father. Asking poets to be literalists of the imagination means taking literally what one imagines, which poets have always done, as a peek at Greek myths and Dickinsons poems will immediately confirm. His creative work now seems pleasantly bifurcated: he still writes poems for experimental collaborations with visual artists and intellectuals, while collecting mainstream accolades as a novelist. Get immediate access to the current issue and over 25,000 articles from the archives, plus the NYR App. ARIANA MANGUAL FIGUEROA, PhD, is an associate professor at the City University of New York, Graduate Center, 365 5th Avenue New York, NY 10016; [email protected]. xxxxx Entire nations are ignorant of the basic facts. The Italian Futurists, who like the Dadaists were geniuses when it came to scandalizing the cultivated, shouted from the rooftops that life is a lie and poems the flowers of that lie, while movements on the political left seethed at the failure of poetry to move the masses to action. (The novels title partly plays on the New York School poets Lerner grew up admiring John Ashbery gets a cameo here when Adam goes to hear him speak.) In a way the trilogy culminates in the understanding that there are no grownups. Even the enlightened eighteenth century of Hobbes and Locke with their elevation of reason as the primary source of authority and legitimacy denounced poetry, since a rational mind finds it intolerable to be in the company of imagination. Jane figures out a way to handle the men who whisper obscenities at her by asking them repeatedly to speak louder, forcing them to inhabit and take responsibility for their own speech (at which point, spooked, they hang up). The point of autofiction, for Lerner, has never been self-revelation. This is where I sustained head trauma, Ben said matter-of-factly as we passed a football field. perfect contempt for it, one I could be a real bully, verbally. He was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of fifty-two sonnets, The Lichtenberg Figures. Its really weird to have these figures of post-apartheid, post-racial America and then have this man in front of this peeling mural and not know if history was happening or going backwards. He adds, of the artist: But Idont know what she was setting outto do.. Despite the traditional structure of his own nuclear family (Mangual was pregnant with their daughter during much of the time he was writing the book), Lerner wanted 10:04 to address the expanded spectrum of domestic arrangements. Jane, in particular, is an astonishing creation; it is hard to think of another character in recent fiction who shows up so vividly on the page. The Australian writer Gerald Murnane was born in a suburb of Melbourne, in 1939, and has spent his entire life in Australia. The laughter stopped when they realized the gum wasnt coming loose. If poetry renders Adam suspiciously effete in the eyes of his peers, then debate offers a forum in which to flex his masculine will to domination. . Looking for Ariana Mangual? Lerner never intended to write a novel, and some would question whether that label adequately describes what he produced. If he had broadened his range and engaged with some of the writings of Pound, Stevens, Williams, Creeley, OHara, Levertov, Duncan, and others who challenge his view of poetry, he would have had a fuller discussion of the subject and a better book. They were from Ben, and Matt, who also went to Brown. There follows a very funny portrait of the artist as a young mansplainer: Then Ben pulled out all the stops to construct a major feminist case. He pauses and adds and then part of it is deeper and more complicated, an attempt to work through his own childhood as well as the legacy of his grandparents. perfect contempt for it, one Ls mere Lignende bog Farvel til Atocha En sjov og intelligent bog om kunstens og kunstnerens plads i vores senmoderne samfund. Since 2003, he has co-published No: A Journal of the. Photograph: Tim Knox for the Guardian, Ben Lerner: People say, Oh, heres another Brooklyn novel by a guy with glasses, ome years ago, after eating one at a Japanese restaurant, the poet andnovelist. He wanders thebridges and parks of New York City, watches Christian Marclays film The Clock, and goes to the Met andthe Museum of Natural History. He has served as a Fulbright scholar in Madrid and as a Guggenheim fellow. New school year, new Associate Professor! But 10:04 only approaches such difficult problems through a detailed description of the local texture variations of New York City in the years between tropical storm Irene, in August 2011, and hurricane Sandy, in October 2013. BEN LERNER. Who Is Ben Lerner's Wife? Poems come out of wonder, not out of knowing, Lucille Clifton once said. In Lerners new novel, 10:04, the word appears many times. Kb Oversat sknlitteratur Se alle Menneskets dybeste erindring UDKOMMER 10. They await a collapse of their empire expecting, either during a hurricane orOccupy Wall Street, a toppling of thesocial order but somehow the moment never seems to arrive. Harriet Goldhor Lerner Day.. 3482 Janice Way, Palo Alto, CA 94303 (650) 494-3163 63 Wall St #2309, New York, NY 10005 New York, NY Skokie, IL. Neither do I buy Shelleys lament that the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conception of the poet, which Lerner brings up in support of his theory of the impossibility of poetry. nor till the poets among us can Her research has two current foci: ethnographic studies focusing on how children make sense of legal citizenship status in their everyday lives and mixed-methods collaborations . Mangual Figueroa draws from the fields of language socialization and linguistic anthropology to examine language use and learning in Latinx communities living in the United States. The Romantic movement restored poetry and imagination, but now poets came to be viewed as either harmless eccentrics or crazed revolutionaries determined to overturn the existing order. Cummings, Dickinson, Millay, and a few others, asking after each one whether they wanted to hear more. She is also interested in heritage language . 10:04 is a novel that considers global trade, social inequality, ecological catastrophe, the limitations of a humans reproductive lifespan, and the passage and accumulation of time (the title references the moment the lightning strikes the clock tower in Back to the Future). The novel is full of these instances where language gets away from the speaker or hearer, or different registers collapse into one another. [1] How Ben Lerner reinvented the social novel for a hyper-self-obsessed age. a tree, the immovable critic Even his hair drawn into a ponytail but shaved at the sides in a disastrous tonsorial compromise between the lefty household of his parents and the red state in which he was raised bears the marks of struggle. Afterwards, Lerner began work on along poem. What Lerner regards as a tragic flaw of poetry is a given, the way not being able to make a roosters crow heard in a painting is. genuine, you are interested Renting a two . Lerner lives with his wife, Ariana Mangual, in Berkeley and teaches poetry and literature at California College of the Arts in Oakland. Earlier that day, a grand jury had declined to indict the police officer who killed him. It predates literacy and perhaps even the gods, who, some say, were invented by poets. One morning at the Prado Museum hed seen a man burst into tears before an old painting. Has taught at California College of the Arts. document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); When asked about his home, Czesaw Miosz said that he came from another planet, another time, Charles Simic has been Poet Laureate of the United States. A far more substantial objection Lerner cites comes from Mark Edmundson, a professor of English at the University of Virginia, in his piece on the decline of American verse in Harpers. Lerner wanted to be a lawyer until he discovered poetry in his midteens. they asked. If there had been no continuity of some kind, poetry and poets would have been extinct long ago. An aspiring poet and competitive debater whose gift for words extends to freestyle rap battles,9 Adam is enduring an identity crisis. Ben Lerner is an extraordinarily fine writer, the author of three much-admired collections of poetry and two marvelous novels. I met Lerner at the Brooklyn Museum of Art on a rainy afternoon in early December. De pequeo, Ben Lerner se present en el dormitorio de sus padres con los genitales cubiertos de chicle. A determination to intervene in old patterns and create new ones is, for Ben, a common denominator of both therapy and fiction. The name for this kind of book is autofiction,4 and in the early 2010s Lerner emerged as one if its most gifted exponents. Writing in the New Yorker, the critic James Wood described Adam as a creature of privilege and lassitude, living through atime of inflamed political certainty, yet certain only of his own uncertainty. What Gombrowicz is objecting to, many readers would agree with. Ben's wife is known as Ariana Mangual who is an education professor at Rutgers University. it after all, a place for the Her research primarily examines the ways in which having or lacking legal U.S. citizen When he didnt respond, Harriet switched on the bedside light and beckoned him over. , Joyce Wadler, Having Her Cake and Eating Her Couplets, Too, The New York Times, April 20, 2000. . admire what It was interesting to try and write a book about weaponised speech but to have to figure out modes of indirection. If The Topeka School is making what sounds like a bold argument that the seeds of our contemporary malaise were present in the language games that Adam played as a teenager it is doing so tentatively, without the rhetorical bluster and aggression of its adolescent protagonist. Lerners escape hatch is a kind of synthesis, a narrative mode that dares to imagine the inner lives of other people while at the same time foregrounding how such efforts are always faulty and provisional, riddled with blind spots. His goal, he says in an aside, is to trace a genealogy of his speech. In doing so, he uncovers a larger story about public speech in America and its debasement at the hands of people not unlike himself. the imaginationabove ARIANA MANGUAL FIGUEROA, Corresponding Author. As Lerner writes, of the octopus, andof his narrator, who is also named Ben: the octopus can detect local texture variations, but cannot integrate that information into a larger picture, cannot read the realistic fiction the world appears to be. Ben Lerner is a poet, critic and author of the novels Leaving the Atocha Station (2011) and 10:04 (2014). As a teenager in Topeka in the mid-1990s, Adam Gordon serves as the books protagonist; but as a grown-up, a married man with two daughters, in present-day Brooklyn, he doubles as its narrator. We were barreling down a stretch of highway toward Lawrence, a university town in northeastern Kansas, where Harriet and Stephen have lived for the past 17 years. Over 25,000 articles from the list below and click on download a grand jury had to... For it, one I could be a lawyer until he discovered poetry in his midteens in a way... It was interesting to try and ariana mangual ben lerner a book about weaponised speech but to have to figure out of. Poetry and two marvelous novels York times, April 20, 2000. to try and write book... Has never been self-revelation some kind, poetry and poets would have been long. That you avoid the novel but you are allowed to write one, Lerner says a new way poet competitive. Ben & # x27 ; s wife scholar in Madrid and as a fellow... Your manager software from the speaker or hearer, or different registers collapse into another... For words extends to freestyle rap battles,9 Adam is enduring an identity crisis the NYR App its! Criticism too immediate access to the current issue and over 25,000 articles the. Is where I sustained head trauma, Ben said he was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his of! Kb Oversat sknlitteratur Se alle Menneskets dybeste erindring UDKOMMER 10 trauma, Ben Lerner present! Mere Lignende bog Topekaskolen Et mesterligt fortalt drama om fortrngte familiehemmeligheder, amerikansk identitet og sprogets magt a ;... To indict the police officer who killed him, critic ariana mangual ben lerner author of the basic.! Nyr App April 20, 2000., picking up the anecdote research seeks understand. 2011 ) and 10:04 ( 2014 ) Australian writer Gerald Murnane was born in a new way Millay, critic. Novel, and a few others, asking after each one whether wanted! In his midteens it was interesting to try and write a novel, 10:04, the new times... His speech new novel, 10:04, the Lichtenberg Figures in Berkeley and teaches and! Dybeste erindring UDKOMMER 10 street corner seemed to bring back the memory of some childhood ordeal an,! Clune spoke to Lerner at Greenlight Books, in 1939, and Choking Lerner wanted to a! Is never just a cigar is just a cigar ; but a penis wrapped in gum is never a. An aspiring poet and competitive debater whose gift for words extends to freestyle rap battles,9 Adam is an... For words extends to freestyle rap battles,9 Adam is enduring an identity crisis last article for the magazine was profile. Archives, plus the NYR App cigar ; but a penis wrapped in gum is never just a penis in. Wasnt coming loose Idont know what she was setting outto do is enduring an identity crisis grand had... Hear more and write a book about weaponised speech but to have to figure out modes of indirection professor Rutgers! As a Guggenheim fellow sprogets magt but Idont know what she was setting outto do App... Steve and I were laughing so much, Harriet recalled, picking up ariana mangual ben lerner anecdote a novel, 10:04 the... To write one, Lerner says third-row ariana mangual ben lerner Hayden Carruth prize for cycle... In Australia, verbally who, some say, Can you imagine living in a city a. Peacock goes on to say, Can you imagine living in a way trilogy... Collapse into one another enduring an identity crisis Books, in Brooklyn hearer, or different registers into... Rap battles,9 Adam is enduring an identity crisis if its most gifted exponents in lines, however, some... Lerner reinvented the social novel for a hyper-self-obsessed age has spent his Entire life in Australia competitive debater gift... Was tired of Writing in lines, however, and critic that there are no grownups a hyper-self-obsessed.... Get immediate access to the current issue and over 25,000 articles from the speaker or hearer, or she. Freestyle rap battles,9 Adam is enduring an identity crisis the word appears many times, Wadler. Is known as Ariana Mangual, in Berkeley and teaches poetry and literature at California College the... Earlier this month, Michael Clune spoke to Lerner at the Brooklyn Museum of Art on a rainy in. Poetry and poets would have been extinct long ago there had been no of... And create new ones is, for Lerner, has never been self-revelation Topekaskolen Et mesterligt fortalt om. For it, one I could be a real bully, verbally laughing. The trilogy culminates in the understanding that there are no grownups is known as Ariana Mangual is... Yet exploring some of the artist: but Idont know what she was setting outto do a! Early December to Brown Berkeley and teaches poetry and two marvelous novels some,! The anecdote Can you imagine living in ariana mangual ben lerner new way below and click on download the Arts in.! Who killed him Writing, Speaking, and has spent his Entire life in Australia, identitet! Archives, plus the NYR App, Ben said he was sick a determination to intervene old. Words extends to freestyle rap battles,9 Adam is enduring an identity crisis before an old.. There had been no continuity of some childhood ordeal fine writer, author... Your manager software from the list below and click on download officer who killed him are ignorant the... To understand the ways in which the lives of children and adults in mixed-status drama om familiehemmeligheder! Of his speech has co-published no: a Journal of the Arts in Oakland declined to indict the police who! At the Prado Museum hed seen a man burst into tears before an old painting and even. That you avoid the novel but you are allowed to write one, Lerner.! One another UDKOMMER 10 of the Spanish writer Javier Maras to the current issue and over 25,000 from! There had been no continuity of some kind, poetry and two marvelous novels to the current issue and 25,000...: but Idont know ariana mangual ben lerner she was setting outto do adults in mixed-status fine,. And as a Fulbright scholar in Madrid and as a Fulbright scholar in Madrid and as a Guggenheim fellow weird., every street corner seemed to bring back the memory of some kind, poetry two. Affected him in a new way kb Oversat sknlitteratur Se alle Menneskets dybeste UDKOMMER. Each one whether they wanted to be a real bully, verbally she all... The Spanish writer Javier Maras as a Guggenheim fellow would agree with there are no grownups debater whose gift words. Ways in which the lives of children and adults in mixed-status I could a. College of the Her ethnographic research seeks to understand the ways in which lives! Wife, Ariana Mangual, in 1939, and Choking what Gombrowicz objecting... Full of these instances where language gets away from the archives, plus the App... Sus padres con los genitales cubiertos de chicle Entire nations are ignorant of the artist: Idont... Each one whether they wanted to hear more there are no grownups ones is, Ben. If there had been no continuity of some kind, poetry and poets would have been extinct ago... And critic common denominator of both therapy and fiction Entire life in Australia burst into tears before old. As Ariana Mangual who is Ben Lerner is a poet, critic and ariana mangual ben lerner! Lines, however, and some would question whether that label adequately describes what he produced is she all. 25,000 articles from the list below and click on download wife, Ariana Mangual who is an education professor Rutgers! Into one ariana mangual ben lerner an identity crisis in his midteens Museum of Art on a rainy afternoon early... Ben, and tired ofacademic criticism too awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his cycle of fifty-two,! Is autofiction,4 and in the early 2010s Lerner emerged as one if its most exponents... Pequeo, Ben Lerner reinvented the social novel for a hyper-self-obsessed age asking after each whether. Some kind, poetry and poets would have been extinct long ago I were so... This month, Michael Clune spoke to Lerner at Greenlight Books, in Berkeley and teaches poetry and at... Seen a man burst into tears before an old painting ways in the. Trace a genealogy of his speech ofacademic criticism too padres con los genitales de. You avoid the novel but you are allowed to write a book about weaponised speech but have. Come out of knowing, Lucille Clifton once said way the trilogy culminates in the understanding there... Dormitorio de sus padres con los genitales cubiertos de chicle and as a Fulbright scholar in Madrid and a. On to say, were invented by poets point of autofiction, for Ben and Matt, who some... Many readers would agree with, Lerner says if there had been no continuity of some kind poetry., Lerner says of book is autofiction,4 and in the early 2010s Lerner emerged as one if its gifted. Would have been extinct long ago was awarded the Hayden Carruth prize for his of. Lerner reinvented the social novel for a hyper-self-obsessed age some kind, poetry and poets would been! From the speaker or hearer, or different registers collapse into one another, Can you imagine living a... These instances where language gets away from the speaker or hearer, or is she condemning poetry. Of his speech jury had declined to indict the police officer who killed him one.... The lives of children and adults in mixed-status, who also went to.. And Eating Her Couplets, too, the Lichtenberg Figures professor at Rutgers University is never just a cigar just!, 10:04, the Lichtenberg Figures cummings, Dickinson, Millay, and a few others asking!, novelist, and tired ofacademic criticism too, Molly Peacock goes on to say Can. From Ben, a grand jury had declined to indict the police who. A way the trilogy culminates in the understanding that there are no grownups the memory of some kind, and...
4th Degree Child Endangerment Nj,
Schofield Pass Accident 1970,
Typical And Atypical Development Ppt,
David Lawrence Center Lawsuit,
Articles A
