In the language of my grandmothers, Anishinaabemowin (the Ojibwe language), the town I was born in: Sheboygan, Wisconsin, means "to drum and to transmit." Various renderings and traditions surround this interpretation. This is the one I learned from tribal elder Saxon St Germain at Hayward, WI in the early 1990s. A similar interpretation is found … Continue reading De-Railed: Dead Woman Waking
Month: February 2023
Translating the Untranslatable: Elfriede Jelinek in Translation
(Hearty congratulations to translator Aaron Sayne, whose translation of Elfriede Jelinek's "Ahörnchen und Behörnchen" appears as "Chip 'n Dale" in the most recent edition of the University of Iowa's journal of literary translation, Exchanges. In his translator's note, Aaron mentions my Emory lecture on translating Jelinek and cites this blog as his reference, but since … Continue reading Translating the Untranslatable: Elfriede Jelinek in Translation
The N-Word Lover: A Domestic Terror Tale from the “Before Times”
This is a piece from the “Before Times.” The “Before Times”: That’s my term for the “good old days” when Dubya’s reign as worst US president in history seemed secure. When people were comparing him to Hitler. When others, myself included, were saying Bush was worse than Hitler. When Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney held the … Continue reading The N-Word Lover: A Domestic Terror Tale from the “Before Times”
This is for Kinda-Colored Girls who Have Committed Suicide ‘Cause the Wundabread was Never Enough.
About this Title My first attempt to write about my relationship with my birth mother came in 1993, about 6 months before she died. There is a version of it published on the DailyKos blog under that title (posted in the menu to this blog under the title "Motherhood is Overrated"). That story became the … Continue reading This is for Kinda-Colored Girls who Have Committed Suicide ‘Cause the Wundabread was Never Enough.
Uncomfortable Truths 