In the spirit of my new collection The Passion of Woo & Isolde (Rose Metal Press, 2017), I’m sharing material from my “Writing the Forbidden” class, of which I teach poetry, fiction, and mixed genre versions. The following “mini-syllabus” amounts to a list of some of my favorite “forbidden” books.
Writing the Forbidden
In this class you will work to produce a piece of forbidden writing. What’s forbidden to one writer may not be forbidden to another. Some feel forbidden to write about emotions (i.e. anger, happiness etc.) or circumstances (i.e. trauma, ecstasy, poverty, wealth, sexuality, aging, mental illness, family secrets etc.); some feel forbidden to write about people different than themselves; for others, certain forms are forbidden. Whatever your forbidden territory is, I encourage you to visit it with curiosity and attention. We will proceed as a group of risk-takers together, none of us traveling to precisely the same place, but all of us keeping one another company on the journey. I will emphasize intuitive methods and ask you to cleave to what makes your secret heart beat faster. Readings, prompts, and exercises will be provided. At the end of the course, you will receive a detailed, written response to your work. Everyone welcome.
Fiction
- Marguerite Duras – The Lover trans. by Barbara Bray (Flamingo, 1986)
- Janet Frame – “A Night at the Opera” (The New Yorker, June 2, 2008)
- Garth Greenwell – What Belongs to You (FSG, 2016)
- Jamaica Kincaid – Lucy (Plume, 1991)
- lê thi diem thúy The Gangster We Are All Looking For (Anchor Books, 2003)
- Yukio Mishima – The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea trans. by John Nathan (Knopf, 1965)
- Vladimir Nabokov – Lolita (Vintage International, 1989)
- V.S. Naipaul – A Bend in the River (Vintage Books, 1980)
- Marie NDiaye – Ladivine trans. by Jordan Stump (Knopf, 2016)
- Sigrid Nunez – A Feather on the Breath of God (Harper Collins, 1995)
- Mercè Rodoreda – The Selected Stories of Mercè Rodoreda trans. by Martha Tennent (Open Letter, 2011)
- Joy Williams – The Visiting Privilege: New & Collected Stories (Vintage Contemporaries, 2016)
Poetry
- Anna Ahkmatova – The Collected Poems of Anna Ahkmatova trans. by Judith Hemschemeyer (Zephyr Press, 1983)
- Ari Banias Anybody (W.W. Norton, 2016)
- Franny Choi – Floating, Brilliant, Gone (Bloody Write Publishing, 2014)
- lucille clifton – good woman: poems and a memoir (BOA Editions, 1987)
- Aracelis Girmay The Black Maria (BOA Editions, 2016)
- Sandra Lim The Wilderness (W.W. Norton, 2014)
- Audre Lorde – The Black Unicorn (W.W. Norton, 1978)
- Dunya Mikhail The War Works Hard trans. w/Elizabeth Winslow (Carcanet, 2006)
- Carl Phillips A Quiver of Arrows: Selected Poems 1986-2006 (FSG, 2007)
- Srikanth Reddy Facts for Visitors (University of California Press, 2004)
- Solmaz Sharif – Look (Graywolf 2016)
- Jane Wong – Overpour (Action Books, 2016)
Featured Image Credit: Amanda Tseng
