Phillip Lopate - Montaigne's descendent

-
I had the pleasure of meeting Phillip Lopate recently, to interview him about the personal essay, a form he has made his own.

Here's what happened.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Month in the Country!

-
Image
"A MON TH!" This is the main reaction I received to the news that I was going away for a month to write a book (about motherhood, as it happens).  I couldn't work out whether it was men or women who were more likely to stare in incredulity. As if I was leaving my children on a frozen hillside, or having an affair with a well-known politician. Of course there were some people who got it (I think), who didn't react with a quickly-suppressed cough of scandal in their throats. These people said, “Go for it, just make it worthwhile, get that book written already! How brilliant that you've got a room of your own!” Of course it’s the doubtful  and silent  judgers I believe. Yes yes, it’s wrong to go, I should be safely at home, doing the washing, shopping for the endless routine of children’s teas, monitoring the activities, the homework, the notes home from school, the Forest Schools equipment, doing the Guides run, making inane conversation at drop off...
Read more

Great Expectations

-
A good friend of mine was having coffee round at my place this morning. She and I have often talked in the past about having children, whether or not to, and what it means not to have children. She described how a close friend with children said to her this summer, "I won't be able to see you 'til September". I was incredulous — until I thought about my own behaviour: I, too, duck into the trenches over the summer weeks, mainly because I don't have childcare, partly because everyone seems to go away, and sometimes we do too, and, with regard to single or childfree friends, I somewhere make the assumption that they won't want to see me with my pesky kids. But my friend today made it clear that it was she who felt excommunicated. "Why does she think I wouldn't want to see her children?" my friend said. I think that, after years of interrupted conversations, I know the answer: her friend wants to have a peaceful chat, and knows she won't g...
Read more

Character

-
Why Love Matters (Susan Gerhardt, Routledge, 2004) was first published when my daughter was about one year old. I heard about it, but could not bring myself to read it. It sounded like the kind of argument I was already struggling so hard with that it could only cause pain -- it sounded as though it would tell me that my place was in the home with my baby, and that only mothers could provide the kind of affection and attention that their babies need to thrive. When I finally sat down with it, because of the reading list set by a School of Life course on the family, I could not put it down. Yes, it does in large part advocate a social organization in which it is possible for caregivers to stay at home with their babies, solely focused on their needs, delights, demands and neuro-cognitive development. And that's fine, because it's pretty much the conclusion I came to during my own early-years development experience. Gerhardt would love to live in a society without conflict, ...
Read more