Making Love to the Minor Poets of Chicago: A Novel

Making Love to the Minor Poets of Chicago: A Novel

Language: English

Pages: 432

ISBN: 0312270739

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


The Yucca Mountain Project deep in the Nevada desert is the first planned long-term nuclear storage facility. The project is designed to contain nuclear waste for ten-thousand years, the amount of time it will take for the waste to no longer be radioactive. It is an ambitious project, especially in light of the fact that in this century alone we lacked the foresight to anticipate Y2K. Given this daunting responsibility, the project employs an artist, a botanist and an architect to contribute visual warnings to the site, in a manner decipherable to future generations.
Conrad imagines an influential poetry professor who insists that the project also include a poem, a great poem, an epic poem. It is this poem that brings us to the center of an extended circle of minor poets who are continually upstaging, back-stabbing and falling in and out of love with one another. Set against the vibrant backdrop of Chicago, this is a story of science and poetry, manipulation and intrigue, and the lengths to which people will go for their passions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

with Joanne, some type of rift in their working relationship on this whole nuclear waste issue.” Helen drained her Bloody Mary. “Exactly. Just what is Joanne’s interest in this whole thing? You must admit she doesn’t exactly seem to be the kind of woman who would jump on a bandwagon like this. Exactly what is her agenda?” “The same as yours.” “What?” “Money!” Alex sounded truly exasperated, but Helen wasn’t about to stop. She felt like she was on to something. “Surely the woman gets enough

loss, but instead you feel liberated, like your actions can be pure again, and if something else comes along, you won’t let it pass by. Or maybe you have to be the one to go out and find it. I’ve always prided myself as someone who doesn’t run away from things. Now I feel like someone has literally put a bomb under my chair to tell me to start running for a change. I guess I have you to thank.” Rose looked over at her. The city thinned out on the outskirts, and Joanne found the rhythm of the

remaining just long enough at each one to establish the right relationships with the right heads and upcoming heads of the appropriate departments. Not to mention that Vivian’s poetry was as unfashionable and impractical as dryclean-only wool in an era of polyester. The confessional and beat poets of the sixties had seized center stage, daring not only to publish in the respectable journals once reserved for the dry intellectual musings of Vivian and her like, but to actually sell books. The

years, Tom had followed the chain’s pillaging of small stores by opening its three-level stores right next to them, complete with wooden bookcases, Oriental rugs, comfortable couches, and an endless inventory of titles on nearly every subject, which were continually marked down in sales, something no small store could ever afford to compete with. On top of all this was a coffee bar, usually located on an upper floor overlooking the main floor. Book Inc. provided what was essentially a town square

everything. Who calls, who writes, budgets, official visits. I’ll tell you more specifically at some point what you should look out for once you get a feel for the whole department. For now, just absorb and tell me anything you find peculiar or out of the ordinary.” “Of course,” Peter rejoined. “Did you get a chance to read any of the poems I sent you last week?” Vivian tried to remember anything of them but couldn’t. “I’m afraid I haven’t been to my office for so long they must be on my desk

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