skip carouselgeraldine higgins（左）在第三天带领natasha trethewey和fintan otoole进行了一次创造性的对话，说明对话本身就是一种创造性的努力。 杰拉尔丁·希金斯（geraldine higgins）是赫尔曼讲座的教员顾问，也是施瓦茨中心展览的策展人，展览将持续到4月14日。 朗·舒查德指导了从1988年创立时希默斯·海尼演讲到2008年恩伯托生态公司访问的ellmannn讲座。 在接下来的三天里，塔莎·特雷西和芬坦·奥图尔探讨了“写作生活”的双重含义，这是今年ellmann现代文学讲座的主题，不知何故，这让观众看起来很容易着迷。 除了在《追悼会：女儿的回忆录》和《我们不了解自己：现代爱尔兰的个人史》中书写自己的生活外，他们还体现了“写作生活”，他们的职业生涯都在研究艺术与生活以及个人历史与国家历史之间的关系。 这标志着gregory l总统的第一次机会。 芬维斯欢迎这部备受尊敬的电视剧来到埃默里。 “ellmann的讲座将艺术、文学和文学领域的领军人物带到了我们的校园，以反思、启发和分享富有远见的见解。 芬维斯说：“多年来，埃默里社区见证了巨人和天才登上舞台。”。 用卡拉·弗里曼的话说，“这些讲座提供了比最好的文学节更丰富的体验。 一种深刻的知识和艺术动力正在形成，我们的社区在思想上走到了一起。 当她在第三天介绍创意对话时，她指出：“大学校园和世界上的分歧可能会让人们退出公众参与。 这些讲座提醒我们写作的力量能够传递和连接我们。 除了庆祝伟大的作家和诗人，埃尔曼的讲座还建立了深厚的合作和真诚的友谊，这些友谊远远超过了这几天。 “自由人，好人c。 白人女性、性别和性研究教授，福克斯人文调查中心主任，该系列的新机构之家。 杰拉尔丁·希金斯（geraldine higgins）是该系列讲座和前两次ellmann讲座的教员主任，他在第一天下午指出：“我们最后一次ellmann演讲发生在2019年b。 分。 新冠肺炎之前。 她承认，在这段时间里，学校迎来了三个新的学生班和一些新的领导。 “在与carlafreeman和系列创始人荣休教授ronschuchard讨论这些讲座对埃默里大学人文学科的重要性时，我们知道我们想为它的重新推出做一些非常特别的事情，”同时也是埃默里大学爱尔兰研究项目负责人、英语副教授的希金斯说。 希金斯说：“我们认识到2023年是诺贝尔奖获得者海默斯·海尼逝世10周年，他是理查德·埃尔曼亲自挑选的第一位讲师，我们想邀请两位与海尼有私人关系的杰出演讲者。”。 随之而来的是72小时的文学狂欢。 普利策诗歌奖获得者、前埃默里大学教员娜塔莎·特雷西发表了演讲《存在的房子：我为什么写作》。 “第一天：娜塔莎·特蕾西可以肯定的是，特蕾西的返校节更加甜蜜，因为她收到了查尔斯·霍华德·坎德尔英语与创意写作教授兼埃默里创意写作项目主任杰里乔·布朗的深情介绍。 目前担任西北大学英语系教授的trethewey是robert w。 伍德拉夫英语和创意写作教授，并在2015年之前指导埃默里的创意写作项目。 trethewey和brown在2007年凭借《本土卫士》获得普利策诗歌奖，在2020年凭借《传统》获得布朗诗歌奖，但他们作为朋友和前同事的关系更加紧密。 布朗称特雷西为“地球上最伟大的作家之一”，并断言她“运用了一种微妙的凶猛来治疗历史健忘症”，让“她的角色和她自己的历史像历史一样复杂”。 当她开始《存在之家：我为什么写作》时，trethewey承认她的讲座“很容易被理解为对heaney的‘写作之地’（第一次ellmann讲座的标题）的重复。 这是关于我与地方的关系，我的本土地理和历史。 在她祖母位于密西西比州格尔夫波特的猎枪屋中，在杰斐逊街（纪念美国第三任总统）和49号高速公路（蓝调音乐家的有力象征）的十字路口，特雷西产生了形成性的影响。 “1966年，在邦联纪念日100周年之际，她自己的出生标志着密西西比州的一个暴力十字路口，”这是一个法律正在改变的关键时刻，但白人至上主义和黑人压迫的标志性象征，即邦联旗帜，仍将被用来发出一个强有力的信息：‘知道你的位置，’”trethewey说。 她父母的异族婚姻在她出生地和其他20个州都是非法的，“从法律的角度来看，我是非法的。 特雷西断言：“我的第一个伤口是密西西比造成的。”。 她回忆起与父亲的长时间散步，父亲会背诵诗歌和故事，其中大部分都描绘了英雄的某种旅程。 她的母亲在吉姆·克劳种族隔离时期长大，给她上了一堂截然不同的课。 作为抵抗力量，特雷西的母亲每次经过邦联旗帜时都会唱“共和国的战歌”。 trethewey说：“我母亲向我展示了如何表达，如何使用公认的形式来挑战我们本土地理的主流文化叙事，并通过想象一个正义可能存在的现实来超越它。”。 作为一个好奇的孩子，特雷西很早就习惯了语言，她充分利用了祖母家的图书馆——里面收藏了20卷世界图书百科全书。 trethewey说：“这套是在我出生的那一年买的，是为了纪念，标志着我走向知识之旅的开始。”。 在九岁的时候，特雷西决心阅读尽可能多的百科全书条目，相信她可以因此变得“世俗”。 遇到“人类种族”这个条目让她感到震惊，它的等级列表从白人排在最前面，而黑人排在最下面开始。 “在此之前，我一直相信书籍的神圣性。 她指出：“这本世界书教给我的只是让我走上作家之路的众多教训之一。”。 trethewey越来越依赖写作来创造秩序和维护自己的代理权。 在她的母亲被第二任丈夫谋杀后，特雷西回忆道：“几年后，我才绝对需要阐明这种创伤的深度，以及它在我的心理中与白人至上主义遗产的联系……这会让我回到诗歌中。”。 …在写作的过程中，我发现她可以复活一刻。 fintanotoole是《爱尔兰时报》的专栏作家，正在为seamusheaney撰写传记。 他的演讲是关于“归功奇迹：经验、想象和传记作家的困境”。 第二天：芬坦·奥图尔在奥图尔上台之前，杰拉尔丁·希金斯将他描述为“过去35年来爱尔兰最敏锐、最机智、最有洞察力的观察者”。 作为《爱尔兰时报》的长期专栏作家和《纽约书评》的顾问编辑，奥图尔正在为西默斯·海尼撰写官方传记。 奥的回忆录《我们不了解自己：1958年以来的爱尔兰个人史》被爱尔兰图书奖评为2021年度图书，并被《纽约时报》评为2022年十大最佳图书之一。 爱尔兰驻亚特兰大总领事caoimhe níchonchúir在介绍奥图尔时指出，“在爱尔兰，奥图尔是最稀有的野兽，是一位公共知识分子，以他的名字而闻名，就像在‘你今天读过《金融时报》吗？’或‘《金融报》现在在谈什么？’’”通过他在《爱尔兰时报》上的专栏，《金融时报。 他通过培养公民的信仰，即他们的声音和选票是重要的，帮助民主蓬勃发展。 这是一项重要的工作，”níchonchúir补充道。 在《赞美奇迹：经验、想象和传记作者的困境》一书中，奥探索了无数条最能唤起希默斯·海尼生命的道路。 他指出，选择合适的是“传记作家的两难选择”。 他以哈姆雷特的劝告开场：“你会玩弄我的；你似乎知道我的脚步；你会挖出我神秘的心；你会从我的最低音到我的指南针的最高点发出声音。”。 正如奥所观察到的，“任何艺术家最重要的是炼金术，它将日常生活的铅转化为纯粹意象的黄金。 “与生俱来的危险，”他说，“是传记作者可以成为一种反向炼金师，把金子变成铅。”。 像许多爱尔兰作家一样，海尼不仅试图在艺术上呈现奥所说的他自己经历的“意外”，而且还试图评论一个处于动荡中的国家的“意外事件”。 奥把注意力集中在1972年，这是麻烦最严重的一年——北爱尔兰的一段冲突时期，从20世纪60年代末一直持续到1998年的耶稣受难日协议。 “那时候在贝尔法斯特发生的意外，可不是什么愉快的意外。 这是好运气还是坏运气，在炸弹爆炸或子弹反弹的那一刻，总是在错误的时间出现在正确或错误的地方。 奥图尔说：“在真实历史的那个时刻，‘意外’不是一个容易接受的想法。”。 “heaney试图找到一个能与炸弹的回响相抗衡的声音。 “为了做到这一点，作为个人和艺术策略，他亲自搬迁了自己和家人。 奥表示：“为了更清楚地感受到这种力量，heaney正在远离麻烦的直接表现。”。 奥之前曾为剧作家萧伯纳写过一本传记，书名为《萧伯纳的评判》。 他找到了heaney的长期出版商faber和heaney家族，希望他们能承担这个项目。 双方都欢迎他。 费伯的诗歌编辑马修·霍利斯指出：“海默斯·希尼是我们诗歌家族的首领。 ……因此，我们很高兴芬坦·奥图尔同意为这位最受珍视的作家画像。 芬坦本人是一位原则性、卓越性的作家，也是一位不屈不挠的研究者。 “在撰写传记的同时，奥图尔在访问埃默里期间花时间查阅了埃默里图书馆2003年获得的seamus heaney论文。 奥图尔说：“对于那些欣赏艺术、生活和它们的交集的人来说，这里发生了很多具有世界重要性的事情。”。 他的目标甚至比恰当地庆祝海尼的一生和艺术遗产还要大。 奥图尔说：“传记不只是告诉我们非凡的人生，它还告诉我们生命本身的非凡本质。 在介绍这场创意对话时，福克斯中心主任卡拉·弗里曼（carlafreeman。 第三天：创造力对话是埃默里大学一个广受欢迎的传统，也是今年埃尔曼讲座的新内容，是创造力对话。 正如弗里曼所定义的那样，“对话本身就是一种创造性的过程，没有剧本，即兴的，潜在的更具情感色彩，朝着意想不到的方向前进，进入意想不到的领域。 主持人希金斯问特雷西和奥，他们是如何决定回忆录的标题的。 trethewey称赞了她在emory的前同事lynna williams，她于2017年去世。 “林娜向我展示了，无论从字面上还是形象上，‘纪念运动’这个标题都引起了共鸣。 我母亲在追悼会上遇难。 此外，作为一名作家，记忆和纪念的欲望也是驱使我前进的动力。”trethewey指出。 奥笑着承认，他的主要头衔“太晦涩了，在爱尔兰以外的地方无法理解”。 奥图尔说，在爱尔兰说“我们不了解自己”，是在为“这个国家更好的命运而欢欣鼓舞，它从早期被视为贫穷和落后的国家崛起”。 更重要的是副标题：现代爱尔兰的个人历史。 他说：“这就是作者所展示的，一个人的生活是如何反映的，是如何被塑造的，因此可能是进入更大历史的途径。”。 “seamusheaney：再听一遍”是广受好评的爱尔兰国家图书馆展览的巡回版。 在下午的谈话中，处理个人和国家的创伤占据了主导地位。 奥观察到，尽管海尼的生活基本上是幸福的，但他意识到语言在爱尔兰持续冲突中的利害关系。 “糟糕的政治是使用陈词滥调、口号和非人性化的语言，这种语言是死的，但也可能是谋杀。 希尼问自己，作为一名诗人，我能做什么好事，他找到的一个答案是保持语言的灵活性和开放性，能够做政客们做不到的事情。 “需要有一种新教统一派可以用一种方式阅读的语言，而天主教民族主义者可以用稍微不同的方式阅读，并感觉自己没有被击败。 那是诗。 这样一来，语言就不是边缘的，仅仅是娱乐或晦涩的；这其实很重要，”奥图尔继续说道。 trethewey描述了她在被谋杀后到达母亲的公寓，并被一个新闻小组录像。 当晚晚些时候，她观看了录像，得出结论：“进入公寓的人和出来的人不一样。 “她反对那些认为她的生活被创伤所定义的人。 特雷西引用13世纪诗人鲁米的话说：“伤口是光线进入你的地方。”他说：“我想起我的出生证明，上面写着，‘母亲：有色人种，父亲：加拿大人。 已经开始说些什么而不说别的了。 对我来说，它一直是关于控制叙事。 关于双重性的两位作家特蕾西和奥都承认回忆录的核心是双重性。 在《追悼会》中的某一点上，特雷西切换到了第二人称的视角。 本章的第一句话是，“即使你不想，你也要记住。 在这一刻，它达到了高潮，特雷西说：“你知道，你知道。 看看你。 即使是现在，你也认为你可以和以前的那个女孩保持距离。 用第二人称写，就好像你不是发生这些事情的人一样。 “在写回忆录时，”奥图尔评论道，“你们必然是两个人，需要回到过去的自己。”特雷斯威补充道，双重性也是黑人公民所经历的一种情况。 英语字母表的第5个字母。 英语字母表的第2个字母。 杜波依斯和女性一样观察到，“直到我们能够颠覆男性的凝视，”她说。 每一位讲师都对记忆力的不可靠性有话要说。 在《追悼会》中，特蕾西使用了法庭文件、警方报告和尸检，将文件证据与自己的回忆融合在一起。 然而，她承认，即使在那些“官方”文件中也存在矛盾。 奥把他所谓的“职业怀疑论”带到了传记中。 他指出，“当作家们写自己的时候，他们是在根据自己的神话创造艺术。 trethewey插话道：“我父亲过去常说，‘塔莎记得一切，不管它是否发生过。 ’”奥图尔正在进行的项目是heaney传记；trethewey正在为“追悼会”制作一个有限的视频系列，并写下她的父亲eric tretheway的故事。eric trethwey是一位诗人兼教师，于2014年去世。 两位作家都朗诵诗歌来结束创造性的对话，奥图尔朗诵了希尼的《在阁楼上》。 在《纪念碑：诗歌新选》一书中，trethewey读到了《善后的当务之急》，结尾是这样几句话：你从首尔的一位韩国诗人那里学到了：人们不会把母亲的尸体埋在地里，而是埋在胸口，或者像你一样把她的尸体背在背上。 4月14日：埃默里大学将举办备受赞誉的爱尔兰国家图书馆巡回展，由杰拉尔丁·希金斯策划的“seamus heaney：再听一遍”。 地点：施瓦茨表演艺术中心，查韦斯画廊时间：周一至周五，上午9点。 男性。 -6便士。 男性。 以及在公共活动期间。
skip carouselgeraldine higgins (l) led natasha trethewey and fintan o’toole in a creativity conversation on the third day, illustrating that conversation is its own creative endeavor. geraldine higgins is the faculty adviser for the ellmann lectures and curator for the exhibition at the schwartz center through april 14, “seamus heaney: listen now again.”ron schuchard directed the ellmannn lectures from their founding in 1988, when seamus heaney lectured, to the 2008 visit of umberto eco.previousnextnatasha trethewey and fintan o’toole somehow made it look easy enrapturing audiences over three days as they explored the double meaning of “writing lives,” the theme of this year’s ellmann lectures in modern literature.in addition to writing their own lives trethewey in “memorial drive: a daughter’s memoir” and o’toole in “we don’t know ourselves: a personal history of modern ireland” they also embody “the writing life,” with careers spent investigating the relationship between art and life as well as between personal and national history. this marked the first opportunity for president gregory l. fenves to welcome the esteemed series to emory.“the ellmann lectures have brought leading minds in arts, literature and letters to our campus to reflect, inspire and share visionary insights. the emory community has watched giants and geniuses take to the stage over the years,” fenves said.in the words of carla freeman, “the lectures offer an even richer experience than the best literary festival. a deep intellectual and artistic momentum builds, and our community comes together over ideas.”as she introduced the creativity conversation on the third day, she noted: “the divisions on college campuses and in the world can make people retreat from public engagement. these lectures remind us of writing’s power to transport and connect us. in addition to celebrating great writers and poets, the ellmann lectures forge deep collaborations and genuine friendships that go far beyond these few days.” freeman, the goodrich c. white professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies, directs the fox center for humanistic inquiry, the series’ new institutional home.geraldine higgins, the series’ faculty director for this and the previous two ellmann lectures, got a laugh from the audience on the first afternoon by noting: “our last ellmann lectures took place in 2019 b.c. before covid.” in that time, she acknowledged, the university has welcomed three new classes of students as well as a number of new leaders.“in conversations with carla freeman and the series founder, professor emeritus ron schuchard, about the importance of these lectures to the humanities at emory, we knew that we wanted to do something very special for its relaunch,” said higgins, who is also associate professor of english and directs emory’s irish studies program.“recognizing that 2023 marked the 10th anniversary of the death of nobel laureate seamus heaney, handpicked by richard ellmann to be the first lecturer, we wanted to invite two extraordinary speakers with a personal connection to heaney,” higgins said.and, with that, 72 hours of literary bravura followed.natasha trethewey, winner of the pulitzer prize in poetry and former emory faculty member, gave the talk “the house of being: why i write.”day 1: natasha tretheweyit’s a safe bet that trethewey’s emory homecoming was sweeter still for the affectionate introduction she received from jericho brown, charles howard candler professor of english and creative writing and director of emory’s creative writing program.trethewey, currently serving as board of trustees professor of english at northwestern university, was robert w. woodruff professor of english and creative writing and directed emory’s creative writing program until 2015.trethewey and brown occupy the rarefied category of “pulitzer prize winner in poetry” trethewey in 2007 for “native guard” and brown in 2020 for “the tradition” but they are bound even more tightly as friends and former colleagues. pronouncing trethewey “one of the planet’s greatest writers,” brown asserted that she “manages the kind of subtle ferocity that works to remedy the disease of historical amnesia,” allowing “her characters and her own history to be as complex as history really is.” as she began “the house of being: why i write,” which will be released as a book on april 9, trethewey acknowledged that her lecture “might easily be understood as a riff on heaney’s ‘the place of writing’ [the title of the first ellmann lecture]. it is about my relationship to place, my native geography and its history.”formative influencesraised in her grandmother’s shotgun house in gulfport, mississippi, at the crossroads of jefferson street, honoring the nation’s third president, and highway 49, a potent symbol for blues musicians, trethewey reflected on how “the folkways and idioms of the african american vernacular tradition met the received knowledge of enlightenment thinking and colonial culture, the language of jefferson.”her own birth, on the 100th anniversary of confederate memorial day in 1966, marked a violent crossroads in mississippi, “a critical moment in which the laws were changing yet the iconic symbol of white supremacy and black oppression, the confederate flag, would still be enlisted to send an emphatic message: ‘know your place,’” said trethewey.her parents’ interracial marriage was illegal in the place of her birth and 20 other states, “rendering me illegitimate in the eyes of the law. mississippi inflicted my first wound,” trethewey asserted. she recalled long walks with her father where he would recite poetry and stories, most of them illustrating some form of the hero’s journey. her mother imparted a much different lesson, having grown up during jim crow segregation. as resistance, trethewey’s mother would sing “the battle hymn of the republic” each time they passed the confederate flag. “my mother was showing me how to signify, how to use received forms to challenge the dominant cultural narrative of our native geography and to transcend it by imagining a reality in which justice was possible,” trethewey said. a curious child who was attuned to language early, trethewey made ample use of the library in her grandmother’s house a collection that contained the 20 volumes of the world book encyclopedia. “bought the year i was born, the set was meant to be commemorative, marking the beginning of my journey toward knowledge,” trethewey said.at the age of nine, trethewey was determined to read as many encyclopedia entries as possible, believing she could thereby become “worldly.” encountering the entry “the races of man” shook her, with its hierarchical list beginning with the white race at the top while black people were at the bottom.“before that, i had believed in the sanctity of books. what the world book taught me was only one of many lessons that set me on a path to becoming a writer,” she noted. trethewey increasingly relied on writing to create order and to preserve her own agency.after her mother was murdered by her second husband, trethewey recalled: “it would be several years before the absolute need to articulate the depths of that trauma and the way it connected in my psyche to the legacy of white supremacy … would lead me back to poetry. … in the act of writing, i found that she could be resurrected for a moment.”fintan o’toole is a columnist for the irish times and at work on a biography of seamus heaney. his talk was on “crediting marvels: experience, imagination and the biographer’s dilemma.”day 2: fintan o’toole before o’toole took the stage, geraldine higgins described him as “the most incisive, witty and insightful observer of ireland for the past 35 years.” a longtime columnist with the irish times and advising editor of the new york review of books, o’toole is working on the official biography of seamus heaney. o’toole’s memoir, “we don’t know ourselves: a personal history of ireland since 1958,” was named 2021 book of the year by the irish book awards and one of the 10 best books of 2022 by the new york times.in introducing o’toole, caoimhe ní chonchúir, consul general of ireland in atlanta, observed that “in ireland, o’toole is that rarest of beasts, a public intellectual, known by his first name, as in ‘did you read fintan today?’ or ‘what is fintan on about now?’“through his column in the irish times, fintan has shaped our national conversation for decades, holding successive governments to account with rigorous impartiality. he has helped democracy to flourish by nourishing citizens’ faith that their voice and their vote counts. that is consequential work,” ní chonchúir added.honoring the mysteryin “crediting marvels: experience, imagination and the biographer’s dilemma,” o’toole explored the myriad paths to best summoning the life of seamus heaney. choosing the right one is, he noted, “the biographer’s dilemma.”he opened with hamlet’s remonstrance to guildenstern: “you would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass.”as o’toole observed, “the most important thing about any artist is the alchemical acts that transmute the lead of everyday existence into the gold of pure imagery.” the innate danger, he said, “is that the biographer can become a kind of reverse alchemist, turning gold back into lead.”like many irish writers, heaney sought not just to render in art what o’toole refers to as the “accidents” of his own experience but to comment as well on the “accidents” of a nation in turmoil. o’toole zeroed in on 1972, the worst year of the troubles a period of conflict in northern ireland that lasted from the late 1960s through the good friday agreement in 1998.“the accidental, in belfast in those days, was not sweet happenstance. it was the good or bad luck of being in the right or wrong place at the always wrong time the moment when the bomb went off or the bullet ricocheted. ‘accident,’ in that moment of real history, was not an easy idea to embrace,” said o’toole. “heaney was trying to find a voice that would compete with the reverberations of the bombs.”to do so, he physically relocated himself and his family as a personal and artistic strategy. “heaney was moving away from the immediate manifestations of the troubles in order to sense that force more clearly,” according to o’toole. o’toole has prior experience wrestling with the life of a great artist, having written a biography of playwright george bernard shaw titled “judging shaw.” he approached faber, heaney’s longtime publisher, and the heaney family about undertaking the project. both parties welcomed him. matthew hollis, faber’s poetry editor, noted: “seamus heaney was the head of our poetry household. … we are therefore thrilled that it should be fintan o’toole who has agreed to undertake a portrait of this most cherished author. fintan himself is a writer of principle and distinction and a researcher of tireless fortitude.”in association with his work on the biography, o’toole spent time during his emory visit consulting the emory libraries’ seamus heaney papers, which were acquired in 2003. “for those who appreciate art, life and their intersection, there is so much that goes on here at emory of worldwide importance,” said o’toole.his goal is even larger than properly celebrating heaney’s life and artistic legacy. at its best, said o’toole, “biography doesn’t just tell us about extraordinary lives; it tells us about the extraordinary nature of life itself.”introducing the creativity conversation, carla freeman, fox center director, thanked the lecturers for the “prisms their lives cast upon personal and public history, erasure and memorialization, the vernacular and classical traditions.”day 3: creativity conversationa well-loved tradition at emory, new to this year’s ellmann lectures, is the creativity conversation.as freeman defined it, “a conversation is its own form of the creative process unscripted, impromptu, potentially more emotionally charged, moving in unexpected directions and onto unanticipated terrain.” higgins, serving as moderator, asked trethewey and o’toole how they settled on the titles of their memoirs. trethewey credited her former colleague at emory, lynna williams, who passed away in 2017. “lynna showed me that, literally and figuratively, the title ‘memorial drive’ resonated. my mother was killed and died on memorial drive. but also, the desire to remember, to memorialize is the thing that drives me as a writer,” trethewey noted.o’toole laughingly confessed that his main title is “too obscure to be understood outside ireland.” to say “we don’t know ourselves” in ireland is, said o’toole, to exult in “the country’s better fortunes, its rise from earlier being perceived as impoverished and backward.” more important was the subtitle: “a personal history of modern ireland.” “that is what the writer does show how one’s own life mirrors, is shaped by and therefore might be a route into larger histories,” he said.“seamus heaney: listen now again” is the traveling version of the acclaimed national library of ireland exhibition.tackling traumatrauma, personal and national, dominated the afternoon’s conversation. o’toole observed that though heaney’s life was largely a happy one, he was aware of the stakes for language in ireland’s ongoing conflict. “bad politics is the use of cliché, sloganeering and dehumanizing language that is dead but can also be murderous. heaney asked himself what good can i do as a poet, and one answer he found was to keep language supple and open, capable of doing what politicians don’t do.“there needed to be a language that protestant unionists could read one way and catholic nationalists could read in a slightly different way and feel that they were not being defeated. that’s poetry. in this way, language is not marginal, mere entertainment or obscure; it actually matters,” o’toole continued.trethewey described arriving at her mother’s apartment after her murder and being videotaped by a news team. watching the footage later that night, she concluded, “the person who went into that apartment is not the same one who came out.”she pushes back against those who see her life as defined by trauma. citing the 13th-century poet rumi, who wrote that “the wound is the place where light enters you,” trethewey said: “i think about my birth certificate, which says, ‘mother: colored, father: canadian.’ already that starts to say something and not say something else. for me, it has always been about controlling the narrative.”the two writers on doublenessboth trethewey and o’toole acknowledged the doubleness at the heart of memoir.at one point in “memorial drive,” trethewey switches to the second person point of view. the chapter’s first line is, “you remember even though you don’t want to.” and it culminates in a moment in which trethewey says: “you know, you know, you know. look at you. even now, you think you can distance yourself from that girl you were. write in the second person, as if you weren’t the one to whom any of this happened.” “in writing a memoir,” o’toole commented, “you are necessarily two people, needing to go back to the self you were,” and trethewey added that doubleness is also a condition experienced by black citizens, as w.e.b. du bois observed, as well as women “until we can subvert the male gaze,” she said.each lecturer had something to say about the unreliability of memory. in “memorial drive,” trethewey used court documents as well as the police report and autopsy, blending documentary evidence with her own recollection. and yet, she acknowledged, there were contradictions even in those “official” documents.o’toole brings what he calls a “professional skepticism” to biography. he noted, “when writers write about themselves, they are creating art out of their own myth.”trethewey interjected, “my father used to say, ‘tasha remembers everything, whether it happened or not.’”o’toole’s ongoing project is the heaney biography; trethewey is working on a limited video series for “memorial drive” and writing about her father, eric trethewey, a fellow poet and teacher who passed away in 2014. both authors read poems to close out the creativity conversation, with o’toole reciting heaney’s “in the attic.”from “monument: poems new and selected,” trethewey read “imperatives for carrying on in the aftermath,” which ends with these lines:you learned from a korean poet in seoul:that one does not bury the mother’s body in the ground but in the chest, orlike you you carry her corpse on your back.through april 14: “seamus heaney: listen now again”curated by geraldine higgins, emory university is hosting the traveling version of the acclaimed national library of ireland exhibition.location: schwartz center for performing arts, chace galleryhours: monday-friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. and during public events.
