What the Furies Bring

Kenneth Sherman

Jan 2009 · The Porcupine's Quill

Ebook

176

Pages

Eligible

About this ebook

In the foreword to his new book, What the Furies Bring, acclaimed poet and essayist Kenneth Sherman asks, in the wake of 9/11, ‘What help is writing to the writer? What help to the reader?’ Examining the works of authors who have lived and written under great duress, Sherman suggests how writing can serve as ‘equipment for living.’ He contemplates Primo Levi’s desire to tell his story -- a yearning that kept the Holocaust survivor writing through periods of crushing depression. Sherman’s insight into the ways diary writing afforded Chaim Kaplan and Anne Frank a means to keep their sanity and humanity under the most harrowing conditions will prove inspirational to readers. In ‘The Angel of Disease,’ Sherman examines the curative aspects of writing by discussing authors who, though critically ill, persisted in their quest for the right word. Sherman’s book is not limited to writers from our past. He captures our current situation in, ‘Poetry and Terrorism,’ a prescient essay that delves into the moral and aesthetic considerations brought to the foreground since the terrorist attacks on NYC. He follows this with essays that consider whether contemporary poets and novelists have risen to the task of articulating the new age. The ‘furies’ in Sherman’s title belong to history and what they bring is not only destruction but the opportunity to transform our art and ourselves.

In the foreword to his new book, What the Furies Bring, acclaimed poet and essayist Kenneth Sherman asks, in the wake of 9/11, ‘What help is writing to the writer? What help to the reader?’ Examining the works of authors who have lived and written under great duress, Sherman suggests how writing ...

About the author

Kenneth Sherman was born in Toronto in 1950. He has a BA from York University, where he studied with Eli Mandel and Irving Layton, and an MA in English Literature from the University of Toronto. While a student at York, Sherman co-founded and edited the literary journal Waves. From 1974--1975 he travelled extensively through Asia. He is a full-time faculty member at Sheridan College where he teaches Communications; he also teaches a course in creative writing at the University of Toronto.

In 1982, Sherman was writer-in-residence at Trent University. In 1986 he was invited by the Chinese government to lecture on contemporary Canadian literature at universities and government institutions in Beijing. In 1988, he received a Canada Council grant to travel through Poland and Russia. This experience inspired several of the essays in his book Void and Voice (1998). Sherman, author of the acclaimed Words for Elephant Man, and The Well: New and Selected Poems, lives in Toronto with his wife, Marie, an artist.

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