John Shea's 'Tales from Webster's'

Al Filreis

I am pleased to present a glimpse at John Shea’s Tales from Webster’s project — a prefatory note about purpose and method, followed by one tale, which is a tale unto itself but also serves as a note to readers of the book of tales.

The “tales from Webster’s” are a new literary form invented by me. What is a “tale from Webster’s” — a poem in prose, a short (very short) narrative, a verbal arrangement? A combination of all of them? There may be no conclusive answer. On the other hand, the structure of the “tale” is clear. The bolded key words on the left of the page are consecutive entries in Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition (World Publishing Company, 1970). The text on the right is my connective tissue that links the key words into a kind of narrative, scene, or evocation of personality. The tale is read the customary way, from left to right, beginning at the highest point — with the additional frisson of a leap across the white space after each dictionary entry. There must be at least five key words; and the linking text is no more than three lines long. Get ready for some good, not-so-clean, intellectual fun. — John Shea

* * *

A Note to the Readers of This Book

Welcome, friends, to this bold

a·be·ce·dar·i·an undertaking. I’ve worked long and hard on it, night after cruel

night, wrestling with a slippery muse, while you, no doubt, were

a·bed or relaxing with a gin and tonic somewhere near a soothing

oceanfront or a grove of whispering pines. I, on the other hand,

have suffered the fiery torments of

A·bed·ne·go , and I’m still waiting for a savior like Daniel to deliver me. I

speak, please note, metaphorically. But I’ve gone

a·beg·ging for a wise and intrepid audience. Is there an

A·bel among you, perhaps, who will read and treasure my work? But

maybe Abel was not the best choice – slain by his own brother.

Well, then, is there a broad-minded philosopher like, say,

Ab·é·lard who will find my tales to be delightful and . . . wait! He lived a

troubled life, lost his lover, became a hermit, was charged with

heresy. Forget him. Let me rest under the shade of this fine

a·bele while I think. I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, that

reading the Tales from Webster’s will lead to great woes. Not at

all! But I admit you won’t find anything about

A·bel·i·an groups in these pages, because, Lord knows, I’ve forgotten just

about all I knew – or half-knew – about math. And the Tales may

not bring you up to date on the hot tourist spots of

Ab·er·deen , either. But let’s face it, even an

Ab·er·deen An·gus should find plenty of aesthetic excitement in these pages. And if

you are not entertained, enlightened, and quickened, perhaps it’s

because of an

ab·er·rant gene, some tiny difference in the six billion nucleotides in your

body. Gee, I hope that’s not the case. I may be on shaky ground

here, but you might be able to minimize the results of the

ab·er·ra·tion by reading the complete Tales two or three times through. Your

consciousness might be expanded. It might even help to buy

copies and send them to friends and relatives. Far be it from me to

a·bet any kind of uncertain scheme, but I can assure you that if you

bought several copies of the Tales from Webster’s, I, for one, would be very happy. But let’s hold that idea in

a·bey·ance for the present. Like you, I tend to

ab·hor solicitations, pleas for money, aggressive marketing. I suspect,

too, that you and I also share an

ab·hor·rence for violent computer games, dishonest politicians, and flip flops

worn anywhere but at the beach, where they belong. . . . Oh, you’re not sure that you find the frightening rise of flip flops

ab·hor·rent ? Very well. Just don’t expect any positive treatment of flip flops

in this collection. In the meantime, I, the author, will

a·bide , waiting for the readers that I know are out there. Handsome ones,

elegant ones, with a twinkle of wit in their eyes. Eager to search

out the new and unusual. Ready to laugh and marvel. My faith is

a·bid·ing . And now excuse me while I go check on the proper

pronunciation of Abednego.

April 23, 2015

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DIGITAL PEDAGOGY: This was a magazine story published in 2001 about my use of e-media in teaching. “Postmodern poets focused on the process of their poetry, rather than on what the words in their poems actually said. The purpose was to make poetry and language new again. There's no better way to describe Filreis's teaching style. He uses technology to free class time for discussion, which to Filreis is more important than the course material itself. The point is to develop his students' ability to think critically, not to have memorized every last fact about Gertrude Stein. And yet, he said, through that active engagement with the material, students end up remembering more of the content.”

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ASHBERY PERFORMS STEVENS: In October of 1989, John Ashbery went to St. John's the Divine Cathedral in New York to be part of the induction of Wallace Stevens at the Poets' Corner. There was a vespers service and Ashbery read six sections of Stevens's "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven." Imagine that--that poem read at a vespers service! Anyway, I certainly don't know of another recording of Ashbery performing Stevens. Stevens was a fairly bad reader of his own poems. Ashbery is deemed by many to be an indifferent reader of his poems. (I don't agree, but understand the point.) But here, reading Stevens, Ashbery is marvelous. Here is a 7-minute recording of sections 3, 5, 12, 17, 18 and 30 of the Stevens poem that comes closest to real serial writing (seriality at the level of the section, anyway).

THE (ANTI)MODERN PRESIDENT. After looking at an abstract mural at the U.N. then President-elect Eisenhower said, “To be modern you don't have to be nuts.”

THE END OF THE LECTURE & PLANNING TO STAY. As often as I can, I call for the end of the lecture as we know it. I'm pretty serious about this - not often exaggerating on the point. Click here for one of many forays into the topic. Once you're there, click on the "end of the lecture" tag for still more. My thoughts on institutional politics and the arts were presented in a manifesto called "Planning to Stay" (published as a pamphlet by No Press); the text of that talk is available here.

KELLY WRITERS HOUSEPhiladelphia's PBS affiliate, WHYY-12, produces a TV show that in each episode features four centers for the arts and creativity in the Philadelphia region. For its winter 2010-11 program, the show devoted 15 minutes to the Kelly Writers House in a segment called “The Creative Campus.” To watch the video, click on the image above.

REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HOLOCAUSTI dislike Spielberg’s Schindler’s List intensely. It's a film, I think, that is very friendly toward sovereignty. For more on this minority view, click on the image above. I teach a course at Penn on representations of the Holocaust in literature and film every other fall semester.

In 2003 I founded and continue to direct the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania. CPCW brought together the university's writing programs and projects: Critical Writing, Creative Writing, the Kelly Writers House, PennSound, RealArts@PENN, Writers Without Borders, Creative Ventures, Jacket2, and more. For information and links to each of these projects, click on the logo above.