I attended the Mount Holyoke Wikipedia edit-a-thon this afternoon in case my expertise as a Wikipedia editor might be needed; in the event, it wasn’t, so I spent the time chatting with occasional LH commenter Сара (aka Sarah) about the good old days at Sterling and exploring the shelves of the library’s poetry room, where the meeting was held. I found all sorts of gorgeous books, including the four-volume Collected Poems
Le Vau ou la Vau, une autre, ou le même,
qui se fond dans l’Oze, et l’Oze on dirait,
—ou si c’était l’Oise, ou c’est l’Ozerain—
—how could I resist a poem that plays with confusion of gender and toponyms?
Also, I thought I’d found the greatest name ever when I saw a book by the Belarusan poet Valzhyna Mort, but Wikipedia tells me she was born Valhyna Martynava, so presumably she chose her Addams Family–like moniker herself.
Oh my. Schnackenberg is amazing. For me a difficult read, but I think you’re hardier emotionally than I am. I’m partial to one of her earliest books, The Lamplit Answer.
Thanks, I’ll check it out.
Gjertrud Schnackenberg almost sounds like a parody. If she were a singer I’m sure she would have changed it to something more euphonic, but poets are allowed to have singular names.
She won the International Griffin Poetry Prize in 2011 for Heavenly Questions, and as I suspected this is from the Chinese poem 天问 (Heavenly Questions) from the ancient Chu Ci.
Schnackenberg’s Luncheonette, Hoboken, NJ: “a great little place.”
Schnackenberg is a wonderful poet, too little known.
I will admit not having been familiar with Ms. Schnackenberg’s poetry (or that she is the widow of the mostly-interesting philosopher Robert Nozick). But who among us hasn’t “burned the structure of [our] intellect” while “still an undergraduate”? Isn’t that what college is for? (She graduated from Holyoke in ’75 which makes her somewhat younger than hat and a dozen years older than me, but still . . .)
Gjertrud with silent G
Her Wikipedia page lists her among “Americans of Norwegian descent”. In Norwegian the sequence gj is pronounced y, as in gjetost, a typical Norwegian cheese, literally gjet-ost ‘goat-cheese’, pronounced “yeat-oos”. Of course, she may pronounce her name differently from what her grandparents or other ancestors did.
Yes, I know that about Norwegian (being half Norwegian myself), but it struck me as odd and noteworthy that an American would preserve such an un-English pronunciation. “Gj with silent G” is not normal in English.
LH, even if you are half Norwegian, most of your readers are not. It is not obvious to me how she says her name. “Gj with silent G” seems to imply that the first consonant is “J”, which most English speakers would pronounce as in “John”. Is this how people say “Gertrude” as in “Gertrude Stein” (another name I only know from reading it)? The only person I actually met who was called Gertrude was Dutch and used the “hard g” when speaking English.
You’re absolutely right, and my description was utterly confusing—apologies to all! What I meant was that she pronounces her name /jertrud/ (YAIR-trood). (And Gertrude does indeed have hard g.)
Takk!
my description was utterly confusing—apologies to all
Don’t worry Hat, I understood it first take!
I love this site!
And its amazing linguistic cacophony & easy assumption that poetry is the heart of all.