Apr ’08 |
5 |
7:00 pm |
Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind is a collection of short stories focusing on the formative and tumultuous moments in the lives of two women as children and adults, whose relationship to one another is cast in an ambiguous light, and whose characters are abstracted within the context of each story. Primarily set in rural America and other transient realms, this book combines realism with elements of meta-fiction, magnifying the extraordinary interpersonal worlds created by the circumstances of their outer reality.
Chavisa Woods is the Author of Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind, her first full-length book. Her previous short stories and poetry have been published nationally and internationally in such publications as: Matador (Spain), Prima Materia (NY), Blue Fog (Figi) 4 AM Poetry, Cake, Big Tex(t), The Bard Gay and Lesbian Review, Howl 10003, Tribes Magazine, Wildflowers, Fuzion, Chronogram, Agenzia Catalogue, What Happens Next?, Where We Live, In the Fray, and Rhapsodist the documentary
Her work has been featured in performance at such venues as: the Annual Vision Festival, , the Howl festival, Sarah Lawrence College, Bard College, I Love NY Poetry, Pink Pony Reading Series, CBS Morning show, HOT Festival at the Dixon Place Theater, The portable Theater Company, Salient Saturdays at the Bowery Poetry Club, Poetic License, The Hidden Treasure Reading Series, the Annual Charlie Parker Festival, Beat Bush Woodstock, WOW Theater- 2006 Bloom Festival, The fresh Fruit Festival, The Telephone Bar Library Lounge ,Red Dreams at the Cornelia Street Cafe, L.E.S. 2002 and 2003 National Poetry Slam
Chavisa will be on hand to read and sign copies of her new book
I’m a radio talk show host for 17 yearas, and I rec’d this email from a listener, Peggy, about C. Woods’ book:
I recently paid for a book of fiction for my sixteen year old daughter, which she ordered from our local bookstore. I believed this book was to be a book about teenage love, or love gone wrong or something like that. The title of the book is, love does not make me gentle or kind. But when I saw the cover of the book I immediately felt disturbed. They say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. Well, I think they are wrong. But the image was not disturbing enough for me to take the book from her immediately. My daughter has been voicing her independence lately, and I’m trying not to be an overbearing mother. A few weeks passed. I forgot about it. Then I
overheard her talking to one of her friends about it. And what I heard disturbed me. I asked her that night if I could read the book myself. She told me she had left it at school. I pressed her further and in a few days she gave me it.
What I read was unbelievable! There are stories about teenaged girls
having sex with other teenaged girls, and stories about Christians, making us look silly or insane. That is not the worst though. There is actually one story where a teen aged girl falls in love with and has sex with a buffalo!!!! this book is being toted as literature! The author is even a woman!!!! My daughter won’t respond to me when I’ve asked her what she likes about the book or how she feels about it. Does this mean my daughter might want to do these things in this book??
How should I respond? I don’t know how to keep this stuff out of my
home. I’ve tried everything I can. This book has Satanism written all
over it. I think parents should be warned of such material. I’, wondering if there is some way to force the publisher to put warnings on such things??/ The book is , love does not make me gentle or kind, by Chavisa Woods.
If you have any advise, I would appreciate it. I’m worried my daughter is slipping away.
Yours, Concerened in Indiana
To which I reply (yes, on your site :), Peggy, regarding how harmful this author is, let me give one example based on sex with animals. I debated Larry Flint on ABC, and in his biography he too writes of having sex with an animal, without any warning or disapproval (I mean, even PETA should be outraged). Homosexuals and child-sex adovcates are so determined to throw off all moral restraint, that even though syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV have killed millions, and there is evidence that these infections have jumped from animals to humans (ex. And the Band Played On), they care nothing for the millions that will be destroyed by their hatred for God’s plan of sex only between a man and woman within marriage. -Bob Enyart, KGOV.com
I guess you guys don’t understand the concept of metaphor. Surprising, really, given that the Bible is full of figurative language. Oh well…
Nic B. you are so right-on. Woods’ book is full of figurative language, metphor and magical realism that (re)presents the world as she sees it and as it truly is. And Bob you are so off-target and out of your league. Get off your “Christian” high horse: homosexuals are not the downfall of society – hatefilled, hateful Chrisans are! In fact Woods’ work is beautifully written and very insightful. Perhaps Peggy’s daughter is experiencing normal tennage feelings of girl-on-girl love or even experiencing the Midwestern ennui so deftly portrayed in Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind and relates to Wood’s prose. Either way, you and Peggy need to get real!
Homosexuals and child sex advocates???? what are you talking about??? As if the two go hand in hand?
This is ridiculous!