ASU Book Group: 'Hold Sway' by Sally Ball
The ASU Book Group's January 2021 reading selection is "Hold Sway" by Sally Ball. The book group is open to all in the ASU community and meets monthly from noon–1 p.m. on Zoom. Haven't read the book? Come anyway! Authors are always present.
Synopsis:
To hold on to what is in motion, or to persist at being in motion (not inert!): these are the twin goals of Ball's poems. "Hold Sway" reckons with the presence of menace or threat in daily life, even in moments when all seems well enough, or when things look beautiful. Climate anxiety, numbing corporate manipulations of our attention, crimes on both a personal and a grand scale (like being someone's knife-point hostage, or filming the police after they have killed a suspect, or the Paris attacks, or the pollution of the oceans...): all are tangled up with how to live one's American life (raising children, losing a marriage, watching TV) as Ball seeks "a footing in hope, ... a stay."
The book is available on amazon.com.
Sally Ball is professor of English in creative writing at ASU.
The ASU Book Group meetings and selections for 2020-2021 are:
- Sep. 30 – David Sklar, “Atlas of Men”
- Oct. 28 – Joey Eschrich and Clark A. Miller, “The Weight of Light”
- Nov. 18 – Kelly deVos, “Fat Girl on a Plane”
- Dec. 16 – Clive Wynne, “Dog Is Love”
- Jan. 27 – Sally Ball, “Hold Sway”
- Feb. 24 – Emir Estrada, “Kids at Work”
- Mar. 31 – Kristin Grady Gilger and Julia Wallace, “There’s No Crying in Newsrooms”
- Apr. 28 – Elizabeth Horan, Carmen Urioste-Azcorra and Cynthia Tompkins, “Preciadas Cartas (1932-1979)”
The ASU Book Group is sponsored as a community outreach initiative by the Department of English and organized in partnership with the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing.