Margaret Renkl
This Brazilian cultural matrix projects Margaret Renkl globally...
Curation
CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
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Name:
Margaret Renkl
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City/Place:
Nashville, Tennessee
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Country:
United States
Current News
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What's Up?
LATE MIGRATIONS
From New York Times opinion writer Margaret Renkl comes an unusual, captivating portrait of a family—and of the cycles of joy and grief that inscribe human lives within the natural world.
Growing up in Alabama, Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents—her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father—and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver.
And here, braided into the overall narrative, Renkl offers observations on the world surrounding her suburban Nashville home. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. As these two threads haunt and harmonize with each other, Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. For in both worlds—the natural one and our own—“the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin.”
Gorgeously illustrated by the author’s brother, Billy Renkl, Late Migrations is an assured and memorable debut.
* The Today Show’s “Read With Jenna” book-club pick for December
* Winner of the 2020 Reed Environmental Writing Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center
* Included on the 2020 Notable Books List by the American Library Association
* A finalist for the Southern Book Prize
* Highlighted in year-end lists by The A.V. Club, the New Statesman, the New York Public Library, the Chicago Public Library, BookPage, the Washington Independent Review of Books, and Iowa Public Radio
Life & Work
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Bio:
Margaret Renkl is the author of Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss. She is also a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, where her essays appear each Monday. Her work has also appeared in Guernica, Literary Hub, Oxford American, River Teeth, and The Sewanee Review, among others.
A graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Carolina, she lives in Nashville.
More
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Quotes, Notes & Etc.
REVIEWS
“Equal parts Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott with a healthy sprinkle of Tennessee dry rub thrown in.”
~Elisabeth Egan for The New York Times Book Review
“Renkl scatters short autobiographical essays in between short nature pieces, so that her life story and her life’s passion intertwine, like a fence post and a trumpet vine.”
~Maureen Corrigan for NPR′s Fresh Air
“What books would I want to see included on summer-reading tables everywhere? Two perfect candidates were published this July: first, the much-lauded new novel The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, the story of a hellish reform school in Florida, and a book of nonfiction by Margaret Renkl called Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss that examines a quiet life through the lens of family and the natural world. I don’t say this lightly, but both deserve to be read for as long as kids have been reading Of Mice and Men.”
~Ann Patchett for The Wall Street Journal
“A compact glory, crosscutting between consummate family memoir and keenly observed backyard natural history. Renkl’s deft juxtapositions close up the gap between humans and nonhumans and revive our lost kinship with other living things. I hope lots of people will discover it when it’s published this summer.”
~Richard Powers for The New York Times Book Review
“[Renkl] guides us through a South lush with bluebirds, pecan orchards, and glasses of whiskey shared at dusk in this collection of prose in poetry-size bits; as it celebrates bounty, it also mourns the profound losses we face every day.”
~O, the Oprah Magazine
“Late Migrations has echoes of Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life―with grandparents, sons, dogs and birds sharing the spotlight, it’s a witty, warm and unaccountably soothing all-American story.”
~People
“Magnificent. … Conjure your favorite place in the natural world: beach, mountain, lake, forest, porch, windowsill rooftop? Precisely there is the best place in which to savor this book.”
~Barbara J. King for National Public Radio
“Renkl’s contemplations on life and the natural world are compact, luscious, and unexpected—in an instant, they can weave from crushing tragedy to transcendent joy and then simply pause and listen.”
~Nate McNamara for The Literary Hub
“Graceful. … Like a belated answer to [E.B.] White.”
~Danny Heitman for The Wall Street Journal
“Cherish the dirt, cherish your father, forgive your mother because the only appropriate attitude to adopt towards life is awe. The world is imperfect, always listing deathward, but is worth inhabiting just the same.”
~Austin Adams for the Los Angeles Review of Books
“Though rooted in her experience at home, Renkl’s exploration of loss extends to systemic racism and climate change. It’s a story of great sorrow as the people we love must die and the natural world is shaped by an ever-warming atmosphere. Renkl offers readers space to embrace beauty and grief in their many forms.”
~Carla Jean Whitley for the Alabama Writers’ Forum
“A lovely collection of essays about life, nature, and family. It will make you laugh, cry―and breathe more deeply.”
~Parade Magazine
“In her poignant debut, a memoir, Renkl weaves together observations from her current home in Nashville and short vignettes of nature and growing up in the South.”
~C.J. Lotz for Garden & Gun
“Margaret Renkl’s Late Migration reads as if made of summer. Short chapters about the natural world interlace with a family story of birth, learning, tragedy, and love set in all seasons. But no matter the actual season, every chapter rustles with tremulous, climactic summer fullness.”
~John Timpane for The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Richly illustrated by her brother, Billy, Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss reprints 10 columns from the Times, though what stitches the book together are extremely short pieces — often just a page or two in length — that sometimes read like prose poems.”
~David Starkey for the Santa Barbara Independent
“The arrangement and pacing of the individual essays are so artful that readers’ familiarity with Renkl develops the way any growing friendship might—piecing together the details and revelations for a sense of the whole.”
~Nancy Posey for The Los Angeles Review
“Late Migrations can be read as a family history and the record of a lost way of life, an appreciation of ancestors and the sacrifices they made.”
~Alison Hibberd for The New Statesman
“This is a book to linger with. It begs to be felt. It asks its reader to consider home and know that the miracles do not only occur in the large and loud moments, but also ‘in the damp weeds of an ordinary backyard.’”
~Angela Winsor for Southern Humanities Review
“Late Migrations is a book about grief, yet within that grief lies beauty, wonder, and love. It is also a book about nature and family, and it is self-conscious enough to understand that the wild world and the domestic one exist in a braided ecosystem that hums with meaning. It’s Renkl’s ability to lean in and name the heartbreak that makes Late Migrations worth the read.”
~Gretchen Lida for the Washington Independent Review of Books
“A book that will be treasured.”
~Pamela Miller for the Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Contemplative yet powerful. … Renkl is so in touch with the birds and butterflies of her yard that one could mistake her for a trained naturalist.”
~Carla Jean Whitley in BookPage (starred review)
“I can’t help but compile a list of people I want to gift with Late Migrations. I want them to emerge from it, as I did, ready to apprehend the world freshly, better able to perceive its connections and absorb its lessons.”
~Beth Ann Fennelly for Chapter 16
“Margaret Renkl’s Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss is a quiet but stunning collection of essays merging the natural landscapes of Alabama and Tennessee with generations of family history, grief and renewal. Renkl’s voice sounds very close to the reader’s ear: intimate, confiding, candid and alert.”
~Julia Kastner’s starred review in Shelf Awareness
“A beautiful combination of memoir and nature writing, Late Migrations feels timeless, a lifeline from our hearts to the natural world.”
~Aurora D. Bonner for Colorado Review
“This book features strong women backed by unyielding family values, carrying with them a formidable backbone as the author narrates her way through childhood and adulthood. There are tales and observations on loss, new life, sorrow, and elation told through ordinary, everyday scenes from her life. Renkl holds up a microscope to her small and sacred memories to make life tangible and unputdownable in the essays in Late Migrations.”
~Jaylynn Korrell for Independent Book Review
“In this magnificent debut, essayist Renkl interweaves the natural world of her backyard in Nashville with memories of her childhood and family members. … Readers will savor each page and the many gems of wisdom they contain.”
~Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“It is a fine feat, this book. Renkl intimately knows that ‘this life thrives on death’ and chooses to sing the glory of being alive all the same.”
~Joan Curbow for Booklist
“A series of redolent snapshots and memories that seem to halt time.”
~Kirkus Reviews
“[Renkl′s] vision is dark – radiant – peaceful – mournful – and joyful, all at once. It is a gift to those of us who look at the small worlds we inhabit – our families, our backyards – and try to make sense of all the pain, and all the joy.”
~Jennifer Puryear for Bacon on the Bookshelf
Clips (more may be added)
This is a small-world open-curation network initially created so that magnificent but unknown (to the wide-world) Bahian artists might be eminently discoverable by humanity everywhere. However! For the Matrix to function for the Bahians it must function for ALL artists/creators:
MATRIX ONLINE NETWORK
There are certain countries, the names of which fire the imagination. Brazil is one of them, an amalgam of primitive and sophisticated, jungle and elegance, luscious jazz harmonics...there’s no other place like it in the universe. The Integrated Global Creative Economy (we invented the concept) uncoils from this sprawling Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, Arabic, European, Asian cultural matrix — concatenating branches of a virtual rainforest tree rooted in Bahia, canopy spreading to embrace the entire planet...
Ex Terra Brasilis
Starting point for this project was the culture born in Brazil's quilombos (in Angola a "quilombo" is a village; in Brazil it is a village either founded by Africans or Afro-Brazilians who had escaped slavery, or — as in the case of São Francisco do Paraguaçu below — occupied by such after abandonment by the ruling class):
...theme music for a Brazilian Matrix, from an Afro-Brazilian Mass by
From inside this Matrix, all creators-creative entities everywhere — empowered by the mathematics of network theory — become potentially discoverable by all people worldwide. Go straight to one of the (randomly selected) creators-creative entities below to see how their Matrix Page — information and media, outgoing and incoming curation — works (reload to feature other artists/creators), or find out below the black line below what unsung (metaphorically only) brilliance this is all about:
More on these profound incubators of Afro-Brazilian culture at:
Os Quilombos da Bahia
The Quilombos of Bahia
It’s like a trick of the mind’s light (I suppose), but standing on beach or escarpment in Salvador and looking out across the Baía de Todos os Santos to the great Recôncavo, and mindful of what happened there (the Bahian Recôncavo was final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place throughout the entirety of mankind’s existence on this planet), one must be led to the inevitable conclusion that one is in a place unique to history, and to the present:
Brazil absorbed over ten times the number of enslaved Africans taken to the United States of America, and is a repository of African deities (and their music) now largely forgotten in their lands of origin.
Brazil was a refuge (of sorts) for Sephardim fleeing an Inquisition which followed them across the Atlantic (that unofficial symbol of Brazil’s national music — the pandeiro — was almost certainly brought to Brazil by these people).
Across the parched savannas of the interior of Brazil’s culturally fecund nordeste/northeast (where wizard Hermeto Pascoal was born in Lagoa da Canoa — Lagoon of the Canoe — and raised in Olho d’Águia — Eye of the Eagle), much of Brazil’s aboriginal population was absorbed into a caboclo/quilombola culture punctuated by the Star of David.
Three cultures — from three continents — running for their lives, their confluence forming an unprecedented fourth. Pandeirista on the roof.
That's where this Matrix begins:
Wolfram MathWorld
The idea is simple, powerful, and egalitarian: To propagate for them, the Matrix must propagate for all. Most in the world are within six degrees of us. The concept of a "small world" network (see Wolfram above) applies here, placing artists from the Recôncavo and the sertão, from Salvador... from Brooklyn, Berlin and Mombassa... musicians, writers, filmmakers... clicks (recommendations) away from their peers worldwide.
Recent Visitors Map
Great culture is great power.
And in a small world great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
I opened the shop in Salvador, Bahia in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for magnificent Brazilian musicians.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix, then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC (I've lived here in Brazil for 32 years now) I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX