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Show c Book exchange opens again Student to sell more than 300 books operators plan After starting out at the end of fall quarter, the Student Book Exchange accumulated almost 300 books, and it will start business again today to try to sell some of those. Exchange operators say the program has been successful, although many students elected to stay with the bookstore, which gave discounts on clothing to students who sold their books there. David Thayne, founder of the book exchange, said its all well and good if students got a good deal from the bookstore. Were not trying to run the bookstore out of business, he said. Were trying to put ourselves out of See related bookstore story on page 5. business, by making the bookstore more responsive to students. Bookstore manager Dennis Ohms, however, said there is no real competition between the two organizations. We dont see ourselves different from the student body, Ohms said. Im not against a book exchange students have every right to set up a book exchange. Ohms also said the bookstore did not offer the clothing discounts to lure students from the book exchange. Weve done that kind of thing periodically its something thats' ongoing, he said. Assistant Bookstore Manager Kris Orton added, Theres been some misconceptions Dennis has helped set up many book exchanges in the past. But Ohms did see some disadvantages for students who use the exchange. The book exchange is successful for some, but it takes some time and patience, he said. But for some who feel their book is more valuable than it really is and try to sell it on their own, they take it on the chin. If you buy a $20 book, once its used, its a $10 book. Thats the marketability of books, Ohms said. Thayne noted that since the book exchange wont sell many of the books it compiled until this quarter, some students were reluctant to use it. They needed their Christmas money, and thats fine, he said. The exchange did, however, sell about 100 books during December, Thayne added. Ohms also said the bookstore has a policy of giving a full refund within the first two weeks of the quarter for books for classes a student drops but because of the book exchange the bookstore will require a sales receipt. We have to start enforcing that, he said. Otherwise they could get a book at the book exchange, drop the class and sell the book here for the full price. David Thayne, center, who organized the student hook exchange, helps a few of his customers purchase used textbooks. Exchange operators hope sales levels will continue to increase this quarter. Lee adds to his growing collection of publications Southern Utah poet Dave Lee has published another book of poetry, the latest being a series of narrative poems on love and morality, springing from a bedrock stripped of pretense pigs, pig farming, and a cussing, beer drinking friend named John. Lees The Porcine Canticles is an expanded version of his The Porcine Legacy, a slim book of poems that was a finalist for the 1978 Elliston Book Award, a national award presented for the best volume of poetry copyrighted by a small nonprofit press in the United States. The Porcine Canticles is a collection of 33 poems, 15 more than in The Porcine Legacy, and including the long poem, The Muffler and the Law, the first place winner in the 25th Annual Utah Creative Writing Contest for serious poetry written on a theme. Lees latest work was published as was The Porcine Legacy by Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, Wash. Lee, SUSC professor of English, doesnt apologize for the source of his literary inspiration. Quite the contrary. My poems come right out of the belly, he says, admitting at the same time that this ha'iit always been so. When he first started writing poetry, Lee says he imitated other poets, a practice hed adopted from 18th Century British writers he studied while working toward his doctorate. The problem with those poems," he says now, was that they were clone poems, the same poems everybody else was writing, and they were competent at best. The Porcine Legacy and his subsequent long poem, Driving and Drinking, came after he broke loose from the contrived poetry he had been writing and got down to writing about things he knew and felt strongly about, Lee said. And pigs are something Lee knows and cares a lot about. His lengthly association with the short-leggebeasts started as a youngster growing up in west Texas when he signed up for Future Farmers of America, because he didnt want to take the alternative class offered at his high school. I got my first pig when I d was about 14, and since then Ive almost always had one or more of them, he said. Lee has owned as many as 20 pigs at a single time. critters are He admits that the bristly, short-hairedirty, but only if theyre forced to remain in their own filth. Hes also quick to add that they are ranked eighth in intelligence and that in their own barnyard way, theyre kind, honest and decent. A common mistake in 20th century creativity, Lee says, is the move away from narrative poetry. Most poems now are subjective rather than objective, he d Poet Dave Lee enjoys writing for people's enjoyment. I take pleasure in their pleasure he says. says. If you trace the roots of critical literary theory, all the way back through Horace and Aristotle, youll find that literature must both delight and instruct, and if both elements arent there, it isn t art. Lots of contemporary poets forget to delight, theyre simply virtuosos ot word mechanics. Lee prides himsell in having a deadly accurate ear for local language. According to Nebraska poet Laureate William Kloefkorn, Lees poems differ from a lot of other narrative works. Because his (poems) seem to come out of an oral tradition, they have a lot of dialect and idiom, folk language that to my ear rings true, he said. Lees poetry is a kind of narrative that depends a lot on understatement and that goes back to a tradition in American literature characterized by Twain, some of Faulkners stories, and even back to the tall tale tradition. N Kloefkorn notes that Lees reading at Nebraska Wesleyan University was very successful. Hes excellent, hes better than excellent, he said. The language in Lees pig poems is offensive to some readers. It may be abrasive, he says, but people shouldnt judge someone else because they dont speak the same language. There are five questions most often asked about Lees' poetry, namely, Does John exist? Whats he like? Does Jan exist? Are you really married to her? and Do you really raise pigs? Yes, John Sims does exist, Lee says, and hes a real-lif- e friend whos most accurately protrayed in The Muffler and the Law. While an incident that happened nearly 15 years ago triggered the poem, most of it is conjured from the poets imagination, an account of a potential actual event coupled with what the poet perceives to be the essence of Johns character. Yes, Lee says, Jan does exist, and yes, they really are married and living happily ever after in Paragonah, Utah, with their two children, Jon and Jodee. The poem For Jan, With Love, is one of Lees favorites, he says, because, unlike the rest of the poems in the book, it actually happened. And finally, yes, Lee does raise pigs. Lee is currently working on a translation of a medieval German poem with SUSC language specialist James W. Harrison. Hes also working on a body of southern Utah landscape poems, and reflecting on a new preoccupation with petroglyphs which he thinks can be successfully translated into poetry. The ultimate compliment for his poetry, Lee says, comes when people enjoy it. Im finding now that people know my books, they know my poems but they dont have the slightest idea who I am, he says. Thats all right with me. I take pleasure in their pleasure. |