I indulged in an afternoon of reading recently, flipping between books of poetry and interviews and inspiring essays — all of them surrounding the beauty of words, and their essence.
In First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process by Robert D. Richardson (University of Iowa Press), I picked up several good Emerson-isms, including:
“The first rule of writing is not to omit the thing you meant to say.” Continue reading
One 4th grader’s approach to a target painting — inspired by Jasper Johns, but clearly marked by his or her own individuality.
“The way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent.”
This quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote or thought about writing, his entire life. This reminds me to never give up on possibilities.
In fact, it encourages me to start from the place I feel most left in the dirt — the I can’t do this place — and travel up from there into what hasn’t been said. I need to remember to look for what I left out in those earlier drafts, and move towards what’s true and unsaid. I need to remember that I can, indeed, begin again.
To be continued…
The poems in tonight’s Audio Saucepan are all about plants and weeds. Let me tell you, first, about them —and then the rest of “The Hardy Perennial Episode”… Continue reading
Photo by Wayne Hiebert
Take a look at the small and seemingly simple poem below. Because the narrator narrows in, he allows the reader to really see and experience the scene: every hand motion and the pace of the effort on both the man and his wife’s parts.
It isn’t easy to write something clear and detailed. You run the risk of over-explaining, or on the other hand, not giving enough, but I think Kooser does it just right.
Ted Kooser
Splitting an Order
I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half,
maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,
no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady
by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table
and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place,
and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner,
observing his progress through glasses that moments before
he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife and her fork in their proper places,
then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.
(from Valentines, University of Nebraska Press, 2008)
Now — write about a small interaction or observation in your life or your daily comings and goings. Consider the scene as though you are a filmmaker, focusing your lens deep into the situation, and ignoring the extraneous outside events, give the details of the close-up view.
Dear readers of Which Silk Shirt,
I’m sorry; I’ve been unfaithful to you. I turned my attention away. Another blog captured me for a moment, and I went with it. I agreed to keep it company — and you know how those things turn out. You become involved. You begin to care in ways you cannot explain.
But now I feel the need to confess. The blog I decided to “entertain” belongs to The Quotable Lit, which is a very handsome online journal. They like to get all the views of the writers they choose to publish, so they invited me – twice! – to blog for them. And I agreed. Continue reading
Tonight’s freewheeling, high-flying radio show takes you everywhere. No kidding.
Audio Saucepan: “The Episode that Will Swear to Anything” begins at 6PM (Mountain Time) with drummer Allison Miller’s newest recording — and grabs on from that to the poem “The Aerodynamics” by Rick Bursky (from Death Obscura, Sarabande Books), an incredible book.
But I can’t give it all away…part of the joy of this show is what you don’t know…..
Alright… a little more… Continue reading
“Penitentes” by artist Cady Wells, photo/ courtesy Harwood Museum
I taught a workshop to the Santa Fe book artists a few weeks ago, and someone handed me a beautiful little “Poem for Your Pocket,” a folded mini-book with a mini-poem — or more exactly, stanza 3 of Alice Corbin’s “In the Desert.”
Alice Corbin was born 1881 in St. Louis. Like many others diagnosed with tuberculosis, she came to New Mexico for treatment. The impact of the desert on her was astounding. Continue reading
