Yearly Archives: 2018

128 posts

We Interrupt This Plot-Based Novel to Give You a Poetic Moment

poetry

As a lifetime dog guy, I know better than to say, “I hate cats,” because my wife and I have owned a few cats along the way and, I’ve discovered, you do get your occasional cat who acts like a dog. It would be more accurate, therefore, to say I am a dog guy who might like the rare cat that runs against the snooty cat grain.

Ditto poems and novels. There’s no black and white. I read novels for escapism and, often, the words. Every poet knows it when he or she is in a “poetic” novel. Heck with the roses. You stop and smell the imagery, the metaphors, the word choice.

As you can imagine, it can take a long time to read a poetic novel due to all this stopping and sniffing. But sometimes, like Cracker Jacks, there’s a surprise inside of garden-variety, read-for-pleasure novels, too.

Once such book is the recently-released ghost tale, The Afterlives, by Thomas Pierce. After the required-by-law slow start, it picks up steam. Plot, mostly. Flip, flip, flip. This is what pages are for, most readers will assure you. But then, on p. 251, I came across this:

“She slept peacefully, her warm rump turned toward me, the blanket halfway up her leg, a burn mark on the sheet from the dryer. Everything felt significant, fleeting.

“I wanted to appreciate every aspect of this moment, to preserve it, to live in it forever. Annie’s light wheezing breath, the dance of the curtain across the AC vent on the floor, the clock’s red flashing colon that held the hours from collapsing into the minutes. I was in agony. I was crying. Sobbing, actually, face pressed to the pillow, the heat of my face rebounding off the fabric.”

No, it’s not Wallace Stevens or anything, but for one brief, shining moment, the speed-read-me novel of entertainment pauses to slow down its story, to catch a breath and drop a little imagery (Annie’s warm rump, the heat of his face on the pillow, the dancing curtain above the vent, the burn mark on the sheets).

I especially enjoyed the clock’s red flashing colon acting like a bulwark, trying to keep hours from collapsing into minutes. This novel is concerned, after all, with time and its partner in crime, death, with where we go after we die, and (the crowd-pleasing part) with ghosts who can’t quite cross the river, preferring to loiter among mortals who still haven’t figured out they’re not immortal. Thus, the clock imagery is especially apt to the moment.

So, yeah. As a reader you just never know when your escapist novel might gift you a poetic interlude. When you find it, take it for what it’s worth.

And, if your plot book gives you NO poetic moments, so be it. Make like Lewis and Clark and move on — over the western horizon to a book of poetry where you can breath deep the loyal doggy air for a bit. Variety, someone told me, is the spice of life….

Poetry Pays in Strange Ways

blathering comma mine humor my poems poetry

Writing is work–a craft as much as the handsomely-paid job of carpentry. Too bad payment for writing is nowhere near that enjoyed by the lads of lumber. Poetry specifically pays poorly. Most often, when you submit to a journal, your compensation is (ta-da!) a complimentary copy of the journal publishing your work.

Which brings us to today’s conundrum–what to do with all of those complimentary copies. My shelves are already looking at me cross-eyed thanks to all the book weight. Like Atlas, they shoulder the load as asked, but they’re beginning to wonder, “Do you have to jam them in so much and slide horizontal books on top of the vertical ones to boot? I mean, really. There’s reasonable, and then there’s you.”

I dare not bring up the complimentary copy topic because they, too, are beginning to spread like a magazine megalopolis on the far left space of the second shelf. At first, of course, I was thrilled with not only the compliments, but the copies. Look! I thought. These poetry journals are publishing me, myself, and I — my three favorite nouveau poets!”

But then, after the thrill flew south, the mailbox arrival of another journal became more pedestrian. And the bookshelf! I had near-civil war breaking out between books and journals. “They’re called BOOKshelves for a reason!” my copy of War and Peace said to the nearest journal. (It’s never good when personification erupts between books and journals, let me tell you.)

And that’s not the end of the story with complimentary journals, either. When they arrived, I found myself reading my accepted poems — always in fear of finding an error — and a few of the other poems but never the whole thing.

The routine often went like this: Open with trepidation to own page, read own poem for errors, breathe sigh of relief, shelf.

Only what to do with them once they’re shelved? In all honesty, I haven’t taken a single one out to read again. In the words of the prophets Simon & Garfunkel: “Time, time, time, see what’s become of me!”

“You could steel yourself and toss them,” one friend suggested.

“But what if my kids want to read them someday? You know, once they live in Posterity, N.Y., and I’m gone like the wind?”

“Do your kids want your furniture now that you’re downsizing? Your appliances? Your clothes? No, no, and no–so who are you kidding? All kids want of their parents’ is money and expensive jewelry.”

I call my friend The Voice of Truth. Then I show him the door, so he can hang outside with Honesty, another impertinent sort.

Eh. Not a big deal, in the end. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to settle the latest squabble on my bookshelf….

March Snow

blathering comma mine poetry

springsnow

Waiting for snow today. And the only thing more poignant than March snow is the “cruelest month’s” snow come April. With a few spring-like days behind us, winter’s fate is already taken for granted. No one takes it entirely seriously when it drops snowfall heavy and wet and weary, the cold sweat of a few months’ work already weighing its skies.

None know this better than the red-winged black birds I have already heard in the marsh behind us this week. The bands of robins who arrive earlier and earlier each year. The sleep-deprived black bear whose hibernation grows shorter and shorter each carbon-cankered winter.

So bring it on. It will be pretty on the witch hazel buds already reddening. The tiger lily shoots already prowling at dawn for spring sun. The white pine’s ever-gentle green.

Drivers will tolerate snow with an amused look now. Some might even hit the brakes in the parking lot at work, sneaking in a final skid and swerve. A little fun late in life, both the driver’s and the winter’s. A little reminisce of distant teenaged days. A final toast to snow that’s slow to go, that hangs on to life like all living things do.

We all enjoy a good fight to the end. An underdog. A snow whose life story is already written and ready for the press. Thus, our subconscious tolerance for snow like today’s, as beautiful as November’s first snow, after all.

Pulitzer Pablum and Other Curiosities

humor opinion poetry

Hello, Ruby Tuesday. Special, apparently, to Mick Jagger, but for me, just another day of the week to wonder, whine, and wax ineloquent about this wonderful world we share through no choice of our own. (Please, though. Don’t blame Mom and Dad. They were young and restless, too, at one time!)

Is it me, or do award shows like the Oscars begin to verge on self-parody more and more?
March Madness is here! Unfortunately for NCAA basketball, the “madness” is more about corruption and greed than about zone defense and buzzer beaters. Bracket that.
I’ve loved getting to know Marie Howe’s poetry in recent weeks, but looking at her author photo makes me worry about the weight of her hair. What some of the receding-hairline crowd would do for some of that profusion!
Since writing about listening at poetry readings on these pages, I have heard from more and more people (even poets!) admitting that they often don’t fully grasp what’s being read to them, either. “Listen my children, and you shall hear…,” is all I can say. Well, actually, I can say a lot more than that, as you can see…
Ever notice how some poetry terms refuse to stick? Dactyls and litotes and haibuns (oh, my!). Like Teflon, I fear. Sliding off the cerebellum every time.
Best poet’s name of all time? I nominate William Wordsworth.
Did you know that Ernest Hemingway’s first literary efforts were in the field of poetry? It didn’t go so well, but credit where credit’s due: some men know when to retreat.
In reading William H. Gass’s essay, “Pulitzer: The People’s Prize,” I came across these amusing quotes: “The Pulitzer Prize in fiction takes dead aim at mediocrity and almost never misses…,” “Not only will [judges] be partisans of their own tastes–that’s natural–each will be implicitly asked to represent their region, race, or sex…,” “While the Pulitzer Prize for poetry has none of the esteem that the Bollingen conveys, it has been spared fiction’s shame, partly, I think, because there is no appreciable audience at all for poetry, consequently no reader whose moral and mental welfare the judges must consider their prizewinning poems to improve.”
Rest assured, when Gass uses “People’s” as an adjective, he means it as a pejorative.
While we’re on classical Gass and his opinions (the man does not lack!), he despises the present tense. (Should I say he despised the present tense?) Many poets, on the other hand, seem to love it as much as the dish did the spoon (hey diddle, diddle).
March, the Season of Mud (or “mudluscious,” as edward estlin might say), gives us but one holiday: St. Patrick’s Day. Call the famous beer mix a “black and tan” at your own risk (at least in Ireland). Half and half, that’s called!
And I have no idea what “Erin Go Bragh!” means, but I do know this much about the 17th: If you’re not Irish, fake it.
Enya: Flash in the pan, or talent?
The world is divided into two kinds of poetry lovers: Those who see Rupi Kaur as a “gateway poet” leading our youth to better things, and those who see Rupi Kaur as a gateway (in need of oil).
Credit where it’s due: Some “Instagram Poets” (anything like the “Lake Poets”?) are making more hay than their more conventionally-published brethren (ahem).
I love the word “brethren.” I like it’s sound: “Brethren.”
I am dabbling in Inscape, a meditation app that I borrowed my wife’s iPad to use (as I have no cellphone). The lady who leads you through your meditative practice has a lovely voice (making her my brethren), a lovely accent (though I can’t place the country), and a peculiar way of saying “nose” (like it’s the plural of “no”).
For those keeping score, so far it’s Monkey Mind 56, Me 0.
Goodreads, Amazon’s latest glom, recently switched its Goodreads Giveaway program for authors from free to $119 a shot (make that $599 for a “premium Giveaway,” because the word “premium” is expensive). Each GR author sees an “Authors & Advertisers” blog on his or her Author Dashboard. And Goodreads invites comments to these blog entries, of course — except for posts about the Goodreads Giveaway program. Comments are mysteriously closed on those posts.
Amazon, champions of freedom of speech! (Care for a little verbal irony with your coffee this morning?)
A good day’s reading, suggested dosage one poem each: Galway Kinnell, Jane Kenyon, Jack Gilbert, Robert Frost, Wislawa Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert, Marie Howe, Jane Hirshfield, James Wright, and Tony Hoagland. With plenty of liquids and lots of bedrest.
I’m never quite ready for the surprise question: “Name your favorite poem.” Even if you tell me in advance.
Best headline seen the past month, from Charles M. Blow of the New York Times: “America Is a Gun.”
I recall the line “Pass, crow…” from a poem, but cannot recall the poem itself. That doesn’t stop me from talking to the birds in question, occasionally: “Pass, crow,” I say. They laugh in their crow kind of way.
I had to look up “pablum” for the headline of this post. Just to make sure. You know. Teflon again. But I had it right. “Trite, insipid, simplistic writing.” First drafts, in other words.

How To Be a Poet

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The old joke goes: “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.” And, of course, any word could be substituted for “doctor”–even “poet.”

Wendell Berry’s poem “How To Be a Poet” got me to thinking: Is there, as with Taoism, a “way”? When my students insist they cannot write poetry, I show them Naomi Shihab Nye’s One Boy Told Me, a found poem consisting of wonder straight from the mouth of her young son.

“We’re all poets when we’re little,” she says. For young writers who all share on their résumés this thing called “childhood,” it’s helpful. Each student can recollect things they said and noticed as a kid, and if they can’t, they need only interview their parents for homework and come back “poets” the next day!

But back to Wendell Berry. His “how-to” is more poetic, as you might expect. Thus, would-be poets thinking in terms of black berets, happening cafés, and certain prescribed ways need not apply. If muses could be bought in a bottle, after all, every alchemist would sell them.

How To Be a Poet
(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.

Sit down. Be quiet.

You must depend upon

affection, reading, knowledge,

skill—more of each

than you have—inspiration,

work, growing older, patience,

for patience joins time

to eternity. Any readers

who like your poems,

doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath

the unconditioned air.

Shun electric wire.

Communicate slowly. Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

Stay away from anything

that obscures the place it is in.

There are no unsacred places;

there are only sacred places

and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.

Make the best you can of it.

Of the little words that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays,

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came.

The last two lines are a bit like a koan: “make a poem that does not disturb / the silence from which it came.”

Meditate on that, grasshopper. Then see if you can figure your own way to be a poet, for someone else’s way is never yours. If that comes as some disappointment to you, trust me. You’ll be better for it in the long run.

Marie Howe Teaches Us How

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You meet new old poets in the strangest ways. A “new old” poet is not something found in the oxymoron section of Dewey’s Decimals, but rather an established poet who is new to you (a great name for a consignment store).

My daughter, who likes to gift me poetry, gave me a copy of the new book Magdalene, by Marie Howe for my recent birthday. Ostensibly about the Biblical character, this short book, every poem double-spaced, is more about Marie Howe, mother, and the everyday questions of wonder she gets from her daughter. These questions allow her to contrast the vast questions of life with the simple, quotidian ones of childhood. The chasm is vast–and grist for Howe’s mill.

Here is a poem from Magdalene right up my wheel house (and why I have a domicile for wheels is beyond me). See if you like it, too:

October by Marie Howe

The first cold morning, the little pumpkins lined up at the corner market, and

the girl walks along Hudson Street to school and doesn’t look back.

The old sorrow blows in with the scent of wood smoke

as I walk up the five flights to our apartment and lean hard against

the broken dishwasher so it will run. Then it comes to me: Yes I’ll die,

so will everyone, so has everyone. It’s what we have in common.

And, for a moment, the sorrow ceased, and I saw that it hadn’t been sorrow

after all, but loneliness, and for a few moments, it was gone.

The double-spaced couplets, as is. The quotidian subject of seeing a daughter off to school and returning to an empty apartment, as is. And the swallow-me-alive topic of death, as… is? Maybe not.

Thus, the balancing act of these poems. I’m looking forward to Marie Howe’s opus. It is, as they say, in the mail and heading my way, even as I type….

Listening Two Ways at Poetry Readings

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falling awake

This blog isn’t subtitled “Updates on a Free-Verse Life” for nothing. It would be a lie to call it “Updates on a Rhyming-Couplet Life.” I’m about as devoid of rhyming as a guy can get.

Confession: When I listen to a poem, I often don’t even notice the rhyme scheme. Instead, I notice “pleasant sounds.” Somehow I feel a bit guilty about this, but without the visuals, I cannot “see” how these rhymes are lining up, and the slant rhymes vs. true rhymes get muddled in my head because I’m too busy listening for meaning to bother with the sounds. They’re more background music, in many cases darn good background music (elevators need not apply).

Of course, if I have a copy of the poem in front of me while the reader reads it, it’s a whole new ball game. But that’s seldom the case when it comes to poetry readings. It’s all on the ears.

As for the eyes, some listeners might wisely choose to close them. After all, some readers’ gestures and facial expressions can distract you from the meaning.

But here you are saying, “Hold on, Sir. Even with your eyes shut, you can be distracted–by the way the poet reads the poem.”

Point taken. But wouldn’t it be double jeopardy if the reader were both histrionic with the voice and overdramatic with the body? Lord.

What about quiet readers, you ask? It’s a trick some believe in: Read more softly and the audience will listen for your words harder. They’ll lean in.

But… what if you overdo your trick and speak so softly that even the most disciplined listeners miss words? In this way, both sotto and voce can amount to a trap (albeit a Latin one, which is lovely in its ancient way).

Maybe I should just admit it. I am an undisciplined listener. Exhibit A is this poem by Alice Oswald. I heard her read it on-line thanks to a link provided by my virtual Goodreads friend, Trish, on her blog, The Bowed Bookshelf. (Scroll down and give it a listen.)

I loved it on first listen, and I noticed how sonorous it was to the ear. But rhymed couplets? I whiffed on that observation.

Of course, you’re forewarned here, so the listening test is ruined for you. Still, if you’ve been to readings, you probably have learned to listen either two ways (unlike me) or one (like me). I listen for enjoyment and comprehension. I’m not, at the same time, mentally analyzing what’s going on with the poem.

Whether I am the exception or the rule, I cannot say. How about you?

Note: After following the above link for a listen, enjoy Oswald’s poem below. It’s taken from her book of the same title, published by W.W. Norton & Company.

“A Short Story of Falling” by Alice Oswald

It is the story of the falling rain

to turn into a leaf and fall again

it is the secret of a summer shower

to steal the light and hide it in a flower

and every flower a tiny tributary

that from the ground flows green and momentary

is one of water’s wishes and this tale

hangs in a seed-head smaller than my thumbnail

if only I a passerby could pass

as clear as water through a plume of grass

to find the sunlight hidden at the tip

turning to seed a kind of lifting rain drip

then I might know like water how to balance

the weight of hope against the light of patience

water which is so raw so earthy-strong

and lurks in cast-iron tanks and leaks along

drawn under gravity towards my tongue

to cool and fill the pipe-work of this song

which is the story of the falling rain

that rises to the light and falls again

Frank Stanford: Dreamer, Poet

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I’ve been reading the collected works, published and unpublished, of Frank Stanford, in a book called What About This. He is a voice from the 70s, one cut short by his suicide at age 29.

The tome, over 700 pages long, is evidence that Stanford wrote a lot in his abbreviated life. A lot. As you know, productivity on that scale could be good and it could be bad. Reading the poems of this man I’d never heard of (I simply pulled it off the library shelf out of curiosity), I was intrigued by the thin line between good and bad he walked. I also appreciated how his work developed over time.

Here’s a short poem from his first book, The Singing Knives, that intrigued me:

The Minnows by Frank Stanford

If I press
on its head,
the eyes
will come out
like stars.
The ripples
it makes
can move
the moon.

In short order, you see Stanford’s raw skills for imagery and metaphor. You don’t have to be a Southern boy (Stanford was born in Mississippi and grew up in Arkansas) to recall the effect of pressing your thumb on a minnow’s head before placing it on a hook. And the image, reminiscent of the ancient Chinese poets, of the moon moving on the water like a shimmering white thread is lovely.

Here’s another, from his book, Shade:

This Conflict by Frank Stanford

A body with very few clothes
An old radio
Some apples
You get to eat
as many slices of bacon as you want
the morning of a home game
The way his sweater smells
It gets so hot it smokes
After awhile
just when Sam Cooke’s new song
comes on
Worms and a homely girl from Texas
who can read quicker than you
Good marks
and a lost crop
like a whole season
that passed without a letter
from my brother

Stanford’s poems are choppy and often have a dream-like quality. He often dispenses with punctuation. That said, you can learn from him. Even if the poems are difficult to interpret, they never lack for concrete images. If these be dreams, they are sharply-drawn dreams, dreams we can see and smell, touch and taste, listen to at our leisure.

Like many artistic talents, Stanford was dogged by depression, it would seem. Death is a recurring presence, often personified, in his poetry. Stanford thought a lot about the hooded one before taking a gun to himself in 1978. Here’s an example from 1975’s Arkansas Bench Stone:

Shed by Frank Stanford

The old woman washed my socks
Light went through my hair
Like a school of minnows

Death had a socket wrench
That’d fit any nut
He knows a little tune
You can’t carry

Death say he give you credit
You better not sign

A journey is just like a journey
The so-called mystery of death
Will run you about an even seven bucks
Go ahead and see
This includes a washtub of beer
Advice on love
Snake oil on your tally-whacker

Wind blows over our plots
Whistling up the butt of our deaths
I could be anywhere
Wind on the island at night
Not the schoolbell full of mud

Another trait of Stanford is the mystery of connection between titles and poems. More often than not, the poem’s title provided little guidance—at least that I could see, especially as Stanford developed as a poet.

Reading his collected work, good or bad, mysterious or commonplace, is instructive. Stanford is different, and every difference teaches you something if you are willing to learn and not judge.

Reading Frank Stanford’s poetry, like reading so many others’ poetry, is truly like panning for gold—labor-intensive, but worth your time.

Why Is This Writer So Embarrassed?

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embarrassed

Embarrassment. Like death and taxes, it’s universal, only Ben Franklin overlooked it. Embarrassment is the title and subject of Thomas Newkirk’s latest book, and although the target audience is teachers of students whose learning is compromised due to the big “E,” it might as well be dedicated to all of us, especially writers and poets who put themselves out there each time they share or publish one of their works.

First, let’s look at the schools we all went through. Then, let’s draw parallels to writing. In school, there are many ways in which embarrassment yanks the reins on learning. As a reader, consider the moments you were forced to read aloud in class and tripped over or mispronounced words. Ouch. As a writer, consider the moments your paper was red-inked by the teacher or the moment your work ran the gauntlet called “public critique” in writer’s group. Ouch again.

Public speaking? I need not go into details. Being called on when you never raised your hand? Uh- and -oh. Listening but not getting it? Been there, done that (think math class). And, as Newkirk emphasizes with studies to back himself up, all of this embarrassment is magnified ten times by our stubborn conviction that everyone in the room is focused on our missteps, hesitations, incorrect answers, horrible writings, etc. Not true, of course, but the self is a mighty deceiver.

Writers and poets? They suffer embarrassment each time they share their work and the response is “I don’t get it” or “What is this about?” In fact, Newkirk champions the late Don Murray, a fellow University of New Hampshire professor, who often used the line “What is this about?” as a start when offering feedback. The follow-up from Murray, after listening to the writer’s embarrassed sputtering, was often, “If that is what it’s about, you don’t really get there until about page 5.” (Poets, you may substitute “stanza 5,” “line 15,” or whatever applies.)

So, yes, the very first step in finding your work a reader (for otherwise it is the falling tree that makes no sound) involves inevitable, if often well-intentioned, criticisms.

Surely getting a poem published in a journal changes everything, right? Wrong.

What if you read your own work in a journal and find it “looks different” or that it “doesn’t seem as impressive as it did on my computer monitor” — especially if you are reading it months after it was accepted (and you will be).

Time loves to embarrass you. No, I don’t mean things like wrinkles on your skin, a balding pate or white hairs, I mean your written work when it mischievously decides to look different from when you last set eyes on it.

What about when you get a book published? Are you immune? Safe at the plate? Not if you follow reviews. Surely there is someone who is bound to find your work so-so or even horrible, especially if they are comparing you to Keats and Coleridge and Frost (and some of them will).

What about when your book isn’t read (and the book you gave to Aunt Mae doesn’t count)? What if you ask yourself, “Why aren’t people reading my book? It took me months (or years) to write! It’s actually pretty damn good!” and the response is only people promising to read the book (so easy to do) but not actually following through (making them a breed apart).

It gets you thinking. And you KNOW what happens when you get to thinking! It’s Negative You that gets to do the thinking. Thoughts like: “Shoot. Maybe I’m kidding myself. Maybe this writing actually sucks after all.”

Next thing you know, like some blamed fool, you look at your sales numbers on Amazon dot all-is-never-calm. Lord. What could be more embarrassing than that? The wise athletes never listen to sports talk on the radio or read Twitter with their names hash tagged, so why would any writer make like a chump and look at his Amazon all-is-not-calm sales numbers as they make like inflation and head for the skies? Rhetorical question, I assure you.

Newkirk counsels self-generosity in his book. He argues that embarrassment is human nature and universal. And, most refreshingly, he uses himself as an example multiple times. He is shy. He doubts himself regularly. And yet, to the outsider or to someone watching him present at a conference, he comes across as a confident and successful professor / author.

In truth? Not quite. And for all of us who put ourselves out there with such little support and encouragement and even readers, it is a form of consolation. We’re not alone. We’re in this together. And, as we learned so well in schools (better, in fact, than what we were taught), embarrassment is life–as writers, life magnified multiple times.

So go ahead. Write, send it out, and doubt yourself. That’s the tour of duty you signed up for and part of the blushing game….

“All Writers Are Amateurs…”

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Readers love to read books about books, of course. And writers? They love to read about writers. Given the chance to interview an established author, developing and wannabe writers would most likely ask about routine and habit, as if it were some elixir they could purchase in aisle 7 of the local pharmacy, drink, and–voilà!–be not only published but famous.

This all came to mind as I was reading Karl Ove Knausgaard’s mini-essay, “Habits,” in his book, Winter. Here’s Karl Ove now:

“For some reason writers are often asked about their routines and habits, such as what time they get up to write, whether they write by hand or on a computer, whether there is something they can’t do without while they are writing. What it is about the writer’s role in particular that awakens public interest in their daily lives is hard to say, but there must be something, since this doesn’t happen with other comparable professions. Maybe it has to do with the fact that everyone can write and read while at the same time there is something exalted about the role of the writer, and that this gap, which seems incomprehensible, must be bridged. Or it may have to do with the fact that writing is voluntary, and that a person who writes can always refrain from doing so, which is unthinkable in the case of an employee, and therefore obscure or tempting. When I was young I read interviews of writers with avid interest. I wasn’t looking for a method, I don’t think; what I wanted to find out was rather what it took. A pattern, a common denominator: what makes a writer a writer? Now I know that all writers are amateurs, and that perhaps the only thing they have in common is that they don’t know how a novel, a short story or poem should be written. This fundamental uncertainty creates a need for habits, which are nothing other than a framework, scaffolding around the unpredictable….”

For Karl Ove, then, confusion and uncertainty heighten the natural human desire for order, structure, and scaffolding. Such logic brings Apollonian design into the messy Dionysian debris of creativity.

I especially like two points here. One about every writer, known and un-, being a mere amateur. That’s one box the wannabe can check! The other about everyone knowing how to read and write. Well, most bodies, if not every body. Not everybody knows how to paint, after all, or how to build a house or fly an airplane. Thus, the line of wannabes in those professions is considerably shorter.

Humans, as a defensive mechanism, have a quite high estimation of themselves. Therefore, if they can write, they are wont to say, “Why not me?” From there, it’s just a simple case of yes, reading a lot, but also of scrutinizing what famous writers “do,” right down to the mundane and banal.

To say, “Writers write” is rather boring and obvious, so the mystery of their success must be the hour they wake (say, 4 a.m.), the tools they use (say, a keyboard and screen), the ritual they follow (say, read a little King James Version of the Bible before beginning to write), the potions they drink (say, a little inspirational black coffee, no additions), the amount of time they spend at it (say, three hours straight before a dozen push-ups and a breakfast of eggs sunny-side up).

Carefully taking notes, the as yet undiscovered writer then mimics his hero, sends out his work, and awaits the editorial hosannahs and contracts. And that’s that. Until it doesn’t work. In which case, it must be the habits of another writer that are right. It’s only a question of finding that writer.

So if you’ll pardon me, I think I’ll put on U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and continue the search….