Intertextuality

You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

Daily writing prompt
You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?
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You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?

The End.

Why did I write that? Because I like reading T. S. Eliot – Four Quartets – “In my beginning is my end.” If that statement be true, then, ipso facto, The End must be my first sentence, because that’s my beginning. Eliot converted to Catholicism – and, according to the Jesuits, “The end justifies the means” – so, when we start with the end we are justifying the writing (the means) of all that led us there.

You don’t like my logic, you say? Why not? It is as straight as the corkscrew I hold in my hand when I am threatening to add the contents of a bottle of wine to my autobiography. Is a bottle’s end in it’s beginning? Of course it is. If you don’t open the bottle, you can’t finish it. If you don’t start it, you cannot end it, so in the beginning lies the end.

Oh the mysteries of mysticism, those truths that know no logic and follow no known paths from their beginning (via purgativa), through their middle (via iluminativa), to their end (via unitiva). Or is life and truth a circle that has no end? In which case wherever I begin the circle of my autobiography, there too is my end.

In my end is my beginning and in my beginning is my end.

Mors omnia solvit.
The End.

Who are your favorite people to be around?

Daily writing prompt
Who are your favorite people to be around?
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Who are your favorite people to be around?

Creatives – because creative people need support in their creativity and need to believe in themselves and in their creations. I wrote two days ago about Rejections and Silence – while both are needed by creatives – rejections to help perfect and polish – and silence in which to create – too many rejections and too much silence can result in alienation, depression, and the suppression of creative acts.

“We few, we happy few, we band of siblings!” Not quite what Harry said before the Battle of Agincourt, yet can we, the readers, be absolutely certain that what Shakespeare said he said was actually what he said? But we share the spirit of creativity with creators big and small, famous, infamous, and struggling. That is why we need to band together, to support each other, and to ensure that creativity isn’t killed by the straitjacket of a nine to five job, or longer, or the multi-employment that has become so necessary just to survive in our diminished and diminishing world.

“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?” wrote W. H. Davies, one of the great Welsh poets. And he concluded this poem with a parallel couplet: “A sad life this, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”

I hope you like the painting that heads this prompt that is turning into a joyous rant. It is by one of my creative friends, the poet-painter Moo. He calls it Spotted Coppers and he painted it last night after watching the Midsomer Murders episode that dealt with the theft of valuable Spotted Copper Butterflies. Intertextuality – one text leads to another, and the butterfly becomes a TV episode becomes a painting by a friend becomes a rant prompted by my computer and written by me.

That is the circle of creativity and it blends into the circle of friendships, and creative artists are both competitors and friends, for “whether creativity survives or no, I’m sure is only touch and go.” Another line that another great Welsh poet, this time Dylan Thomas of Swansea, might almost have said.

So, who are my favorite people to be around? Creative people, of course, with all their passions, energy, warts, flaws, and their constant need of encouragement and support.

What relationships have a positive impact on you?

Daily writing prompt
What relationships have a positive impact on you?
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What relationships have a positive impact on you?
I think one of my poems answers this question best. I write “one of my poems” but it is really my ‘free’ translation of one of Francisco de Quevedo’s sonnets – Retirado en la paz de estos desiertos. I have changed the poem slightly, but I am sure Don Francisco (1580-1645) will excuse Don Roger’s impoverished effort (2023).

On Loneliness
29 December 2023

Resting in the peace of these small rooms,
with few, but welcome books together,
I live in conversation with my friends,
and listen with my eyes to loving words.

Not always understood, but always there,
they influence and question my affairs,
and with contrasting points of view,
they wake me up, and make me more aware.

The wisdom of these absent friends,
some distant from me just because they’re dead,
lives on and on, thanks to the printed word.

Life flits away, the past can’t be retained.
each hour, once past, is lost and gone,
but with such friends, I’m never left alone.

The painting, by my friend Moo, is called Fiat Lux – Let There Be Light. It is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas’s poem, Light breaks where no light shines. Intertextuality – Quevedo drew inspiration from the Stoics. I drew inspiration from Quevedo. Moo drew inspiration from Dylan Thomas. The nature of creativity and its continuing links throughout the ages shines clearly through these wonderful associations.