Literary Theory

Dialogue: Wednesday’s Workshop

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Dialog / Dialogue

The Tuesday night writing group that I meet with is very small. It currently consists of four members (Chuck, John, Kevin, and Roger), though it was larger. Several members dropped out for sundry reasons, but we four get on well and we have continued our Tuesday sessions for a long time now. We usually concentrate on discussions, sharing ideas, and encouragement rather than on anything else. We also share work in progress by e-mail for commentary online and we throw out current writing difficulties for discussion by the group. We also indulge in other activities. For example, on Monday last, John, one of the group members, visited me at home and kindly showed me how to process a manuscript for publication on Amazon’s CreateSpace. This was a first for me, though John, a very accomplished writer, has some twenty novels published in this fashion.

I thought it might be of interest to set out elements of the discussion that took place yesterday evening at The Second Cup Coffee Shop. Here are the notes, slightly amplified, that I sent round the group.

  1. We began by asking Chuck if he had benefitted from the previous week’s conversation, when he had set out a problem situation from his novel that we had all explored. He outlined briefly how he had responded to our suggestions.
  2. He then noted that some people can write dialogue with ease, others can’t, and illustrated this with info from a workshop he had given in which 13 of the 14 submitted manuscripts were narratives without dialog, and only one contained dialogue.
  3. This led us in several different directions and we opened with using telephone messages as a means of conveying information and also as a back up to “mysterious” dialog –can you hear both ends of the conversation?
  4. This in turn developed into texting and tweeting and electronics and from here we talked about the potentially deleterious effects of social media on conversational skills, and hence lack of dialog in society.
  5. Computer techniques and knowledge at a cross-words + game play + thought play + voice interaction to rival or replace writing novels came into the conversation and we added some comments on writing by dictation and computer transcribing of voice.
  6. The question of the historical development of the Dialogue form was opened: can Plato’s dialogues be considered monologues since many of the responses to Socrates are of the ‘yessir, nossir, three bags full sir” variety. We talked about creating action via dialogue and compared the modern newscast to the Medieval visitor who tells his audience what happened ‘over there’ and answered questions set by them. We also mentioned some dialogued novels of the 15th 16th C.
  7. The transition of the Quixote from single character (I, 1-5) to double character (the rest of the book) and the important role that dialogue played in the development of Cervantes’s novel also came forward. This led to the use and development of dialogue in other novels. We discussed dialogue on TV with reference to As Time Goes By and the Midsomer Murders. We discussed dialogue as a composite of what is said, how it is said, how it is delivered, and we emphasized the importance of timing of dialogue.
  8. We ended with a brief discussion of the age effect and development of narrative and dialog in children, especially in light of the effects of electronics on young developing minds and the substitution of screen for dialog.

Kevin was absent last night, but John and Chuck agreed to contribute a paragraph each in which they show their use of dialogue. I have added a poem in dialogue, just for the fun of showing a different usage. These are by no means state of the art models of how to proceed. They are examples of the type of work we are doing. Electronic links follow each example where appropriate.

Chuck Bowie: Steal it all.

“You know you got off lucky, Hendricks. It would have been so much easier, and given me so much more pleasure to have put the two slugs through that melon of yours. Now, get up. I want your seat.” While he spoke, he drew the blind closed. Walking over to the side of the small room, he turned off the ceiling light, leaving them with just the desk lamp to view one another.

Ace hauled his massive bulk out of the chair and shuffled around to the side of the office nearest the door. He eased into a dusty metal chair, taking care to avoid touching anything with his right arm.

“Tell me this.” Donovan waved his gun at the arm. “Why is it when a guy hurts his arm, he limps? I never figured that out.” This elicited another curse from Hendricks, and his attacker tossed him a roll of paper towels, which he failed to catch. Both ignored the useless roll as it found its way into a corner of the office.

“I’m very interested to hear your story, Ace. You’ve hurt a lot of people, some of them my friends. Want to talk about it?”

“You go square to ‘ell. My men’ll be here in a minute, and that’ll be the last of you, mate.”

Donovan shook his head.

“You have no more men. They’re all dead. Twelve separate industrial accidents, is how I heard it. Plus the scum you sent to kill Gemma. She weighs one hundred-fifteen pounds, by the way. Just before she killed him with her bare hands, he probably apologized to every woman and child he ever bullied. Nope, all you have left is that old

man, tied up by the garbage bin outside. And your millions. Um, nope, you no longer have that, either. Shit, you’re not really in good shape, my friend.

“But here’s what I can do for you. I can kill you, to save you the mortification of seeing your failure in tomorrow’s headlines. Is now a good time?”

Hendricks shook his head, unsure if Donovan was serious. The cloth around his elbow had darkened, and a drop or two had begun to puddle on the floor beside him.

“Okay, then. Here’s what I’m willing to do. I’ll name a name, and you’ll tell me the story. The more names you chat about, the longer you get to live.”

 

Buy Link for Steal It All:

https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Chuck+Bowie

John Sutherland: Convergence of Fates.

Before he drove off he decided to make another call. He’d better report what he had learned, to the Park Rangers in the Clark National Park. They’d had a bear go missing a couple of weeks earlier. The phone rang a few times before it was answered.

“Is Scott there, please?” Then, he recognized the voice.

“Melissa, it’s you” He identified himself. “Charlie Easton. Hudgin’s Mills. Remember that bear you told us to watch for, about ten days ago?”

He didn’t need to say any more, and nodded in response to her suddenly pointed questions, interrupting what he had been ready to say. Why anyone would nod into a telephone seemed a strange thing to do, but it was a reflexive action.

“It might be here. Hudgin’s Mills. At least, close to it. I just took two people into hospital. One of them had been attacked by a bear.” He listened for a while and responded as far as he could, giving her more details about his injuries.  She seemed satisfied that it had been a bear attack.

“Yes I can show you where I picked them up.” He listened further. “I don’t have a clue who he is, but I know the young woman. Susan Whitcomb. She’s….” Melissa seemed to know her, but of course she did; they were related in some way through her grandmother. He continued to nod.

“The Rollins road, ten miles out of town. The young man was pretty torn up, and bleeding like a stuck pig, but….”

Melissa cut into what he was saying and asked those questions important to her, getting the responses she needed to hear.

“It must have happened not long before I picked them up. Ten, maybe twenty minutes before. He was still bleeding. He didn’t say much, but he was conscious all of the drive in. I couldn’t see any injuries on her.

“It could be your bear. I thought I’d better tell you. From the looks of them, they should both be in the hospital for a day or two at least, maybe a week, for him, so you have time.” He listened further, and looked out at the weather.

“Rollins Road,” he repeated. “Where the river comes closest to the road and before it joins the main channel. Ten miles out, where it’s fordable. There’s only one place it does that. They were both wet, so they had waded across that river.”

He saw a flash of light and then heard a rumble of thunder about five seconds later (his subconscious told him it was about a mile away), and then responded again.

“I don’t know. You’d have to talk to him to find out where, exactly. You could probably follow his blood trail back on the other side of the river and find out, except for this rain. There’s only that one shallow place where they could have crossed, but it might not be passable by morning if we get the amount of rain they’re forecasting.

“If you call the Hospital in a couple of hours, they might be able to tell you something by then. Ask for Doctor Lewis. That young man I brought in might even be able to talk to you, if they let him. I’ll be home about midnight. You can call me there in the morning if you need my help to show you.”

From what Melissa said, Scott, her husband, the man to hunt that bear down, was already fairly close to Hudgin’s Mills on other business, so he’d be on his way as soon as she talked to him, and she wouldn’t be far behind.

“In the morning then.”

Charlie rang off, and decided that he should make one more call before he headed out.

https://www.amazon.com/John-K-Sutherland/e/B007C8DCCQ

 

Roger Moore: Monkey Temple.

 

Monkey FAQs
(with apologies to all those who draw them up
at their work place, knowing they will never be read)

“What news from the ark?”

“Only the dark waves pounding the hull, the wet winds blowing.”

“Who placed the whale ribs on this mountain
and called them a cathedral?”

“Sunshine blossoms through hollow vaults and shadows shimmer.
The day is striped across my back
and I bear its weight like a beast of burden.”

“When the anvil rings out, will the armorers appear?”

“When I snatched a blade of grass, its fine glass sliced my finger.
Yet, when I grasped the nettle, its swan-song perished in sunlight.”

 “Who will forge chains for sun and moon?

“The peregrine falcon slices my eye in two and I am a mole,
blind with a weather’s wind.”

“Who will carve a cell door for errant stars?”

“I snuffle round the tightness of the temple clock:
its legion of Roman numerals marches to the beat
of a dull, dry pendulum.”

“Why are there no birds in last year’s nests?”

“The ox tongue sandwich on which I snack
talks back to the lettuce and salt clogs the tomato.”

“Why are you avoiding these questions?”

“Speak up: the wind is high. I can no longer hear you.”

This Kevin Stephen’s  excerpt from DiAngelo: Revelations

“Can we talk Mel?” asked Caitlyn.

“Are we not? What is your mind?”

“I’m getting bad readings, like all the time, but you’ve been busy or gone for the last couple of weeks so I couldn’t talk to you.”

“Why not talk on our road trip?”

“Because. Everyone would think I sucked if I said that Tarot reading was confusing. Alex wouldn’t let me live it down.”

“Well, things are being… Vse ne tak. Crazy? For me lately. I have this moment. Ask your question.”

“For the last few weeks the Moon, the Hanged Man, and the Seven of Cups all came up in the same three positions, six, nine, and ten for everyone.”

“It is not impossible for people to be having same cards. Who is saying people do not have same outlook?”

“Well, in the last two weeks more than sixty people have had the same reading. You think that’s normal? I thought it might the sign of an impending natural disaster but then Roan came along.

“I thought the shared experience had passed when Roan pulled different cards but then he pulled the Death card in position nine time and time again. He even had that card face up when he drew a second copy of it. I didn’t have two Deaths in the deck but he really did look as surprised as I was. It had to have been a prank right? That’s what Fran thought.”

Writer’s Block

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Writer’s Block

Every day, well, almost every day, I meet people who tell me that they cannot write anymore. They have abandoned their current project. They sit in their work space and stare at blank screens or empty walls. They have come face to face with the dreaded Writer’s Block.

While some consider Writer’s Block to be an actual illness, others flaunt it like a flag or a badge of honor:

“Don’t touch me — I’ve got Writer’s Block: I wouldn’t want you to catch it.”

“I’m having a bad week: I’ve got Writer’s Block.”

“Sorry, I can’t make the writer’s meeting, I’ve got Writer’s Block.”

According to Wikipedia, “Writer’s block is a condition, primarily associated with writing, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work or experiences a creative slowdown. The condition ranges in difficulty from coming up with original ideas to being unable to produce a work for years. Throughout history, writer’s block has been a documented problem.”

We have probably all experienced the sensation of being unable to write, unable to think, unable to continue. I have found that it happens frequently in examinations with young students whose minds suddenly go blank when faced by a white page and an awkward question. This form of Writer’s Block comes at the most unfortunate times. Students need to be switched on just when their minds switch off. And something similar happens to writers.

Examination Block can be overcome. In many cases careful preparation for an exam will reduce or eliminate examination block. These preparations may well include correct pre-examination note-taking and revision procedures, no last minute all-night study the night before the exam, a good night’s sleep, proper food, water, and appropriate physical exercises before the exam starts. All these things prepare both body and mind and free the student for that most important task: the struggle with the blank page and the awkward question.

Will a set of pre-writing preparations work for Writer’s Block?

In order to answer this question, I would rather take a different approach. Instead of seeing Writer’s Block as a physical / mental presence that stops us writing, why not look at it as an absence that can be overcome.

What can we call that absence? Personally, I look upon it as an absence of creativity. If the creativity isn’t there, then writing creatively won’t happen. So what do we do?

Let us define creativity. For me, creativity is the expression of the creative principle that dwells within all of us. It is there, within us. We may suppress it or we may let it be suppressed. We may ignore it or we may deny it: but it is still there. It is always there. Sometimes it is beaten out of us; or we think it is. But it is still there, beneath the surface, waiting to be called on. The Roman poets spoke of it as Deus est in nobis … the God that dwells within us.

Creativity, for me, is like a river that vanishes underground and then reappears: it will be back.

The most important thing in my opinion is what you do when you’re not writing, what you do when you’re faced with that wall of blackness, what you do when you stare at that blank screen and nothing makes your fingers dance on the key board.

Here’s what I do. I make up my mind not to force myself to be creative. Forget about writing. Do something else. Ignore all idea of Writer’s Block, or the End of the World, or the Imminent Disaster of not being able to write. It may take a mental effort, but forget about it.

Now do something else, something positive. Different people respond to different stimuli. Here’s what I do.

(1) I read books

I read other people in their creative moments. I love reading people who write in other languages that I speak and read, because my own mind tries to recreate their images, their stories. This re-creation is a form of creation in itself. New words, new ideas, new combinations, rise to the surface of the mind, like bubbles on a river.

(2) I color and draw

As any who have seen my drawings know, I cannot draw. However, I can take a line for a walk. And that’s what I do. Then I color the spaces I create. My friends thought I was wasting my time and I believed them until I read one of Matisse’s sayings: “My ambition: to liberate color, to make it serve both as form and content.” Voilà: I have my raison d’être. Nature abhors a vacuum. When you create a space, color and meaning rush in.

(3) I take photos

The capturing of a moment: a sunset, a new bird at the feeder, deer wandering through the garden, a black bear visiting, rain on a spider web, sunlight through a prism, a cat made out of cherry stones … the re-creation of the moment is the creation of the memory. More bubbles flow on the surface of the stream.

(4) I go for a walk, look at nature and the world around me, people too

It is incredibly important to do this. A visit to the local coffee shop, a walk around the super-market or corner store, a seat in the park on a sunny day … just be, watch, relax, look and listen, empty yourself, let the world flow back in … look at the ducks on the lake or the goldfish in the tank … more bubbles on the water, more ideas floating down the stream …

(5) I listen to music

De gustibus non disputandum … we can’t argue about taste. Where music goes, to each his or her own … the music I like fills my mind, relaxes me, flows out when it ends, takes my mind for a walk and leaves … a vacuum … into which dreams and colors, words and ideas, build like clouds …

(6) I cook

Cooking has always relaxed me. Sometimes the repeating of an old recipe helps clear my mind. Sometimes I have a need to invent something new. Hands and mind occupied, the secret, sacred underground river of creativity flows on …

(7) I sew

Last summer, an unexpected event led me to join a quilting group … oh what fun … a man quilting among a dozen women … I learned so many things … so many different ways of looking at the world … so many concepts that I would never have dreamed of on my own … Sewing runs in the family: I still have my grandfather’s sewing kit … darning and sewing needles that served him for two years before the mast … that darned his socks as he survived in the trenches of the First World War … it bears his name and I use it with pride … and what memories arise in my mind as I choose the needle … his needle … the one that will lead me into the next adventure, be it quilt, button or patch …

(8) I keep a journal

… and come hell or high water, I write in it every day and have done so since 1985. That’s 31 years during which I have scarcely missed a day. The writing maybe banal, it may be nothing but a note on the weather or a comment on a sporting event … but it’s there … a vital challenge to the idea that Writer’s Block can take me over and can win. This journal is 95% drivel … maybe more … but bobbing along the stream of words are ideas, verses, rhyme schemes, choruses, stories, flashes of inspiration, jokes, memories, magic moments, falling stars, … the secret is to catch these falling stars, to recognize these rough diamonds and to return to them and polish when the moment is ripe … and it will be, sooner or later … for bubbles are buoyant and will lift you to the stars.

(9) I believe

Through all this runs a thread of belief … belief that the black cloud of despair will not win. The Writer’s Block will go. Creativity will never be not lost. It is there, beneath the surface, always ready to be contacted, waiting to rise and take you over again. And all too soon and quite unexpectedly, one form of creativity slips into another and the creative writing (it never really went away because of the journal) comes back.

Writer’s Block: it does exist. It’s how we deal with it that’s important. Creativity rules: forget Writer’s Block and let creativity and the multiple ways back to creativity grow and flow. Sooner or later the clouds will lift, the sun will return, the block will unblock and the words will flow again.

Remember the words on the Roman sundial: Horas non numero nisi serenas … I count only the happy hours. And remember: the clouds will lift, the sun will return.

Trust me.

And believe.

Decisions

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Decisions

We make them all the time: what shirt to wear, jeans or dress pants, black of brown shoes, loafers or lace ups, sandals … socks or not … and then there’s breakfast … tea or coffee, cereal or toast, sugar or honey … most days, we don’t even realize we are making decisions. We certainly don’t need to write out a page of pros and cons in order to choose between coffee or tea …

Then there are the big decisions, like where to go next on this blog. I have been weighing up the pros and cons and I am finally getting close to a decision. My blogging possibilities include Literary Theory … Writing about Writing … How to Read … Revising Older Texts … Reading Don Quixote Online … Writing New Texts … Preparing Books for Publication Offline … These are much more difficult decisions but I must think about them and make them.

Literary Theory sounds good. But what do I know about it? Nothing but the dry academic literary theory of an abandoned academia that wasn’t really very interesting anyway. An occasional question arises in the blog world, one on which I feel competent to comment, and that for me, is the way I go with my literary theory: a quick response. All that academic literary theory is money in the savings bank that I can draw on if I, or anyone else, needs to access it. But to access it on a daily basis and pontificate my way to the limbo of a blogger’s boredom? I don’t think so!

Writing about Writing also sounds good, but in many ways it is a poor person’s literary theory, rather like literary theory without the long, obfuscating technical terms. Again, if the need is there, I can contribute; but it’s not the way I want to go, not here, not on this blog, not on this particular watch.

How to Read is a subject on which many books have been written and I recommend that all people not just read, but learn to read deeply and properly. In some cases, depending upon the quantity of material that crosses the computer screen (it used to be the desk), speed reading is essential and I recommend speed reading for everybody except poets and those who love poetry. To speed read a sonnet is not the way to go. I would love to sell the film rights to some of my sonnets, but apparently, that’s not the way to go either. Ah well, we can’t have everything …

Revising Older Texts is another excellent way to run a blog. The material is always there in one form (old) and the reworking of it into another form (new) is regular, instructive, and creative. I have done that on this blog with At the Edge of Obsidian > Obsidian’s Edge and loved both the process and the result. However, at least three of my commentators, Al Lane, Chuck Bowie and Kevin Stephens, suggested that the past is in the past and should remain there, while the future lies ahead of us and needs to be created. After much thought, I have come to the conclusion that Al and Chuck and Kevin are right. I will put older material up on the blog, but I will no longer review it for future re-publication, except in exceptional circumstances, and these are yet to be determined.

Reading Don Quixote Online has been in my wish bucket for a very long time. It is something that I would love to do one more time. I have already done online readings on several occasions. I have twice taught DQ in an online hybrid environment: hybrid — an online portion and an in-class face to face portion –. To return to DQ is, for me, to return to academia, an academia that I rejected several years ago. No: much as I would like to re-formulate this project and to lay out online my definitive This Is How To Read Don Quixote, I feel in so many ways, that this is not yet the time to do so. I want so much to turn back that particular clock, but I know how much work, reading, and commitment is needed and I am not yet ready. Perhaps, like the Flowers of Scotland, those days are past now and in the past they must remain. We’ll see. I checked my DQ notes last night … they are all there, ready and waiting … and I can set out on that adventure anytime … alas, through the mists of time, I can hear those bagpipes playing Will ye no come back again? I will, my friends, but not just yet.

Writing New Texts is fun. This is a new text and it is helping me to focus  on what I want and do not want to do. There is always room here for new texts. But new texts need revisiting and revising. Maybe some of my creative texts just aren’t ready for publication yet and yes, online writing is a form of publication. Thankfully I can revise these texts, and I may yet revise this one; indeed, I will probably come back both to this text and to these decisions. And maybe I won’t and that’s another decision for another day.

Preparing Books for Publication is where I am right now in my offline life and I think this is where I want to be online as well. I have two texts in preparation: Bistro (Flash Fiction) and Echoes of an Impromptu Metaphysics (poetry). I have thus far shared 17 pieces from Bistro on this blog. There are another 17 to go. Each time I prepare a piece of Flash Fiction for publication here, I re-read it, re-think, re-frame it, re-structure it, and re-write it. Those of you who know me offline are well aware of the nature of that re-processing. Sometimes the pieces are merely sharpened and polished; often they are totally re-written. And yes, when flaws are pointed out or doubts expressed, the texts are changed. I deeply value the comments of my below the line commentators. Echoes is the other text I need to re-write. I will share that online as well. The sharing will be difficult … Echoes is a difficult and very personal text … but it will be done.

Decisions have been taken and my thought process has been shared. There will be no turning back of the clock even though I am always looking over my shoulder. Here, then, are my decisions, but remember, they are always open to revision.

  1. I will re-publish on this blog Though Lovers Be Lost, one of my favorite poetry books. I will do this as and when necessary if I need more time between blogs with my re-writing.
  2. I will finish publishing the other stories from Bistro online on this blog as I prepare it for offline publication.
  3. I will start the re-write of Echoes online. I have been away from this book for about eight months now and re-reading it earlier today I saw how and where it could be improved.
  4. I will add in literary and philosophical commentaries when and where I see the need to do so. I consider this particular article to be a literary commentary with philosophical connotations, or is it the other way round? As an academic, I could prepare a treatise on the question; as a blogger, I can leave that question in the capable minds of those who read and follow this blog.

    Vale!
    Et vade mecum!

Writing: To Task or Multi-Task?

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Writing: Task or Multi-Task?

“To task or multi-task? That is the question.”

In the lonely world of creative writing, be it in poetry or in prose, is it better to continue with one text until the task of writing it is thoroughly finished? Or should we flit from text to text, developing several at once and thus multi-tasking in the best sense of the word? This is a key question in the revision process and relates directly to the concepts of write, re-write, revision, revisionism, and the creative process, all of which have been mentioned both in this blog and in the comments to this blog. However, there is no single answer to this seemingly either / or question as many factors must be considered.

  1. Deadlines:

Anyone who has worked with strict deadlines knows that they matter more than anything else. “I want this work on my desk by 4:00 pm today,” says the manager rubbing the magic bottle in which the genie is kept. “Yes, ma’am,” says the genie bowing before vanishing back into his bottle. Only one thing matters, the task in hand, and there can be no multi-tasking.

  1. Novellas and Novels:

With longer texts, while there might be room for manoeuver, provided no deadline is in sight, it is better by far to focus on the task in hand — the extended narrative — and to dedicate all tasking and multi-tasking to that prime task. The majority of writers who have written on the art of writing, including Stephen King, Graham Green, and E. M. Forster, emphasize the necessity of sticking at it, maintaining focus, and getting on with the task. Graham Green’s recommended approach is to write four to five pages a day, re-reading them and revising them the next day, before writing another four pages. That way the events, the action, the characters, are kept well in mind. In addition, Joan Clark and Norman Levine, in their workshops, advise writers to get to know their characters intimately, to think about them, and to write and rewrite until they come living from the page. Anyone who has taken a longish break and then returned to the writing of a novel knows just how difficult it is to get back into the mind of those characters. With an extended narrative, a dialog abandoned is a dialog lost. And one must learn to listen to one’s characters and to never forget what they have said, mustn’t one?.

  1. Poems, Prose Poems, and Flash Fiction:

This is where multi-tasking can truly take place. The brevity of these pieces, and I classify epic and extended poetry with narrative rather than with poetry, allows the writer time to pick the pieces up and put them down again, to play around, to abandon the text and to return to it later. Being shorter pieces by definition, one can re-read them with ease, correct them at leisure, and research around them with impunity. In an extended narrative, or when writing to a deadline, focus is necessary. With shorter pieces, easily recalled, procrastination is a pleasure, not a crime. With poetry, focus is sharper but for shorter periods.

  1. From Poem to Poetry Book:

As the poems accumulate and the writing, or rather the putting together, of the collection becomes more important, so the need to concentrate and single-task, rather than to procrastinate and multi-task becomes paramount.

These are my initial thoughts on Task or Multi-Task. What happens when we apply them in real life to real questions?

  1. On Revision (Chuck):

Will this exercise (revision of older texts) provide you more gratification than starting new ones that may or may not be so important to you?

The question of revision is key. While I would like to avoid revisionism (Al: There is value in showing poetry as a snapshot in time (if only to avoid endless revisionism), the question of how to revise a text is of maximum importance. The text to be revised may be old or it may be recent, but the act of revision — how and why and what to revise — is one that must concern us as writers if we are to eschew automatic writing in a search for le mot et la phrase justes. If I can learn from the revision of older texts what I need to look for in order to revise newer texts, then my search for a way in which to recognize and achieve better form of writing can be justified, for the techniques discovered can surely be applied to future texts as well as to past ones.

  1. The young Roger who was once you is no more (Kevin):

This is a beautiful thought: thank you, Kevin. Much of that earlier writing must stand as it is (and was) as a monument to what and who I was back then. However, some thoughts and phrasings may well be weak and need revision. The recognition of weakness and the realization of how to strengthen and how to renew is surely a part of our ongoing growing writing process. That is what I would argue, anyway. I would argue further that revision is NOT multi-tasking, but is single-tasking in the sense that I, as reviser, am teaching myself how to revise: an ongoing process in the act of creativity.

  1. Conclusion:

In my current situation, I have five creative works (Echoes …, Waiting, Bistro, Stars … , People … ) lying fallow and waiting for their final touches. As I look back on what I have previously written and how I have written it, I am, in my opinion, multi-tasking. That is to say, I am working with many texts rather than concentrating on a single text. However, at the same time, I am working hard on a single task: that of teaching myself, once again, how to revise and how to rewrite. Hopefully I will put a little, objective distance between my current self and my recent texts. Then, when I return to them, I will be able to take them, one at a time, and revise them properly. That is my hope and my intention.

To task or to multi-task … writing or re-writing … each has its place in the creative process. To conclude: I thank all of you who contributed to this conversation (mentioned or not!), and I wish you joy in your (re-)creativity.

Selecting a Selected

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Last Year in Paradise, my first book of poetry, was published by Fiddlehead Poetry Books (Fredericton, NB) in 1977. I am once more re-reading Last Year in Paradise  in search of some early poems to include in the Selected Poems that I am putting together.

As I leaf through the pages, the words of T. S. Eliot come to my mind: “every attempt / is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure /  because one has only learned to get the better of words /  for the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which / one is no longer disposed to say it.”

So: how do I select from poems that no longer say what I want them to say or that are expressed in a way that I am no longer disposed to use? I keep struggling with these ideas. Are my selections signposts along the way of my poetic development? Do they say ‘this is what I was, where I came from’? Or should I re-write, revise, and bring thoughts and poems up to date to fit in with my current way of thinking and expressing?

The first poem in the book illustrates this quandary in metaphoric fashion.

Renovating

The carpenter swings
His bell-faced claw hammer
The closet’s gyproc sides
Tremble
Shiver into dust

Each splintered layer
Reveals
The closet’s secret skeleton

Memories
Spill out flood in
Shake grinning skulls
Like jacks of this box-room

Released from sloughed skins
We stand knee-deep
In a debris of recollections

As I re-read this poem, the scene comes back to me in vivid detail. An old closet cluttered the small room downstairs in our first house, an old army home. We needed more floor space, not another small room. As we tore the closet down, different layers of wall-paper showed up and we found ourselves knee-deep in memories of other times, other places, other renovations.

As I re-read, I also remember working with my first editor, Fred Cogswell. I recall the typed manuscripts going in to his office and the pencilled suggestions and corrections coming back out. What I no longer remember is how much of this poem was actually mine and how much was his. Re-reading it, I find I have no desire to re-write it, to resurrect those memories that the poem preserves. But I do feel an urgent need to trim the poem, to weed it as if it were a flower-bed. I notice repetitions, a doubling of statements, an excess of adjectives … I would like to suggest more with less words. The poem needs minor readjustments. As I rethink, I come up with the following.

Renovating

The carpenter swings
his hammer
The closet’s gyproc sides
shiver into dust

Each splintered layer
reveals the closet’s
secret skeleton

Memories spill out
shake grinning skulls
jacks in this box-room

Released from sloughed skins
we stand knee-deep
in a debris of recollections

I find this sharper, less cluttered, and perhaps a good poem with which to begin my Selected Poems. I need a title for the Selection and will share some thoughts on that later. A Debris of Recollections springs to mind as a first possibility, but there are many other possibilities. In the meantime, I will begin a new journey on this blog and along the way I will read, re-read, commentate, and occasionally re-write the poems that I select.

I invite you to accompany me on this journey. I look forward to any conversations we may start and any comments you may care to make along the way.

My Top Ten Books

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My Top Ten Books

For Tanya Cliff
https://postprodigal.com/2016/07/14/top-ten-books-that-changed-my-life/

It sounds so easy, doesn’t it, to choose your ten favorite books? But really: it isn’t.

Clare’s great aunt made the best sponge cakes and rock cakes I have ever tasted. Her formula? Not weights and measures but a simple scale: the egg on one side, the flour on the other — and balance them.

How do I weigh a book?

I think in terms of authors rather than their individual books. For example, on one side of the scale place Les Fleurs du Mal of Baudelaire and on the other, his Petits Poèmes en Prose. Literary and cultural history would opt for Les Fleurs du Mal, and quite rightly so. My own personal preference, and I love them both, is for Petits Poèmes en Prose. De gustibus non est disputando / there is no arguing over taste. My choice is for Baudelaire, the author, rather than for one of his works, selected above the other.

If I apply this theory to other authors, what happens to, for example, William Shakespeare? Must I choose MacBeth over Henry the Fifth,  King Lear over Julius Caesar or A Midsummer Night’s Dream over The Merchant of Venice? And what if I refuse to do so? I would much rather choose Shakespeare over any of his plays, the Complete Works, including the sonnets, over any single play. And why shouldn’t I?

By extension, should I choose Shakespeare over Lope de Vega? Corneille over Molière? Racine over Calderón de la Barca? Mira de Amescua over Jean Anouilh? Bernard Shaw over Samuel Becket or Beaumarchais or Ionesco? And look at how Euro-centric (English, French, and Spanish) I am, especially when I am not familiar with the great playwrights of other Western nations: the Russians, the Norwegians, the Germans … and yet they are all Europeans. Are there no other literary nations in the world? Of course there are, but I am not that familiar with their literature and culture, and there is only so much a reader can read in its original form.

So, blessed and privileged as I admit I am, I can read books in English, French, and Spanish … lucky for me. However, I admit to difficulties with books written in Portuguese, Italian, German, Catalan, and Galician. As for Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, Russian, Arabic … I can only offer my apologies, but for me, these are closed books and I can only reach them in the translations, however good, however bad, that are placed before me. This is true too of the Pre-Columbian Mexican codices, the Zouche-Nuttall, the Vindobonensis et. al. These are also books and they outline the peoples and cultures of Mexico as they were before the arrival and conquest orchestrated by Cortés. And let us not forget Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the man who, in later life, wrote the true history of  Cortés’s conquest. And speaking of conquests, how about Julius Caesar’s Bellum gallicum, his personal account, in the third person, of his conquest of Gaul? As a school boy, long ago, I struggled through it in Latin, but I enjoyed it later, in translation.

Translation: traductor / traidor, according to Cervantes, who was undoubtedly following someone else, means translation / betrayal … or does it? Translation: the reverse side of a tapestry (also Cervantes) from which we may through a glass, darkly, glimpse only shape and shadow while stumbling over all those knotted threads … so here’s another question:  why would we choose a translation, with all its flaws, over a work we can read and enjoy and hopefully understand in the original?

So far, I have mentioned mainly playwrights; Cervantes was a playwright and wrote a goodly number of plays (Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses). I should also mention novelists. Charles Dickens, for example; or Honoré de Balzac or Gustave Flaubert or Marcel Proust or Pío Baroja or Benito Pérez Galdós or Gabriel García Márquez or Carlos Fuentes or William Faulkner or Kurt Vonnegut or William Golding or Chuck Bowie or John Sutherland or Kevin Stephens … not to mention Charlotte Bronte … Emily Bronte … Jane Austen … Virginia Woolf … Should I then choose just ten novelists and forget the world’s playwrights? And how can I choose just one book from a single novelist’s vast production, think Trollope, think Balzac?

What about poetry? My ten favorite poems? My ten favorite books of poetry? My ten favorite poets? Perhaps the latter is more achievable. If that is so, I must then choose between Quevedo … Góngora … Antonio Machado … Juan Ramón Jiménez … José Hierro … Wilfred Owen … Dylan Thomas … Gerard Manley Hopkins … Baudelaire … Verlaine … Rimbaud … Prévert … R. S. Thomas … Federico García Lorca … Miguel Hernández … T. S. Eliot … Seamus Heaney … Pedro Salinas … José María Valverde … and how do I choose between the writers I know and love … Patrick Lane … Richard Lemm … Fred Cogswell … Norman Levine … Donna Morrissey … Susan Musgrave … Joan Clark … Erin Mouré … and the ones I work with on a regular basis … Jane Tims … Kathy Mac … Shari Andrews … Michael Pacey … allison Calvern … Ian LeTourneau … Judy Wearing … Rachelle Smith … Cheryl Archer … Judith Mackay … Julie Gordon … ten poets … ten books … ten poems … ten fingers … ten toes … ten commandments … only ten?

Hold on a second: I have forgotten St. John of the Cross / San Juan de la Cruz, one of the western world’s great mystics. I must also mention St. Teresa of Avila, a Doctor of the catholic church, and Fray Luis de León, and now I am about to enter a great cloud of unknowing in which mystics, some named, some unnamed, have blessed us with their life thoughts and works.

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold … and I have also forgotten W. B. Yeats and James Joyce and I have failed to remember the Poema de Mío Cid and the anonymous epic poems and ballads of the European middle ages, some of which are so deliciously delightful. Alas, I will be forced to abandon so many of my teachers and my friends … ten books, ten speeches, ten lectures, ten words … my life in literature reduced to ten teaspoons of instant coffee, instant tea, instant knowledge.

“My friends, we will not go again
nor ape an ancient rage;
nor let the folly of our youth
become the shame of age.”

Oh yes, that’s G. K. Chesterton. I had forgotten him. When asked what book he would take with him to read in exile on a desert island, he replied: “Green’s Practical Manual of Ship Building and Ship Sailing.” Now that’s a book that should be in everybody’s top ten, especially with the seas rising and disaster lurking round every corner of the suspicious, weather-warmed mind.

However, as I look back on my reading life, believe it or not, some books do stand out. When I entered graduate school and realized the enormous amount of reading that was being thrust upon me, I took a speed reading course. Over the ten weeks of that course my reading speed rose sharply from about 200 words a minute to 800 words a minute. Without that one book, I would have been unable to read so many of the others. Where is it now? It is not on my shelves: ah yes, I gave it to my daughter when she went to law school.

The second special book is the Spanish text book that, in regularly updated versions, I relied on for teaching basic Spanish grammar throughout my academic career in Canada. Without that textbook and the employment it ensured me, I would not have been able to put my family’s bread on the table. I guess you might call it influential. Perhaps the third special book is my own doctoral thesis: that allowed me to gain academic employment and is so very, very special to me, but for all the wrong reasons.

Ladies and Gentlemen and Fellow Bloggers, here I am, marooned in Island View, with not an island in sight, and no reason, as yet, to build a librarian’s arc. I will now replace my selected books and authors back on the shelves from which, one by one, I have taken them down, dusted them off, and glanced through the pages. I admit my inadequacy. I cannot for the life of me choose ten books, let alone ten authors. I lay down my pen. I remove my fingers from the keyboard. I abandon my task. Soon I will leave the room with one of my favorite books in my hand. Will it be Jane Tims’s Within Easy Reach or Chuck Bowie’s Steal it all or John Sutherland’s master work, The Two-Shot Compendium. I think I’ll go with Two-Shot and re-read the first story, Two-Shots Lands in Trouble, as I sip my mid-morning coffee. Meanwhile, I will leave you with this thought from Guillaume Apollinaire.

Je voudrais dans ma maison
une femme ayant sa raison,
un chat passant parmi les livres,
et des amis en toute saison,
sans lesquels je ne peux pas vivre.

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Closure: Literary Theory

Closure
Writing or Re-Writing 7

Yesterday’s post, Lagartija (Bistro 13, Flash Fiction) raises the question of closure. For me, closure sets a double problem: when to close and how to close. These two concepts, when and how, may seem to be the same; but in fact, they are not. Let us take a closer look at Lagartija and use it as an example.

Lagartija
(Bistro 13)

There are striations in my heart, so deep, a lizard could lie there, unseen, and wait for tomorrow’s sun. Timeless: this worm at the apple’s core waiting for its world to end. Seculae seculorum: the centuries rushing headlong. Matins: wide-eyed this owl hooting in the face of day. Somewhere, I remember a table spread for two. Breakfast: an open door, a window that overlooks a balcony and a garden.
“Where are you going, dear?”
Something bright has fled the world. The sun unfurls shadows. The blood whirls stars around the body.
“It has gone,” she said. “The magic. I no longer tremble at your touch.”
The silver birch wades at dawn’s bright edge. Somewhere: tight lips, a blaze of anger, a challenge spat in the wind’s taut face. High-pitched the rabbit’s grief as it struggles in its silver snare. The somnambulant moon tiptoes in a trance.
If only I could kick away this death’s head, this sow’s bladder, this full moon drifting high in a cloudless sky.

Lagartija falls neatly into two parts. These are divided by the spaced paragraph division. The first part ends with the line: “If only I could kick away this death’s head, this sow’s bladder, this full moon drifting high in a cloudless sky.” In terms of HOW to end, this is a great ending. The piece could end right there: powerful image, sense of closure, strong line and sentiment. In terms of WHEN to end, however, I wanted to say more. So I added another paragraph.

Who knows when the skeleton will take to the limelight, peel off her gloves, doff her hat, lay down her white cane, and use me as fuel for a different kind of fire. Grief lurks in the bracelet’s silver snare of aging hair. I kick my legs in the chorus line and my day fades into shadowy shapes that unfurl leathery wings.
Pebbles catch in my throat and the word-river once flowing smooth backs up to spill leaf-freckled foam over the tiniest barriers of branch and weed. I try to speak but a gypsy has stolen my tongue and sewn my lips together.
Leaves outside my window grow rusty with rain. A sharp-shinned hawk no bigger than the blue jay he stalks drives like a whirlwind at the feeder. Winter touches with his jack-frost fingers and Old Eight Hoots waits in the tree and calls my name.
Bright stars crackle the sky. Frost crisps leaves. A mist weaves webs scarce-seen. All around, as I walk to my lonely home, the cold ground creaks its wordless tongue-tied whispers.

Night shapes abound.

Let me begin by stating that I am not sure about the second paragraph. I wanted to emphasize the sense of loss of love, the sense of being dislocated in time and space: but is this overkill? I am in two minds about this: one half of me says OVERKILL; the other half says: LIVE WITH IT. Now, just looking for a phrase and finding those words: LIVE WITH IT makes me feel that both the WHEN and the HOW of the ending fall at the end of that first paragraph. Much as I like the second part, it must go. Perhaps it can stand on its own?

The problem is exacerbated because Lagartija is actually a prose excerpt of a poem from Though Lovers be Lost. I wanted to see if some of the magic of the poetry could be retained in the prose version. I think it can, provided the HOW and WHEN of closure ends early. To extend the prose passage is to weaken it. To extend the prose passage is also to betray the poem. Here it is: Building on Sand (from Though Lovers Be Lost, 2000)

Building on Sand

1
Everywhere the afternoon
gropes steadily to night.
Some people have lit fires;
others read by candlelight.

Geese litter the river bank,
drifts of snow their whiteness,
stained with freshet mud;
or is it the black
of midnight’s swift advance?

They walk on thin ice
at civilization’s edge.
Around them,
the universe’s clock
ticks slowly down.

2
Who forced that scream
through the needle’s eye?

Gathering night,
the moon on the sea bed
magnified by water.

Inverted,
the big dipper,
hanging its question
from the sky’s dark eye lid.

Ghosts of departed
constellations
walk the night.

Pale stars scythed
by moonlight
bob phosphorescent
flowers on the flood.

3
The flesh that bonds;
the bones that walk;
the shoulders and waist
on which I hang
my clothes.

Now they stand alone
beneath the moon
and listen at the water’s edge
to the whispering trees.

They have caught the words
of snowflakes
strung at midnight
between the stars.

Moonlight is a liquor
running raw within them.

4
There are striations
in my heart, so deep,
a lizard could lie there,
unseen, and wait
for tomorrow’s sun.

A knot of
sorrow in daylight’s throat;
the heart a great stone
cast in placid water,
each ripple
knitted to its mate.

Timeless,
the worm at the apple’s core
waiting for its world to end.

Seculae seculorum:
the centuries
rushing headlong.

5
Matins:
wide-eyed
this owl hooting
in the face of day.

Somewhere,
I remember
a table spread for two.
Breakfast.
An open door.
“Where are you going, dear?”

Something bright has fled the world.
The sun unfurls shadows.
The blood whirls stars
around the body.

“It has gone.” she said. “The magic.
I no longer tremble at your touch.”

6
You can drown now
in this liquid
silence.

Or you can rage against this slow snow
whitening the dark space
where yesterday
you placed your friend.

The silver birch wades
at dawn’s bright edge.

Somewhere,
sunshine will break
a delphinium
into blossom.

7
Tight lips.
A blaze of anger.
A challenge spat
in the wind’s face.

High-pitched
the rabbit’s grief
in its silver snare.
The midnight moon
deep in a trance.

If only I could kick away
this death’s head,
this sow’s bladder.

Full moon
drifting
high in a cloudless sky.

8
After heavy rain
the house shrinks.
Its mandibles close.

A crocodile peace
descends from the jaws of heaven.

I no longer fit my skin.
Iguana spots itch.
Walls encircle me,
hemming me in.

The I Ching sloughs my name:
each lottery ticket,
a bullet.

None with my number.

9
Late last night I thought
I had grasped the mystery:
but when I awoke
I clasped only shadows and sand.

Building on Sand now asks another set of questions, for it offers multiple possible points of closure, key lines where the poem might end, but doesn’t. Is closure possible? Or are we always faced with continuations and further possibilities? In Building on Sand, each possible point of closure opens another set of perspectives. Without being infinite, the cycle is continuous. In Lagartija, on the other hand, the closure poses a different question, for although the prose poem seems to come to an end with the line “If only I could kick away this death’s head, this sow’s bladder, this full moon drifting high in a cloudless sky”, the ending is in fact rather more open than closed. As a result, the reader is left wondering how and if the narrator has managed to cope with the circumstances.

Writing or Re-Writing? Sometimes, as writers and re-writers, we must make difficult decisions. Often we must reject and eliminate some of our favorite words and images. Hard to do? Definitely: but we all face that choice. Hopefully, the above study will help clarify not only the difficult choices we must make when trying to close out our creative pieces but also the some of the key differences between the HOW and the WHEN of closure. It also raises the question of the extent to which a piece of good creativity resonates and whether it can ever be completely closed.

Writing or Re-Writing? 6

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A Question of Thematic Unity

 The question for today concerns thematic unity: should one strive for thematic unity or should one present thematic contrasts? This question is provoked by today’s blog post, Obsidian’s Edge 22 10:00 PM, in which the narrator, sitting alone at the table in his apartment in Oaxaca is filled with memories of home, a home that is very different from the daily reality of life in Oaxaca.

The contrast with the sights and sounds of Oaxaca is obvious and immediate: outside in the street, a world of sunshine and shadow, darkness and fireworks, singing and dancing, people and poetry; yet within the room, alone, the narrator is challenged by that other world in which he is also immersed, the world of home and memories from home. This other world contrasts cold with warmth, the coast with the interior, memories of home with the immediate presence of Mexico.

I keep asking myself, would it be better to keep the thematic unity of Oaxaca, rather than to try and contrast the past with the present, thus creating a contrast between the distance there-sense and the immediate here-sense? The insertions try to emphasize the strangeness and immediacy of the new world (Oaxaca) that is in truth already so old. My worry is that I have not done so, certainly not in the way that I wanted to. As a result, I am worried that these “home visits” are intrusive and break the thematic unity that I would also like to establish.

The same question arises with earlier posts, Obsidian’s Edge 17 (Home Thoughts) and 16 (Siesta and Dream). These three poems (or sets of poems) break the thematic unity of the Oaxacan presence. They work as a contrast to that present, a reminder of the origins of the foreigner who observes and writes. But do they intrude, do they break the unity to such an extent that they stick out, a sore thumb hitching a ride to nowhere in particular?

My feeling right now after scanning the rewrite yet again is that they are intrusive and should be excluded from the final text. I have other poems and scenes from Mexico that would fit the Oaxacan themes much better. I give an example below. So, fellow followers and fellow bloggers: the rabbit is out of the trap and the greyhounds are primed and ready — I would appreciate your thoughts.

First: Today’s Post

10:00 PM
Alone at the Table
Memories of Home

1

Salt on the sea wind sifts raucous gulls in packs,
breeze beneath wings, searching for something
to scavenge. Seaweed. The tidemark filled with
longing. A grey sea crests and rises. Staring eyes:
stark simplicity of that seal’s head filling the bay.
Next day, his body stretched dead on the beach.

The river runs rocky beneath the covered bridge.
Campers have created first nation’s rock people,
heaping stone upon stone. At low tide, on the dried
river bed, there is no easy way to say no. White foam

horses in the farrier’s forge stamp and surge. A cold
wind blows at Cape Enrage. Wolfe Point sees late
gales transform the beach: the sandbar carved:
a Thanksgiving turkey, stripped to bare rib bone.

Dead birds sacrificed, so I can lie here in comfort:
my eiderdown is stuffed with dull dry winter coats.

2

Gold and silver, the last breath going out of him,
this warrior destined to dance before a cruel sun.

His ultimate spoken threads, so delicate, so thin,
they run, blood and water, through his pierced side,
sorrowful beneath the spectator’s stare. Ice cold,
this water on which he no longer dares nor cares

to walk. Rich silk: this tapestry woven with another
man’s words. Ghosts shunt back and forth across ice.
Late autumn mists confuse the paths, leading nowhere.

And now the alternate post on which I am still working.

10:00 PM
Alone at the Table
Memories

(Alternate Take)

1

Last year,
limed in a wedding
suit of white,
the grand tree of Tule
escaped from its compound.

Waving its branches wildly,
stumped down the road
to Teotitlán
in search of a bride.

2

It found instead,
on the Day of the Dead,
a carpet weaver
who interfaced its spirit
with fine lamb’s wool
shot with silk.

Next morning,
the tree came back,
its soul intact.

Now you can’t take photos:
the locals have imprisoned it
in a straitjacket of rusty iron railings.

3

The tree will not escape again.

It wanders round its pen,
hiding in corners,
never quite what you expect,
nor where you expect it to be.

Child prisoners,
escaped from their schools,
flash tin mirrors
at the underside of its branches.

Their dancing lights
set ancient spirits
free from their incarceration.

4

Serpiente lies along a lower limb,
waiting for some gossip to walk his way.

Mono swings from branch to branch
and is never still.

The quetzal bird preens
the emeralds of his feathers;
mirrors pursue him
with their liquid light.

5

Wandering eyes need time to rest.
They need time to discover
the old wrinkled man,
face like an ancient manuscript
all lines and creases,
his dark skin dried by the sun:
coarseness of furrowed bark.

Half buried in the trunk,
he nurses a fiery flame.

6

Convinced by the eloquence
of his hand-carved map,
I strive to follow
my troubled heart
struggling on its journey
across earth’s sea.

7

Conjured in the mirrors’
confusing crossfire,
blood flowers
dot the poinsettias
eyes and cross their Ts.

Sunshine engraves my name
on the sacrificial pelt
I bought at the abastos.

A blazing sun
dries the cries of shock
coursing through my victim eyes.

Writing or Re-Writing? 5

 

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High Tide exists in two separate forms under two different names: (1) the prose poem High Tide and (2) the poem, Though Lovers Be Lost. The title of the poem comes, of course, from Dylan Thomas.

High Tide     

High tide in the salt marsh and now you are a river flowing silver beneath the moon, your body filled with shadow and light. I dip my hands in dappled water. Twin gulls, they fly down stream then perch on an ice floe of half-remembered dreams. An eagle with a broken wing, I am trapped in this cage of flame. When I turn my feathers to the sun, the black and white of a convict’s bars stripe my back.

Awake, I lie anchored by what pale visions fluttering on the horizon? White moths wing their snowstorm through the night. A feathered shadow ghosts frail fingers towards my face. Butterflies stutter their kisses against the closed lips of shuttered eyes and mouth. Hands reach out to grasp me. A candle flickers in the darkness and I am afraid.

Who mapped in runes the ruins of this heart? Eye of the peacock, can you touch what I see when my eyelids close for the night? Black rock of the midnight sun, blocking the sky’s dark cave, when will I be released from my daily bondage? Last night, the planet quivered beneath my body and I felt each footfall of a transient god.

The prose poem shortens the verse poem and turns it into a rushing hurly-burly of breathless words strung together by metaphor and magic. They flash and twist this way, that way, like minnows in shallow waters, allowing no time for pause, no time for thought. When I have read the passage in public, the listeners have always looked slightly stunned, bemused, battered almost by the storm of emotion tied into the piece.

The prose poem was published in Fundy Lines (2002) but it was originally conceived as a poem written in stanzas and took this form when published in Though Lovers Be Lost (2000). When the poem is set out in stanzas, it is shaped by the spaces that surround each line. These spaces slow the poem down, allowing the reader to permit the listener, to dwell on each group of words. Obviously, in a silent and private book reading, each one of us will read poetry and prose in our customary way. That said, in a public reading, I usually read the prose slightly faster than I do the poetry. The metaphoric nature of the language stands out in the longer version, and instead of the rush of words (prose), we have a measured resonance that shapes meaning. Impact in prose versus depth of meaning in poetry: I think both forms work in different ways.

In addition, the prose poem has been very selective and has abandoned several of the images and themes that appear in the poem. This increases the sense of urgency and unity while diluting the strength of the metaphors. Although the words are basically the same, the shapes and forms make for two different works, two distinctive appearances.

Though Lovers Be Lost

1
Once,
you were a river,
flowing silver
beneath the moon.

High tide
in the salt marsh:
your body filled
with shadow and light.

I dipped my hands
in dappled water.

2
Eagle with a shattered wing,
my heart batters
against bars of white bone.

Or am I a killdeer,
trailing token promises
for some broken god to snatch?

Gulls float downstream.
They ride a nightmare
of half-remembered ice.

Trapped in my cage of flame,
I return my feathers to the sun.

3
Awake,
I lie anchored by
what pale visions of moths
fluttering on the horizon?

A sail
flaps canvas wings
speeding my way
backwards into night.

A feathered shadow
ghosts fingers over my face.

Butterflies
stutter against
shuttered windows.

Strange hands
reach out to grasp me
and again I am afraid
of the dark.

4
When was my future
carved in each sliver of bone?

A scratch of the iron pen
jerks the puppet’s limbs
into prophesied motion.

Who mapped in runes
the ruins of this heart?

Above me,
a rag tag patch of cloud
drifts here and there,
shifting constantly;

like this body of water
in which I sail.

5
Eye of the peacock,
can you touch
what I see when
I close my eyelids
down for the night?

Black rock of the midnight
sun, rolled up the sky,
won’t you release me
from my daily bondage?

Last night, the planet
quivered beneath my body
and I felt each footfall
of a transient god.

6
Thunder knocks
on the door of my dream
and I am afraid.

I no longer know my way
through night’s dark wood.

Who bore her body
out in that rush of rain?

Could she still sense
the sigh of wet grass?

Could she still hear
the damp leaves whisper?

7
A finger of fog
trickles
a forgotten face
down the window.

The power of water,
of fire, of frost;
of wind, rain, snow,
and ice.

Incoming tide:
stark waters.

Rising.

I would welcome any comments you may have (a) on the difference between the two forms, as they impact you; (b) on the perceived differences between the prose poem and the poetry; and (c) on the perceived revision and thought process that turns poetry into prose, and vice-versa.

Writing or Re-Writing? 4

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Writing or Re-Writing? 4

 I visited San Diego for a conference in 1994 and, while I was there, I decided to cross over the border and visit Mexico, a country to which I had never been. I took the train from San Diego to Tijuana, crossed the border, and went downtown to the cathedral. As I opened the cathedral door, a man who looked exactly like my father walked out. My father had passed away in 1989, four years earlier. We stopped and stared at each other. I blinked, turned away for a second, and when I looked back, I was alone on the cathedral steps and the man was no longer there. That event continues to haunt me. I wrote about it in People of the Mist, my first novel.

  1. People of the Mist

As I step into the church a man comes out. I look at his face and I stare into the washed out blue of my father’s eyes. We stand there gazing at each other in silence. My father’s fawn raincoat is still missing a button at the neck and the old scar of a stain marks the absence on his lapel of the usual carnation. He is also wearing the grey suit with the blue shirt and the red and black tie in which I dressed him before I buried him.

Then, the spell breaks. My father starts to speak but his hand claws at his throat and no words emerge. His mouth twists in an anguished “no, no, no.” The small hairs stand erect on the back of my neck. A cold hand moves down my spine and I shiver. I close my eyes for a second, take a deep gulp of air and when I open my eyes, my father has disappeared.

If it really was my father … I wish I had said something, caught him by the arm, held him. I should have told him that I missed him, told him what had become of me. If it wasn’t my father, I should have asked him who he really was, told him he looked like the man I had buried far away and long ago. I should have asked him if I could see him again … But the moment has passed and the man who seems so much like my father has gone.

I go into the church, light a candle, fall down on my knees, and pray.

It is hard to explain such a disturbing event and even harder to come to terms with it in writing. I have returned to it again and again, both as a single piece and as part of a larger narrative. I decided, as part of the re-writing process, to take myself out of the story, and to re-tell the story in the third person. In this re-write, Tom, the central character meets his father on the steps of the church.

  1. Gravitas

Last summer, in Oaxaca, Tom bumped into his father. Candles flickered on the engraved glass panels of the cathedral’s main doors illuminating Tom’s father’s face as if it were that of  some long gone saint. Tom’s father wore his best grey suit over a light blue shirt and a dark blue, hand woven tie. In the funeral home, Tom had had dressed him for burial in just that outfit. Both the suit and its wearer had perished the following day in the crematorium.

Tom and the apparition who appeared to be his father stared at each other but neither of spoke. Tom’s neck-hairs bristled, his mouth ran dry, and his hands shook. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but words stuck in his throat and meaningless sounds emerged.

Three old women, dressed in black, broke the spell. One stood in front of Tom and struck him with the large black bag of knitting that she held in her hand. Thin threads of red wool spilled out as she pushed him away. The second old lady threatened Tom with a pair of scissors that she held in her left hand, jabbing them repeatedly towards his eyes. The third produced a tailor’s measuring rod and, using it like a cattle goad, prodded Tom’s father in the side. Tom’s father nodded, smiled sadly, and then the three women shepherded Tom’s father away, hurrying him out of through the cathedral’s glass doors and into the square. Tom stood motionless for a moment and then as the doors snapped shut he pulled them open and ran out after the group.

The setting sun filled the square with shadows that whispered and moved this way and that as if a whole village of dead people had walked out of the cemetery to stand beneath the trees and dance in the rays of the dying sun. Tom stood on the cathedral steps and called out his father’s name, but he could see no sign of him among the cut and thrust of the shadowy crowd.

Tom ran out into that crowd and pushed at insubstantial people who stood firm one moment and then melted away the next like clouds or mist so thick one could almost lean on it. He ran as far as a side street that led away from the square and there he stopped and let out a loud cry of grief.

Real people, flesh and blood beings, turned to gaze at him.  Villagers carrying the banner of a small town in the hills stood in a group behind their village band. An elder, deep lines scarring his face with living shadows that danced in the last rays of the sun, put a live match to the taper of the rocket that he clutched between his thumb and forefinger. The taper caught fire and the rocket soared upwards with a long-drawn out whooooosh. The village band marched forward and struck up a traditional country song as the rocket clawed its way into the sky to explode with a loud knock on the door of the gods.

Afraid of grasping at shadows and scared by this living phalanx of men that now marched towards him seeking access to the main square, Tom retreated to the cathedral and knelt at the altar of La Virgen de la Soledad, the patron saint of Oaxaca. Tall wax candles stood before her altar. He  inserted fifty pesos in the slot, took a taper, and lit candle after candle.

He knelt before the virgin and, for the first time in years, he cried. Tears ran down his cheeks, his breath came in short, sharp bursts, he clenched his fists so tight that his finger nails gouged into his palms, and, for the first time since the funeral, he broke down and he prayed for his father, and his mother and, above all, for himself.

The changes are radical and obvious. My own thoughts, as I re-wrote, were that I had found a new freedom and a release from the autobiographical content of the original episode. This freeing up of the narrator is so important. Now I can concentrate on the power of the piece and the possible meanings tied up, not in the autobiographical event, but in the narrative sequence itself. It is packed with potential. What happens, I asked myself, if the man is not the father, but some sort of doppelganger?

I googled doppelganger and found this:

 A doppelganger — also written “doppelgaenger” or “doubleganger” — is quite simply a double. It can be a ghost or physical apparition, but it is usually a source of psychological anxiety for the person who sees it. The word comes from the German Doppelgänger, literally meaning “double-goer,” and has found widespread use in popular culture.

 Many different types of doppelganger have arisen in cultures around the world. A doppelganger may be an “evil twin,” unknown to the original person, who causes mischief by confusing friends and relatives. In other cases, the double may be the result of a person being in two places at once, or even an individual’s past or future self. Other times, the double is merely a look-alike, a second individual who shares a strong visual resemblance. The goals of the doppelganger often depend on the role it plays for the original person.

 In folklore, the doppelganger is sometimes said to have no shadow or reflection, much like vampires in some traditions. These doubles are often malicious, and they can haunt their more innocent counterparts. They may give bad advice or put thoughts in their victim’s heads. Seeing one’s own doppelganger or that of a friend or relative is usually considered very bad luck, often heralding death or serious illness. In some traditions, a doppelganger is considered a personification of death.

http://www.wisegeek.org/what-is-a-doppelganger.htm

My next experiment was with the idea of the twin brothers. What happens if one twin dies and the other survives? What happens if the wrong twin survives? Can there be a replacement? These waters run deep. Here is the third re-write. Did I really write “the third re-write”? I shouldn’t have: this is, rather, the third major revision in the sequence of multiple rewrites that this little event has engendered. There will, I am certain, be many more.

     3. Gravitas 2

Last summer, in Oaxaca, Tom bumped into his twin brother, Gerry. Candles flickered on the engraved glass panels of the cathedral’s main doors illuminating Gerry’s face as if it were that of some youth martyred for his faith. Mouth open, Tom stared at his brother, but neither of them spoke. Tom’s neck-hairs bristled, his mouth ran dry, and his hands shook. He closed his mouth, tried to swallow, but the dryness in his throat prevented him from doing so. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but words stuck in his throat and meaningless sounds emerged.

Three old crones, dressed in black, broke the spell. One stood in front of Tom and struck him with the large black bag of knitting that she held in her hand. Thin threads of red wool spilled out as she pushed him away. The second threatened Tom with a pair of scissors that she held in her left hand, jabbing them repeatedly towards his eyes. The third produced a tailor’s measuring rod and, using it like a cattle goad, prodded Gerry in the side. Gerry nodded, smiled sadly, and then the three women shepherded Tom’s twin brother away, hurrying him out of through the cathedral’s glass doors and back into the square. Tom stood motionless for a moment and then as the doors snapped shut he pulled them open and ran out after the group.

The setting sun filled the square with shadows that whispered and moved this way and that. It was as if the earth had shaken, a hole had appeared in the cemetery wall, and a whole generation of dead people had walked out of the cemetery to gossip beneath the trees and dance in the rays of the dying sun. Tom stood on the cathedral steps and called out his brother’s name. Gerry turned his head, but the three old ladies closed around him and herded him on.

Tom ran out into the crowd and followed the shadowy quartet, pushing his way through insubstantial people who stood firm one moment and then melted away the next like clouds or mist so thick one could almost lean on it. He ran as far as a side street that led away from the square and there he stopped.

The three crones pushed Gerry into an alley and Tom ran after them and followed them in. At first, it was dark. Then, as he brushed through a final curtain of mist, he emerged into a sunlit courtyard. Three beautiful young women, working at an enormous loom, beckoned to him. He approached and they pointed at the loom where tiny figures walked up and down the fabric as it was being woven. He felt himself grow smaller and smaller. Then one of the ladies picked him up and placed him firmly on the loom and wove him into the threads. The wooden shuttle clacked and he remembered no more.

Gerry emerged from the alley and entered the square where real people, flesh and blood beings, turned to gaze at him.  A group of villagers carrying the banner of a small town in the hills stood in a group behind their village band. An elder, carried a live-match in his hand. Deep lines scarred his face with living shadows that danced in the match-light. He put the live-match to the taper of the rocket that he held in his other hand. The taper caught fire and the rocket soared upwards with a long-drawn out whooooosh. The village band marched forward and struck up a traditional dance tune as the rocket clawed its way into the sky to explode with a loud knock against the door of the ancient gods.

Afraid of grasping at shadows and scared by this living phalanx of men that suddenly marched towards him, Gerry retreated across the main square and hurried back to the cathedral. There, he knelt at the altar of La Virgen de la Soledad, the patron saint of Oaxaca. He inserted fifty pesos in the collection slot, took a taper, lit it, and applied it to candle after candle.

Then Gerry started to cry. His brother Tom had been wearing his best grey suit over a light blue shirt and a dark blue, hand woven tie. These were the same clothes in which Gerry had had dressed him for burial just last year. Both the suit and its wearer had perished the following day in the crematorium.

Gerry was on his knees before the statue of the Virgin. Tears ran down his cheeks, his breath came in short, sharp bursts. He clenched his fists so tightly that his fingernails gouged into his palms. He looked into the Virgin’s eyes and prayed for his brother, Tom. Then he prayed for himself and, for the first time since Tom’s funeral, he allowed himself to truly grieve for the brother he had lost.

Comments on preferences and the re-writing process will be very welcome.