A Writer's Moment: 'Waking up grateful'

A Writer's Moment: 'Waking up grateful':     “I wake up grateful, for life is a gift.” – Elizabeth Alexander   Born on May 30, 1962 in New York City, Alexander is a poet, write...

'Waking up grateful'

 

 “I wake up grateful, for life is a gift.” – Elizabeth Alexander

 

Born on May 30, 1962 in New York City, Alexander is a poet, writer and literary scholar, who has served as the president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation since 2018.   Previously, Alexander was a professor for 15 years at Yale, where she taught poetry and chaired the African American Studies Department. 

 

Her first volume of poetry, Body of Life, came out in 1996 and since then she has authored 9 poetry collections, a number of essays, and 2 memoirs.  She also was a founding faculty member of the Cave Canem workshop which helps develop African-American poets.  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Alexander’s,

Butter

My mother loves butter more than I do,
more than anyone. She pulls chunks off
the stick and eats it plain, explaining
cream spun around into butter! Growing up
we ate turkey cutlets sauteed in lemon
and butter, butter and cheese on green noodles,
butter melting in small pools in the hearts
of Yorkshire puddings, butter better
than gravy staining white rice yellow,
butter glazing corn in slipping squares,
butter the lava in white volcanoes
of hominy grits, butter softening
in a white bowl to be creamed with white
sugar, butter disappearing into
whipped sweet potatoes, with pineapple,
butter melted and curdy to pour
over pancakes, butter licked off the plate
with warm Alaga syrup. When I picture
the good old days I am grinning greasy
with my brother, having watched the tiger
chase his tail and turn to butter. We are
Mumbo and Jumbo's children despite
historical revision, despite
our parent's efforts, glowing from the inside
out, one hundred megawatts of butter.

A Writer's Moment: 'Two ways of meeting difficulties'

A Writer's Moment: 'Two ways of meeting difficulties':   “There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties or you alter yourself meeting them.”  – Phyllis Bottome     Bo...

'Two ways of meeting difficulties'

 

“There are two ways of meeting difficulties: you alter the difficulties or you alter yourself meeting them.” – Phyllis Bottome  

 

Born in Kent, England on this date in 1884, Phyllis Forbes Dennis was a British novelist and short story writer who wrote under her birth name, Phyllis Bottome.

 

Primarily a mystery writer, she penned 35 novels and dozens of short stories over a nearly 60-year writing career, starting with her first book at age 17.  After marrying, she and her husband were part of the British diplomatic corps, although his work was mainly through MI-6, the spy division made famous as the parent organization of the fictional James Bond.

 

It was great “grist for the writing mill,” she noted.   Four of her books – Private Worlds, The Mortal Storm, Danger Signal, and The Heart of a Child – were adapted to films.   At his request, she also wrote a highly regarded biography of psychologist Alfred Adler, who she studied under as an undergraduate.   

 

Following her death in 1963, her husband bequeathed a large collection of her papers and correspondence to The National British Library where they are open to the public.

 

“Truth, though it has many disadvantages, is at least changeless,” Bottome said.   “You can always find it where you left it.”

A Writer's Moment: 'One word at a time'

A Writer's Moment: 'I learned that words are powerful':   “I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery book...

'One word at a time'

 

“I think the reason I'm a writer is because first, I was a reader. I loved to read. I read a lot of adventure stories and mystery books, and I have wonderful memories of my mom reading picture books aloud to me. I learned that words are powerful.” – Andrew Clements

 

Born in Camden, NJ on this date in 1949, Clements has authored more than 70 books for young people, winning some two dozen major writing awards in the process.

  

His writing was jump started in his senior year at Springfield, IL, High School when his English teacher handed back a poem he’d written and he said two things were amazing about it.  First, he’d gotten an A—a rare event in this teacher’s class; and second, she’d written in large red letters, “Andrew—this poem is so funny. This should be published!”

 

As many writers say, a teacher often shapes their writing lives.   After college, Clements taught writing to all levels from elementary through high school and started his own writing career, including working for several publishing houses.

                                                                                            
In 1985 he started writing picture books for kids and then in 1996 wrote his first novel, Frindle, winner of the Christopher Award for “writing that affirms the highest values of the human spirit.”   Since then he’s written a blend of picture books, novels for teens and tweens, and several nonfiction books, also for kids.

 

“Sometimes kids ask how I've been able to write so many books,” he said.   “The answer is simple: one word at a time. Which is another good lesson, I think. You don't have to do everything at once. You don't have to know how every story is going to end. You just have to take that next step, look for that next idea, write that next word.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Every day is the best day'

A Writer's Moment: 'Every day is the best day':   “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”  - Ralph Waldo Emerson    Emerson was born on May 25, 1803, the sam...

'Every day is the best day'

 “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

 

Emerson was born on May 25, 1803, the same day the Lewis & Clark Expedition was commissioned to explore the Louisiana Purchase.   Thus, as the Corps of Discovery was created to explore American frontiers, this great writer and thinker was born to a similar pathway, only toward discovery of the written word.

He was the first American to advocate for Americans to create their own writing style and not just copy that of their forebears from other parts of the world.   He also was one of the first writers to keep journals.  His lifelong extensive journals and notes, published in 16 volumes by Harvard University Press, are considered to be his key literary works – even though that was not his intent. 

 “I just wanted to maintain a record of the things that were important to my life,” he wrote.   As it turned out, they are things that have influenced generations of writers both in their content and the practice of journaling itself. 

A staunch supporter of education for girls and women, he helped found a Massachusetts school for girls.  And, from the mid-1840s on, he was a national leader of the abolitionist movement.  

“You cannot do a kindness too soon," he said, "for you never know how soon it will be too late.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Like a kiss; it can't be done alone.'

A Writer's Moment: 'Like a kiss; it can't be done alone.':   “The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.”  –  John Cheever   Born on ...

'Like a kiss; it can't be done alone.'

 

“The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.” –  John Cheever

 

Born on this date in 1912, American novelist and short story writer John Cheever has been recognized as one of the most important short fiction writers of the 20th century.  A compilation of his mid-life writing, The Stories of John Cheever, won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award.  His novel The Wapshot Chronicle also won the National Book Award.

 

A “natural” writer, he wrote his first short story and was published while still a teenager.  After dropping out of high school, he took a job as a caretaker at a New York artist’s colony, continued writing and had a number of works published in prominent magazines like The New Yorker.   

 

In the late ’30s he worked for the government’s Writer’s Project before enlisting in the Army during World War II, when he had his first book of short stories published.  Ultimately he became a chronicler of both his times and the people he encountered, and was lauded for his keen, often critical, view of the American middle class.

               

Always cognizant of his reading public and what they liked, he once said, “I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss - you really can't do it alone.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Knowing the landscape best'

A Writer's Moment: 'Knowing the landscape best':   “An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.”  – Tony Hillerman   Born in Oklah...

'Knowing the landscape best'

 

“An author knows his landscape best; he can stand around, smell the wind, get a feel for his place.” – Tony Hillerman

 

Born in Oklahoma on this date in 1925, Hillerman (who died in 2008) is best known for his Navajo Tribal Police mysteries featuring two iconic police officers – Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee.  Several of his books have been adapted into movies and television series, including A Dark Wind and the multiple-award winner A Thief of Time.

 

Hillerman moved to New Mexico, the setting for his books, after World War II.  Starting his writing career as a journalist in Santa Fe, he eventually moved to Albuquerque where he both wrote for newspapers and earned a master’s degree in writing.  While covering the crime news he met a Navajo sheriff who became the model for Leaphorn and sparked the idea for his first book The Blessing Way. 

 

Ultimately, he wrote 18 books in the series, now continued by a dozen more from his daughter Anne, who has added a popular third crime-solving cop – Bernadette Manuelito –  into the mix. 

 

While Tony Hillerman may be best known for that series, he left a much deeper legacy, writing more than 30 books, including a memoir and several about the Southwest, both its beauty and its history.   Given numerous awards, he said two of the most meaningful came from the Navajo Nation and the Department of the Interior, recognizing his attention to Native culture and his encouragement for nature and the land. 

 

In response to accolades for his writing, he noted, “You write for both yourself and your audience, who are usually better educated and at least as smart as you are.”

A Writer's Moment: Concise, emotional, powerful

A Writer's Moment: Concise and emotional:   “The awful thing, as a kid reading, was that you came to the end of the story, and that was it. I mean, it would be heartbreaking that the...

Concise, emotional, powerful

 “The awful thing, as a kid reading, was that you came to the end of the story, and that was it. I mean, it would be heartbreaking that there was no more of it.” – Robert Creeley

 

Born in Arlington, MA on May 21, 1926 (he died in 2005) Creeley authored more than 60 books of poems and one novel.  Widely recognized as one of the most important and influential American poets of the 20th century, he wrote poems noted for their concision and emotional power.   Winner of the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, he also received the Robert Frost Medal and the Bollingen Prize and was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.   For Saturday’s Poem, here are Creeley’s, 

Love Comes Quietly         and                       Oh No !

Love comes quietly,                                 If you wander far enough                           
finally, drops                                              you will come to it
about me, on me,                                      and when you get there
in the old ways.                                         they will give you a place to sit    

What did I know                                       for yourself only, in a nice chair.
thinking myself                                         And all your friends will be there
able to go                                                     with smiles on their faces,

alone all the way.                                     they will likewise all have places.

A Writer's Moment: 'Finding a little closure and peace'

A Writer's Moment: 'Finding a little closure and peace':   “We all lose somebody we care about and want to find some comforting way of dealing with it, something that will give us a little closure,...

'Finding a little closure and peace'

 

“We all lose somebody we care about and want to find some comforting way of dealing with it, something that will give us a little closure, a little peace.” – Mitch Albom

 

On Memorial Day weekend, the words of best-selling author, journalist and screenwriter Albom resonate ever stronger.  His books have sold over 35 million copies, led by the poignent Tuesdays With Morrie, equally successful as a play and a movie.  The story continues to touch people’s lives through the wisdom that Albom was able to share from conversations with his dying friend. 

 

Born in Passaic, NJ on this date in 1958, Albom was first a successful sportswriter before becoming – almost by accident – a phenomenal chronicler of people’s lives and hopes and the inspiration they brought to others.

 

“At the core I always say to myself, 'Is this something people want to read?'” Albom noted.  “I believe that you live on inside the hearts and minds of everyone you've touched while you were here on earth.”

A Writer's Moment: Stocking the brain attic is 'Elementary'

A Writer's Moment: Stocking the brain attic is 'Elementary':   “A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the l...

Stocking the brain attic is 'Elementary'

 

“A man should keep his little brain attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.” –Arthur Conan Doyle

 

Born in Scotland on this date in 1859, Doyle is the creator of Sherlock Holmes, one of the iconic figures in literary history.     Noted for his to-the-point comments while solving mysteries, Holmes once pointed out that, “There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”  

 

Originally a physician (I always thought that he resembled what I imagined Dr. Watson to look like), Doyle wrote his first Holmes book, A Study in Scarlet, in 1887.  It was the first of just four novels about Holmes and Dr. Watson, but he “filled out” the Holmes library of tales with over 50 short stories featuring the famous detective.  

 

The Sherlock Holmes stories are generally considered milestones in the field of crime fiction, tales that spawned many dozens (if not more) uses of Holmes by other writers, dozens of movies and television programs and the bringing of Deerstalker hats and Meerschaum pipes into vogue.   A prolific writer, Doyle also wrote poetry and many fantasy and science fiction stories, plays and historical novels.  

 

“Once you eliminate the impossible,” Doyle wrote in a saying that is now part of the lexicon, “whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

A Writer's Moment: 'The Magic of imagination'

A Writer's Moment: 'The Magic of imagination': “I discovered writing children's books was a way to keep living in my imagination like a child. So I wrote a number of books before I st...

'The Magic of imagination'

“I discovered writing children's books was a way to keep living in my imagination like a child. So I wrote a number of books before I started 'Magic Tree House.' Then, once I got that, I never looked back because I could be somewhere different in every single book.” – Mary Pope Osborne

 

Born in Oklahoma on this date in 1949, Osborne has authored more than 100 books for children and young adults, including novels, retellings of mythology and folklore, biographies and mysteries.  She is best known for her award-winning Magic Tree House series, now translated into 35 languages with nearly 150 million copies in print.   Her writing, she said, has opened doors for her to the world and allowed her to experience some of the thrills of traveling. "Without even leaving my home, I’ve traveled around the globe,” she said.

 

An ardent advocate and supporter of children’s literacy, Osborne created the “Magic Tree House Classroom Adventures Program” with the mission of inspiring children to read.  Free of charge, the program provides a set of online educational resources for teachers and allows for Title 1 schools to apply for free Magic Tree House books.   In partnership with First Book, her program has donated hundreds of thousands of Magic Tree House books to underserved schools.  

 “I love reading all kinds of books. I usually have about ten books going at any one time - books about the past, the present, novels, non-fiction, poetry, mythology, religion, etc.,” she said.   “Reading is my favorite thing to do.”

A Writer's Moment: 'At the least, be a nuisance'

A Writer's Moment: 'At the least, be a nuisance':   “The optimism of a healthy mind is indefatigable.” – Margery Allingham   Born on May 20, 1904 into a British writing family (her mothe...

'At the least, be a nuisance'

 

“The optimism of a healthy mind is indefatigable.” – Margery Allingham

 

Born on May 20, 1904 into a British writing family (her mother and father were both journalists), Allingham said she probably started putting pen to paper before she could even walk or talk.  By age 10 her first poems had been published and two of her plays had been performed in nearby community theatres. 

 

By her early 20s, Allingham had turned from poetry and theatre to crime and mystery writing, creating  Detective Albert Campion in the process.  Ultimately, Campion became one of the most well-known crime detective characters of the mid-20^th Century after being added to her first novel – The Crime of Black Dudley – almost as an afterthought.  But he was such an optimistic and interesting character that her publisher demanded more stories focusing on him.  

 

With that encouragement and her creative, imaginative mind, she wrote nearly 30 novels with Campion as her centerpiece character.  To try one of them out, I recommend The Tiger in the Smoke, 14^th in the series and an amazing example of Allingham’s writing style. 

 

Allingham died at age 62 from breast cancer but ever the optimist, she laid out ideas for several more novels “just in case they’re wrong and I’m not really dying,” bugging everyone around her to keep the faith and help her keep writing.  

 

Just a few days before her death (in June of 1966), she wrote: “If one cannot command attention by one’s admirable qualities, one can at least be a nuisance.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Good morning to Life'

A Writer's Moment: 'Good morning to Life':   “Being in this fine mood, I spoke to a little boy, whom I saw playing alone in the road, asking him what he was going to be when he grew...

'Good morning to Life'

 

“Being in this fine mood, I spoke to a little boy, whom I saw playing alone in the road, asking him what he was going to be when he grew up. Of course I expected to hear him say a sailor, a soldier, a hunter, or something else that seems heroic to childhood, and I was very much surprised when he answered innocently, 'A man'.” – W. H. Davies

 

Born in Wales on May 19, 1871, Davies spent a significant part of his life as a hobo, both in the United Kingdom and United States while also becoming one of the most popular poets of his time.

 

Davies’ lyrical observations about life's hardships, the ways in which the human condition is reflected in nature, and his own tramping adventures – including losing a leg while trying to hop a train –  resulted in his writing a remarkable 60 books of poetry.  For Saturday’s Poem here is Davies’,

 

A Greeting

Good morning, Life - and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the gold,
The Sun, is my great friend -
His spending has no end.

Hail to the morning sky,
Which bright clouds measure high;
Hail to you birds whose throats
Would number leaves by notes;
Hail to you shady bowers,
And you green field of flowers.

Hail to you women fair,
That make a show so rare
In cloth as white as milk -
Be't calico or silk:
Good morning, Life - and all
Things glad and beautiful.

A Writer's Moment: 'Hope' that memory is never lost

A Writer's Moment: 'Hope' that memory is never lost:   “We use the word 'hope' perhaps more often than any other word in the vocabulary: 'I hope it's a nice day.' 'Hop...

'Hope' that memory is never lost

 

“We use the word 'hope' perhaps more often than any other word in the vocabulary: 'I hope it's a nice day.' 'Hopefully, you're doing well.' 'So how are things going along? Good I hope.'  'Going to be good tomorrow? Hope so.'  Memory is valued, and I hope that we never lose memory.” – Studs Terkel 

 

Born in New York City on this date in 1912, Louis “Studs” Terkel was an author, historian, actor, and broadcaster who won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for his book on World War II titled The Good War.  He also wrote the terrific book Working, sharing his unbending optimism about life and the goodness of people, and for his oral histories.

 

Terkel studied as a lawyer but instead of entering the profession, he turned to acting and then broadcasting, starting his long-running career through the WPA's Federal Writing Program during the Depression.  Ultimately, in addition to his broadcasting and work on oral histories, he wrote 18 nonfiction books.

  

WFMT, the Chicago radio station which broadcast Terkel's long-running interview program, preserved 7,000 tape recordings of Terkel's interviews and histories.  After his death in 2008 at age 96, The Library of Congress announced a grant to digitally preserve and make available those recordings, which it called "a remarkably rich history of the ideas and perspectives of both common and influential people living in the second half of the 20th century." 

 

"For Studs, there was not a voice that should not be heard, a story that could not be told," said Gary T. Johnson, president of the Chicago Museum of History, the initial recipient of the recordings. "He believed that everyone had the right to be heard and had something important to say. He was there to listen, to chronicle, and to make sure their stories are remembered.

A Writer's Moment: Providing 'shape and meaning'

A Writer's Moment: Providing 'shape and meaning':   “Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, thing...

Providing 'shape and meaning'

 

“Human life itself may be almost pure chaos, but the work of the artist is to take these handfuls of confusion and disparate things, things that seem to be irreconcilable, and put them together in a frame to give them some kind of shape and meaning.” – Katherine Anne Porter

 

Porter, born in Indian Creek, TX on this date in 1890, was a prize-winning journalist, essayist, short story writer and novelist.  Known for her penetrating insight, particularly in her short stories and essays, she wrote only one novel – but it was a good one.  Ship of Fools not only was a worldwide bestseller but also earned her the Pulitzer Prize, The National Book Award, and a box office hit movie. 

 

She also won the National Book Award for The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, a hallmark of short story excellence.     Writing short stories may have come as second nature to Porter, since her father’s cousin was William Sydney Porter – known to posterity as O. Henry (and in whose name the annual best American short story award is given).  

 

Katherine’s journalism career began on the East Coast, then gravitated to Colorado where she was writing for the Rocky Mountain News when she almost died during the 1918 flu pandemic. When she was finally discharged from the hospital, she was frail and completely bald and when her hair finally grew back, it was white and remained that way for the rest of her life.  

 

Her life-and-death experience was reflected in a trilogy of novelettes led by the wonderful Pale Horse, Pale Rider.  That work earned her the 1940 Gold Medal for Literature from the Society of Libraries of New York University.  When she wasn’t writing professionally, she was corresponding with dozens of friends and fellow writers.  Collected and edited by her close friend Isabel Bayley, the Letters of Katherine Anne Porter shares 250 of the thousands of letters the prolific Porter wrote during her lifetime. 

 

 “Writing is a craft,” Porter said to beginning writers.  “Be respectful of words.  They mean something.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Getting intensely into the story'

A Writer's Moment: 'Getting intensely into the story':   “For me, being a writer was never a choice.  I was born one.  All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. ...

'Getting intensely into the story'

 

“For me, being a writer was never a choice.  I was born one.  All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers.  I wrote on everything.  I didn’t do my homework so I could write.” – Laura Hillenbrand

 

Born in Fairfax, VA in May of 1967, Hillenbrand wrote massive bestselling stories about two amazing sports figures from the 1930s; one the great horse Seabiscuit, the other the great 1930s Olympian Louis Zamperini. 

 

The first story became the bestselling book and award-winning movie Seabiscuit.  The second, one of the most gripping reads of the past two decades and also a popular movie, was Unbroken.  The books have dominated bestseller lists in both hardback and paperback with combined sales (to date) of more than 15 million.

    

Hillenbrand’s own story is probably also worthy of a book as she wrote her bestsellers while experiencing debilitating pain and isolation.  Confined to her home for 20 years with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, she still pressed on to create these two remarkable works.   She says being confined while writing helped her “live” her stories more completely in her mind.

 

“I'm attracted to subjects who overcome tremendous suffering and learn to cope emotionally with it,” she said.  “I'm living someone else's life. I get very intensely into the story, into the interviews and the research. I'm experiencing things along with my subjects. I have a freedom I don't have in my physical life.”

 

 

A Writer's Moment: 'Each hour offers new opportunities'

A Writer's Moment: 'Each hour offers new opportunities':   “The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a ...

'Each hour offers new opportunities'

 

“The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life.  You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.“ – Arnold Bennett

 

Bennett was born in England in May of 1867 and was a newspaper editor who started writing a weekly column after being perplexed by the lack of good material from his other writers.  He quickly discovered he had a great knack for it and by 1900 was devoting all of his time to writing.

 

Besides his column, which eventually appeared in hundreds of newspapers, Bennett wrote 34 novels, 7 volumes of short stories, 13 plays, and a daily journal.  He also wrote for the cinema in the 1920s and was the most financially successful British author of his day.  His novel The Old Wives' Tale -- following the lives of two sisters from youth through old age -- is considered one of the 20^th century’s greatest works of English literature. 

 

Also a much sought-after reviewer, he was acclaimed as a “discoverer” of other great writers.  He unerringly picked out many of the most important writers of the next generation, including James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.   And Bennett wrote two dozen nonfiction books, including 8 “self-help” books.  His popular How to Live on 24 Hours a Day is still a regular reference work in the self-help field.

 

“The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy and brooding,” he said, “is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of somebody else.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Everything is interesting'

A Writer's Moment: 'Everything is interesting':   “Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longin...

'Everything is interesting'

 

“Whether you want to entertain or to provoke, to break hearts or reassure them, what you bring to your writing must consist of your longings and disappointments.” – Rafael Yglesias

Born in New York on this date in 1954, novelist and screenwriter Yglesias is perhaps best known for his book and screenplay Fearless, both multiple award winners and nominees.  A “sandwich” member in a family writers – the son of two and father of two – he also is married to a writer, the novelist Ann Packer.    

 

Literally a “born writer,” Yglesias wrote his first successful novel, Hide Fox, And After All in the 10^th grade, and his novel A Happy Marriage also won multiple awards.  His latest is The Wisdom of Perversity.   Among his many writing successes for the screen is his popular version of Les Miserables, featuring Liam Neeson, Geoffrey Rush and Uma Thurman.

 

Noted for creating complex characters, he said, “The most fun thing about being a writer is that everything is interesting.”

 

A Writer's Moment: A poem should 'Be'

A Writer's Moment: A poem should 'Be':   “What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists.”  – Archibald MacLeish   ...

A poem should 'Be'

 

“What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists.” – Archibald MacLeish

 

MacLeish, born in Glencoe, IL on May 7, 1892, has been called “One of the hundred most influential figures in librarianship during the 20th century.” As the 9^th U.S. Librarian of Congress – a post he held for 5 years – he was instrumental in establishing the U.S. Poet Laureate position, which he himself easily could have held, being the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry.  He also won a Pulitzer for his Tony-winning Broadway play J.B. – a modern day re-telling of the Book of Job.

 

“Poetry,” he said, “is concerned with feelings; the ‘feel’ of the world.”   For Saturday’s Poem, here are lines from MacLeish’s,

 

Ars Poetica

A poem should be wordless as the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea –

A poem should not mean
But be.

A Writer's Moment: Strive 'to be the talent'

A Writer's Moment: Strive 'to be the talent':   “People set newspapers on fire; they use them for wrapping fish. The Internet does not have that property. What I don't think we'v...

Strive 'to be the talent'

 

“People set newspapers on fire; they use them for wrapping fish. The Internet does not have that property. What I don't think we've gotten is that you can make things last longer than in print.” – Ezra Klein

 

 Born on this date in 1984, Klein is a reporter, blogger, political commentator and columnist for The New York Times, host of The Ezra Klein Show podcast, and co-founder the explanatory news site Vox Media.  

 

A native of California who studied journalism at UC-Santa Cruz, Klein is the son of a college professor and a professional artist and “grew up writing.”  The Washington Post’s first “pure” blogger, he was hired at age 25 and was one of the first bloggers to report from a national political convention.

 

Klein has won numerous awards for his political commentary and also for his thought-provoking book Why We’re Polarized.  

 

From his own experience, he offers this advice for beginning writers and podcasters: “Try to get the job that's most like the job you want, rather than the one that's more prestigious. Always try to be the talent.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Looking straight at the world'

A Writer's Moment: 'Looking straight at the world':   “Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer.” – Patricia Barker   ...

'Looking straight at the world'

 

“Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer.” – Patricia Barker

 

Born on this date in 1943, Barker is an English writer whose Regeneration Trilogy collectively has been cited among the 10 Best Historical Fiction works in all of English literature.  The Trilogy – Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road – explores the history of the First World War by focusing on the aftermath of trauma.   Ghost Road also was cited for the prestigious Booker Prize, awarded annually for the best single work of English language fiction.

 

A native of Yorkshire, Barker was focused on a career in international history before turning to writing in her mid-30s.  After early failures (her first 3 novels were rejected), she broke onto the scene in 1982 with Union Street, winner of the Fawcett Society Award for Fiction   She then won the Guardian Fiction Prize for Eye in the Door before setting out to write the “Regeneration” books.   

 

She’s now authored 16 books, the most recent being 2024’s The Voyage Home, in her “Trojan War Series.”

   

“When writing about historical characters I try to be as accurate as possible and, in particular, not misrepresent the view they held.   With a real historical figure you (must) be fair,” she noted. 

 

“Looking straight at the world is part of your duty as a writer.”   

A Writer's Moment: 'Just the page . . .and the right words'

A Writer's Moment: 'Just the page . . .and the right words':   “No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually...

'Just the page . . .and the right words'

 

“No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.“ – Roddy Doyle

 

Born in Dublin, Ireland on  May 8, 1958, Doyle is an award-winning novelist, dramatist, and screenwriter.  The author of 14 novels for adults, 10 books for children, and numerous plays, screenplays and short stories, he has had several of his works adapted into films.  His newest novel, in the “Paula Spencer” series, is 2024’s The Women Behind The Door.

 

A one-time secondary school teacher, Doyle switched to full-time writing after his first three novels – collectively known as “The Barrytown Trilogy” – not only sold well but also were made into successful films.   His 1993 book – Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha – won the prestigious Booker Prize, awarded annually to the best original English language novel published in the United Kingdom.

 

Doyle’s stories, built around heavy use of dialogue, primarily focus on the lives of working-class Dubliners with themes ranging from domestic and personal concerns to larger questions of Irish history.   

 

“I tend to plan as I write,” he said. “And I want to leave myself open and the character open to keep on going until it seems to be the time to stop.  When I'm writing I just think there's only the page and me and nobody else.”

A Writer's Moment: "A craftsman's command of the language'

A Writer's Moment: "A craftsman's command of the language':   “If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what...

"A craftsman's command of the language'

 

“If you have a craftsman's command of the language and basic writing techniques you'll be able to write - as long as you know what you want to say” – Jeffery Deaver

 

Deaver, born on this date in 1950, is one of America’s premiere mystery/crime writers having earned most of the top awards in the genre and making almost every major bestseller list around the globe.  A native of Illinois and graduate (in journalism) from the University of Missouri, and in Law from Fordham University, he started in a law career before realizing that what he really wanted to do was write. 

 

Among his awards are a Nero Wolfe and three Ellery Queen Reader's Awards for Best Short Story and Best Novel of the Year.  Deaver's most popular series (16 titles) features detective Lincoln Rhyme – the most recent being The Watchmaker’s Hand (in 2023).  His books The Devil’s Teardrop, which first introduced Rhyme, and The Bone Collector, the first in the Rhyme series, both were made into popular television movies.  And, his 9-book series featuring character Colter Shaw has been the inspiration for CBS television’s hit series Tracker. 

 

“I think my responsibility as a thriller writer,” Deaver said, “(is to) give my readers the most exciting roller coaster ride of a suspense story I can possibly think of.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The power and danger of words'

A Writer's Moment: 'The power and danger of words':   “The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.”  – May Sarton   Born in Belgium on this date in 1912, Sarton has been c...

'The power and danger of words'

 

“The more articulate one is, the more dangerous words become.” – May Sarton

 

Born in Belgium on this date in 1912, Sarton has been called “a poet's poet.”   Over a 70-year career, began when she was a teen, she authored 17 books of poetry, 19 novels, 15 nonfiction works, 2 children's books, and several screenplays, writing right up to her death in 1995 at her U.S. home in New England (her family emigrated to the U.S. in 1914 and she grew up in Boston). 

 

 Her award-winning poem “Now I Become Myself” was written on her birthday in 1947 – also the day on which I was born.  It was an easy selection for my choice as this week’s Saturday’s Poem.  Here is Sarton's,

 

                            Now I Become Myself

                             Now I become myself. It's taken
                             Time, many years and places;
                             I have been dissolved and shaken,
                             Worn other people's faces,
                             Run madly, as if Time were there,
                             Terribly old, crying a warning,
                             'Hurry, you will be dead before-'
                             (What? Before you reach the morning?
                             Or the end of the poem is clear?
                             Or love safe in the walled city?)

                           Now to stand still, to be here,
                           Feel my own weight and density!
                           The black shadow on the paper
                           Is my hand; the shadow of a word
                           Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
                           All fuses now, falls into place
                           From wish to action, word to silence,
                           My work, my love, my time, my face
                           Gathered into one intense
                           Gesture of growing like a plant.
                           As slowly as the ripening fruit
                           Fertile, detached, and always spent,
                           Falls but does not exhaust the root,
                           So all the poem is, can give,
                           Grows in me to become the song,
                           Made so and rooted by love.
                           Now there is time and Time is young.

                            O, in this single hour I live
                            All of myself and do not move.
                            I, the pursued, who madly ran,
                            Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!