A Writer's Moment: 'News ... That Stays News'

A Writer's Moment: 'News ... That Stays News': “If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays. Literature is news that stays news.” – Ezra Po...

'News ... That Stays News'

“If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays. Literature is news that stays news.” – Ezra Pound

 

Born in New York on this Oct. 30, 1885, Pound spent most of his adult life in Great Britain and is considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting the so-called “modernist poetry movement.”  He also is noted for opening an exchange of work and ideas between British and American writers and for his support of other young writers like W.B. Yeats, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, William Hemingway and T.S. Elliot.

 “Good writers,” he said,  “are those who keep the language efficient.  That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.”  For Saturday’s Poem, here is Pound’s,

 

The Sea of Glass

 

I looked and saw a sea
                               roofed over with rainbows,
In the midst of each
                               two lovers met and departed;
Then the sky was full of faces
                               with gold glories behind them.

 

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: Telling The Stories of 'Invisible People'

A Writer's Moment: Telling The Stories of 'Invisible People': Bottom of “I didn't go into journalism thinking it would solidify my identity. I did it because I needed to make a l...

Telling The Stories of 'Invisible People'

Bottom of“I didn't go into journalism thinking it would solidify my identity. I did it because I needed to make a living, and I was proficient in writing. But in becoming a journalist, I learned about other people who felt like they were on the edges of American mainstream life.” – Alex Tizon

 

Tomas Alexander Asuncion (Alex) Tizon was born in the Philippines on this date in 1959.  A Filipino-American author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he also taught journalism at the University of Oregon and authored the book Big Little Man, a memoir and cultural history that explores themes related to race, masculinity, and personal identity.  

 

Tizon’s controversial final story, titled "My Family's Slave,” was published as the cover story of the June 2017 issue of The Atlantic after his sudden death at his home in March of that year.   A coroner’s report said the unexplained death was “from natural causes,” but questions persist. 

A graduate of both the University of Oregon and Stanford University, he won the Pulitzer for Investigative Reporting while writing about fraud and mismanagement in the Federal Indian Housing Program in a series for the Seattle Times.  He regularly wrote about people from a wide range of cultures subsisting on the margins.

 

“I guess you could say I've written a lot about one thing as a journalist,” he said shortly before his death.  “But I hardly ever saw it as exclusively about race. To my mind, it was more about telling stories of people who existed outside the mainstream's field of vision. Invisible people.“

 

 

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A Writer's Moment: Utilizing Life's Humorous Events

A Writer's Moment: Usilizing Life's Humorous Events:   For many years I wrote a “humor based on life” column called “Jargon,” which also became the title of one of my books.   Started when I wa...

Utilizing Life's Humorous Events

 For many years I wrote a “humor based on life” column called “Jargon,” which also became the title of one of my books.  Started when I was writing for the Hot Springs Star in the Southern Black Hills, “Jargon” gave readers an invitation to enjoy a laugh at things that might or might not happen to them but had, in fact, happened to me or members of my family.  

And, while some of those columns were written purely to entertain, others were done as a way to draw attention to a special need, an idea, or a concept that was easier to convey through the use of humor.  

Most of the things we laugh at in real life – whether they be about a temperamental pet or embarrassing things your kids say at the most inopportune times – are true stories, even if sometimes slightly exaggerated for effect.   Humor is not only a great technique, but also often the key focus of what makes up many of the best Writers’ Moments.  “Happy” writing. 

 

 

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