A Writer's Moment: 'It's all about their brute persistence'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's all about their brute persistence':   “The great thing about novels is that you can be as un-shy as you want to be. I'm very polite in person. I don't want to talk abou...

'It's all about their brute persistence'

 

“The great thing about novels is that you can be as un-shy as you want to be. I'm very polite in person. I don't want to talk about startling or upsetting things with people.” – Nicholson Baker

 

Born in New York on this date in 1957, Baker is a novelist and essayist who has written about everything from poetry, literature and library systems to history, politics and time manipulation.   Among his many writing honors are a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the International Hermann Hesse Prize.  While he has written 11 well-received novels, Baker’s best-known works are the non-fiction titles Double-Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, and Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II; The End of Civilization.  His most recent book, his 8th non-fiction title, is 2024’s Finding A Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art.

 

A fervent advocate for libraries’ maintaining “physical copies” of books, manuscripts and old newspapers, he established the American Newspaper Repository to help insure that they would not be destroyed and winning the prestigious James Madison Freedom of Information Award for his efforts.  

 

“Printed books usually outlive bookstores and the publishers who brought them out,” he said.  “They sit around, demanding nothing, for decades.  That’s one of their nicest qualities – their brute persistence.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The opening and closing of a door'

A Writer's Moment: 'The opening and closing of a door':   “Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.”  – Carl Sandb...

'The opening and closing of a door'

 

“Poetry is the opening and closing of a door, leaving those who look through to guess about what is seen during the moment.” – Carl Sandburg

 

Born in Galesburg, IL on this date in 1878, Sandburg said he never set out to win any prizes for his writing and, in fact, wanted to “write my own way,” even though that often was at odds with what his contemporaries were doing.  All that did, of course, was win him most of the major prizes, including three Pulitzers – the only poet to ever win that many.

 

He actually won two for poetry and one for his literature, the first in 1919 for Corn Huskers, then the second in 1940 for the second volume of his two-volume masterpiece Abraham Lincoln, still considered one of the definitive biographical works on our 16^th President.  In 1951 he won a third Pulitzer for his Complete Poems. 

 

Like so many great writers of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, Sandburg began his writing career as a journalist (for the Chicago Daily News).    And, while he is most known for his poetry, particularly about his adopted city, his historical work, biographies, novels, children's literature, and film reviews also were among the best pieces of his day. And, in his “spare” time, Sandburg collected and edited books of ballads and folklore.

At his death in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson observed, “Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He was America.”

A Writer's Moment: 'The true interpreters of the mind . . . and heart'

A Writer's Moment: 'The true interpreters of the mind . . . and heart':   “Writers, not psychiatrists, are the true interpreters of the human mind and heart, and we have been at it for a very long time.” – Floren...

'The true interpreters of the mind . . . and heart'

 

“Writers, not psychiatrists, are the true interpreters of the human mind and heart, and we have been at it for a very long time.” – Florence King

 

Born in Washington, D.C. on this date in 1936, King was a longtime National Review essayist and columnist, where her column “The Misanthrope’s Corner” not only served up a smorgasbord of curmudgeonly critiques but also earned her the title “The Queen of Mean.”  She wrote the column right up to her death (just one day after her 80^th birthday) in 2016.

 

King started her journalism career for The Raleigh News and Observer, where she won the North Carolina Press Woman Award for Reporting.  That led to the job offer and nearly lifelong tenure at The National Review.  She also wrote a couple of romance novels and penned Southern Ladies and Gentlemen, a humorous "Guide to the South for Yankees.”  Her most popular book is Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady, a semi-autobiographical work focused on, among other things, her grandmother's, mother's, and father's construct of what it meant to “be a lady.”   

 

 “Write clearly, succinctly and with purpose," she advised.  "Writers who have nothing to say always strain for metaphors to say it in.”

A Writer's Moment: Avoiding average, creating masterpieces

A Writer's Moment: Avoiding average, creating masterpieces: “If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's just going to be average.” – Derek Walcott   Born in ...

Avoiding average, creating masterpieces

“If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's just going to be average.” – Derek Walcott

 

Born in Saint Lucian-Trinidad in January of 1930, Walcott won the Nobel Prize in Literature, an Obie Award for his play Dream on Monkey Mountain; a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award; a Royal Society of Literature Award; the Queen's Medal for Poetry; and the T. S. Eliot Prize for his remarkable book of poetry White Egrets.  Walcott died in 2017.

 

 For powerful and poignant reads, check out his “A City’s Death by Fire” or “A Far Cry From Africa.”  For Saturday’s Poem, here is,

                                             Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the universal language'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the universal language':   “Language is an inadequate form of communication. If you've ever picked up an instrument, it's because you don't feel you are ...

'It's the universal language'

 

“Language is an inadequate form of communication. If you've ever picked up an instrument, it's because you don't feel you are communicating sufficiently.” – Stephen Stills

 

Best known as part of two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame groups – Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – Stills was born on Jan. 3, 1945, a literal “rolling stone.”  The son of military parents, he traveled the world in his growing up years and didn’t quite know where to call home as he and his family moved from place to place.

 

Those experiences combined with his amazing musical talent led him into professional performance before he was out of his teen years and ultimately into the Hall of Fame.  Both his musicianship (he performed on multiple instruments) and his writing (most of the songs of the two groups noted above plus a longstanding solo list) made him an American musical icon.

 

Ranked as Rolling Stone magazine’s 28^th All Time Greatest guitarist, Stills’ writing compliments his wide range of lyrics addressing everything from the American scene to politics to love.  His “Love The One You’re With” is ranked one of the 100 all-time greatest rock songs.   

 

He also has written many songs for and about other singers, including Judy Collins with whom he had a longstanding on-again, off-again relationship, fostering the award-winning album “Suite:  Judy Blue Eyes.”   His soft rock ballad “Teach Your Children” is also listed among many “greatest hits” lists.

 

“Mostly retired,” he still does occasional guest appearances, especially to support causes that help those in need.  “Music,” said Stills, “is the universal language of mankind.”