Skipping the 'Classifications'

“At school, I was never given a sense that poetry was something flowery or light. It's a complex and controlled way of using language. Rhythms and the music of it are very important. But the difficulty is that poetry makes some kind of claim of honesty.” – Tobias Hill
 

Award-winning British poet, essayist, writer of short stories and novelist, Hill was born on this date in 1970.  He’s the type of writer who hates to be “classified” or put into any kind of box, although the accolades for his poetry sometimes puts that at the forefront.  His 2006 work, Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow, was described by London’s The Guardian as "A vital, luminous collection.”

That’s not to take anything away from his fiction.  His novels also have been widely acclaimed, particularly his 2009 mystery thriller The Hidden, listed by one reviewer as “a sustained meditation on the special ethics of terrorism in ancient and modern times.” 

Also a much sought-after lecturer and workshop teacher, he holds an appointment at Oxford Brookes University as the Senior Lecturer for the MA Creative Writing Course.

“People have expectations of what you are as a writer,” Hill said.  “And writers, on the whole, don't like to be classified.”

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Reading, Writing, Waiting

“There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.' In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things - read and write - and wait.” – Countee Cullen

A renowned member of the Harlem Renaissance writing movement, Cullen was born in Kentucky and adopted by a Methodist minister when his parents died while he was still a small child.  Cullen’s writing career began in high school, where he edited the school newspaper and literary magazine and won a citywide poetry competition. He went on to attend New York University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1925 and winning the Witter Bynner Poetry Prize. That same year, Cullen released his lauded debut volume of poetry, Color.      

                                  With the publication of additional poetry volumes, Copper Sun and The Ballad of the Brown Girl (both 1927), Cullen was seen as a leading light among African-American writers.   Also a novelist, children’s author and playwright, he was just starting to make a splash with his theatrical writings when he died from complications from high blood pressure. 

Also a teacher, both in high school and college, he gave students this advice:  “Remember, we must be one thing or the other, an asset or a liability, the sinew in your wing to help you soar, or the chain to bind you to earth.”

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Teaching To Learn

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life:  it goes on.” – Robert Frost

I’ve always loved the poetry of Robert Frost and thought about his imagery and attention to the land whenever I’ve driven through or walked in the rugged countryside of western Nebraska and eastern Wyoming or my beloved Black Hills.  I don’t think Frost ever visited them, but I’m sure if he had we would have had another book full of poems to love thanks to his great writing.

Frost was born during the last week of March 1874, growing up in New England.  His realistic depictions of rural life, the beauty of the land, and command of American colloquial speech – all while examining complex social and philosophical themes – may never be equaled.   Poetry is a simple process, he liked to say.  It's just an emotion finding a thought and the thought finding its words.

 

Like every writer he hit dry periods, but unlike many he had something to say about that.  “Poets,” he noted, “are like baseball pitchers.  Both have their moments.  It’s the intervals that are the tough things.”                 

                                                 The only poet to win four Pulitzer Prizes, he also was honored with the Congressional Gold Medal, named Poet Laureate of Vermont, and by being depicted on a U.S. postage stamp.   A great teacher, he once said,  “I talk in order to understand.   But I teach in order to learn.”

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Powerful Language, Powerful Feelings

“The kinds of things that poetry can offer are timeless - mainly the kind of compression it offers of powerful language, powerful feelings and images, and, you know, the inner experience becoming outer.” – Brenda Hillman

Born in Tucson, Ariz., on this date in 1951, Hillman is the author of 9 collections of poetry, including Bright Existence; Practical Water, for which she won the LA Times Book Award for Poetry, and Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire, which received the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize and the Northern California Book Award for Poetry.

A “writer” of poetry since age 9 (“the first time I wrote a poem that I was proud of,”) Hillman is known for poems that draw on elements of found texts and document, personal meditation, and observation including about topics like geology, the environment, politics, family, and spirituality. 

 A multiple award winner for her works, she also has been the recipient of Fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.   A professor of Creative Writing (she holds the Olivia Filippi Chair in Poetry at Saint Mary’s College of California), Hillman was recently elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.  

                                               “The techniques of contemporary poetry are probably the techniques of your daily life,” she says as a word of advice and how to deal with your thought processes.   “I don't know a single person who goes into the grocery store and thinks in complete sentences.  We often think in fragments, we think in little lists, we think in non-sequiturs, we think in feelings that may not match up with each other.”

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Zig-zagging To History

“People always think that history proceeds in a straight line. It doesn't. Social attitudes don't change in a straight line. There's always a backlash against progressive ideas.” – Erica Jong

Born on this date in 1942, Jong is a novelist, satirist, and poet, known particularly for her 1973 novel Fear of Flying, famously controversial for its attitudes towards female sexuality.  To date it has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.

Jong earned degrees from Barnard and Columbia, where she majored in English Literature, and started writing for magazines and journals before trying her hand at fiction.  Fear of Flying was her first effort and catapulted her into a successful lifelong career.  She has now authored 11 novels, 8 nonfiction books, and 7 books of poetry.

While fiction has led to most of her fame, she says she really enjoys poetry and has just completed a new book of poetry – The World Begins With Yes – slated for publication in 2019.  

 

                      “In poetry you can express almost inexpressible feelings,” she said.   “You can express the pain of loss, you can express love. People always turn to poetry when someone they love dies; when they fall in love.”

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Powerful Poetic Writing

“Language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history.” – Octavio Paz
 

Paz, born in Mexico in March 1914, was both a diplomat and a writer – primarily focusing on poetry.  For his body of work he won three major awards, beginning with his own country’s Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1981, then the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1982, and capping it with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990.

 

Paz started writing at age 23, working on the first of his long, ambitious poems, "Between the Stone and the Flower." Influenced by the work of T.S. Eliot, it explores the situation of the Mexican peasant under the domineering landlords of the day.  He co-founded and wrote for the literary magazine Taller until entering the diplomatic corps in 1941.  For the rest of his life, he served his country diplomatically while eloquently and boldly writing about life, the land, and the people around him.

For Saturday’s Poem, here is Paz’s,

The Bridge

Between now and now,
between I am and you are,
the word bridge.

Entering it
you enter yourself:
the world connects
and closes like a ring.

From one bank to another,
there is always
a body stretched:
a rainbow.
I'll sleep beneath its arches.

I also wanted to share this link to his eloquent, “As One Listens To the Rain.”  Powerful poetic writing at its best.  Enjoy.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/as-one-listens-to-the-rain/

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It All Starts With The Writing

“Whether you are 12 or 70, you should sit down today and start being a writer if that is what you want to do. You might have to write on a notebook while your kids are playing on the swings or write in your car on your coffee break. That's okay. I think we've all 'been there, done that.' Just remember, it all starts with the writing.” – Robin Hobb

Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden – who writes as Hobb and Megan Lindholm – took her own advice and started writing for children’s magazines at the age of 18.  While she was successful in that field, she thought she’d be better at science fiction and fantasy and decided to give that a try.  Good choice.  Over the past 40 years she’s arguably been the most prolific writer in those fields.   Among her works are The Liveship Traders Trilogy, The Soldier Son Trilogy and the four volume tale, The Rain Wilds Chronicles.   Her works have been translated into over 20 languages, winning multiple awards globally.    

                              Hobb, who celebrated her 66^th birthday this month, has been praised by most critics as “the standard setter for modern serious fantasy.”  George R.R. Martin (author of the Game of Thrones series) told me last year that he thought Hobb was the best fantasy writer he has ever read.  “In today’s crowded fantasy market,” Martin said, “Robin Hobb’s books are like diamonds in a sea of zircons.”

Margaret’s secret to success?    “Keep writing, keep faith in the idea that you have unique stories to tell, and tell them.” 

 

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