An eclection of insights into the nature of writing and being a writer.
Scribbles in the sand
In Couto's superb novel, a disturbed father tries to isolate his sons from life and learning by taking them to a remote place and denying them any access to writing. The older brother teaches the younger one in secret, always at risk of dire punishment. As a new...
Like the last of his life
Harold Bloom's comment on Hart Crane (1899-1932) is all the more poignant knowing that Crane considered some of his major work to have been a failure, suffered recurring bouts of alcoholism, and appears to have committed suicide when he jumped overboard a ship he was...
Poetry as gleaning
A telling comment by Christopher Isherwood on W.H. Auden's approach to revising his poems. It makes one wonder how many scholars have wasted hours peering deeply into some poem of 'celebrated obscurity' which was never more than an accretion of lines that had passed...
Of abundant overflow
What causes creativity to spring forth? I like Seamus Heaney's idea that it is not so much reactive as a generous overflow from an abundant internal source.This then is truly creative writing. It does arise from the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, but the...
All good publishers have a department of exceptions.
Gabriel Zaid – So Many Books
Architects of the human soul
On their month long trip to the Soviet Union in 1947, John Steinbeck and the photographer Robert Capa had several...
On spherical emotions and the need for adjectives
Never thought of emotions as spherical before, but grasp the need for their many-sided expression. And the fact that emotions...
Nonsense daubers
Folly, speaking from her light-hearted pulpit, lays into another bunch of self-serious fools, those who write books, or as she...
A visit to the Brontes
When I read the journals of Dorothy Wordsworth I had a yearning to visit the Wordsworth homes in the Lake...
Language as anchor and mooring
Heaney uses several maritime metaphors in discussing a poem set in a sea-faring culture. Here he refers to speech that...
Poetry as a boat
Another maritime metaphor in Heaney's introduction to a poem set in a sea-world. The ‘big quay’ of language and literature can...
Stitched with stolen silk
This hand-bound, home-made note book contains the manuscript of Orlando's great poem, 'The Oak Tree', begun in 1586. He takes...
Of words, wording and eternity
Part of my blogophyte journey has been to learn about some of the technical workings of the online world, among...
Time and poets
This summary of where Mandelstam places the poet versus the ‘man of letters’ on the time spectrum intrigues me. Yes,...
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