The Writing Life
I like creepy stories, so when Casper asked if I could share any you should never, ever read before bed as part of a Halloween motif, I had to create a list. Some of the stories are the usual suspects, by the usual authors. Others are going to be a surprise, but I find that “creepy” is not a quality confined to sci fi, fantasy, and horror.
[Read more…] about 21 Stories You Should Never, Ever Read before Bed
To be a writer is to write on behalf of, even if it’s on the behalf of herself. It’s to bear witness to her own life and to hold it beneath the glare of her writing. It is to study and prod in an attempt to understand – sometimes even when there is no understanding to be found or claimed – and to call attention to something greater than herself. [Read more…] about Writing as Witness
The attention which the poem pays to all that it encounters, its more acute sense of detail, outline, structure, color, but also of the ‘tremors and hints’ – all this is not, I think, achieved by an eye competing (or concurring) with ever more precise instruments, but, rather, by a kind of concentration mindful of all our dates…‘attention is the natural prayer of the soul.’ – Paul Celan, “The Meridian”
…a fragile music tuned by borrowed contents,
each narrow flute enriched by what it holds
the song provisional, the precise note
inspiring thirst, but altered by a sip.
April Lindner’s “Crystal”
The first problem of any kind of limited success is the unshakeable conviction that you are getting away with something, and that any moment now they will discover you. – Neil Gaiman, “Make Good Art”
…a poem freshens the world. – Ted Kooser
The first story I wrote was about my grandmother who had fallen into a lake. My first poem, fittingly or disturbingly, used the same experience. The incident, something I knew and with which I was familiar, propelled me into the unknown. At first, it was the world of unknown letters and words – I wrote my first story when I was six or seven. The second was an unfamiliar world, but it turned out to be the world I needed.
[Read more…] about Thoughts on Poetry for Poetry at Work Day