On Writing...

One of the primary purposes of this space is for me to be able to write. I do a fearful amount of writing in  the pursuit of my PhD, and I've begun to do writing on the side as well, some business, some pleasure.
The most recent iteration of this space was really a place to work out the varied inspirations given me by my Muse, a capricious creature, to be sure, playful, but on the whole respectful of my creative soul. Mostly.
In any case, someone pointed me in the direction of these rules for beginning writers, which I saved on instapaper, and so forget the original source. Sorry. Yell at me in the comments, if you (whoever you are) think it was you I've forgotten. I'd hazard a guess at boingboing, but I could be wrong.

From India Uncut:

V.S. Naipaul’s Rules for Beginners


1. Do not write long sentences. A sentence should not have more than ten or twelve words.
2. Each sentence should make a clear statement. It should add to the statement that went before. A good paragraph is a series of clear, linked statements.
3. Do not use big words. If your computer tells you that your average word is more than five letters long, there is something wrong. The use of small words compels you to think about what you are writing. Even difficult ideas can be broken down into small words.
4. Never use words whose meaning you are not sure of. If you break this rule you should look for other work.
5. The beginner should avoid using adjectives, except those of colour, size and number. Use as few adverbs as possible.
6. Avoid the abstract. Always go for the concrete.
7. Every day, for six months at least, practice writing in this way. Small words; short, clear, concrete sentences. It may be awkward, but it’s training you in the use of language. It may even be getting rid of the bad language habits you picked up at the university. You may go beyond these rules after you have thoroughly understood and mastered them.

Naipaul seems to have been after a certain type of writing here, to be sure. As an academic, I sometimes write long sentences, and long words. I likely often run over his 12 word and 5 letter limits. Still.
The original post that pointed me to these rules pointed out the especial usefulness of #4, and since I've read it, I've noticed the very dangerous habit of doing so in my own writing, and, worse yet, in my conversations. Since then, I have, I am proud to say, not broken rule #4 once. And it makes me feel much better.  In my own experience, #7 is particularly useful as well. Training in writing is dreadfully important. My easiest writing, the stuff that really flows, that comes out clean, the stuff I actually have fun with, always happens when I've been writing on a daily basis.
Oddly, it doesn't matter what I've been writing, either, I just need to be writing.
I suppose that means I should be nice to my Muse, doesn't it, gentle reader?

On Spring, again...

It is hot on the island tonight. The first really hot night of the year, I think. It feels less like spring now than it does like summer, and the internet tells me that the American Memorial Day is the unofficial start of that season anyway. Maybe May 24 is our unofficial summer start. Or maybe it should be.
In any case, I am not yet ready to relinquish the first season of the year. I want spring, and its green conflagration to remain awhile. Summer will be long and hot enough, and fall, like spring, will be regrettably short.
For spring, for that brief, lovely spring, I offer you another poem on that subject, with a decidedly different take. Lilacs were an important part of my spring last year, and are shaping up to be again. My neighbourhood has several trees of them, and my walks often take me by them; their scent is everywhere this time of year, the smell of them is a powerful signifier of spring.  Maybe, gentle reader, the hours will carry you, as well, into June...

Last Spring

BY GOTTFRIED BENN

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY MICHAEL HOFMANN

Fill yourself up with the forsythias

and when the lilacs flower, stir them in too

with your blood and happiness and wretchedness,

the dark ground that seems to come with you.

Sluggish days. All obstacles overcome.

And if you say: ending or beginning, who knows,

then maybe—just maybe—the hours will carry you

into June, when the roses blow.

Summer days have their charm as well, I suppose, depending on what, or whom, one compares them to...

On Small Truths...

Another poem, as these are a feature in my life these days, and a welcome one at that. By coincidence, this poem appeared twice in my life in rapid sequence, which I personally take to be an auspicious occurrence. That's just me, though.


THEME FOR ENGLISH B
By Langston Hughes

The instructor said,
Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you---
Then, it will be true.
I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It's not easy to know what is true for you or me 
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what 
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you: 
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page. 
(I hear New York too.) Me---who? 
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. 
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life. 
I like a pipe for a Christmas present, 
or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach. 
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like 
the same things other folks like who are other races. 
So will my page be colored that I write? 
Being me, it will not be white. 
But it will be 
a part of you, instructor. 
You are white--- 
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you. 
That's American. 
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me. 
Nor do I often want to be a part of you. 
But we are, that's true! 
As I learn from you,
 I guess you learn from me--- 
although you're older---and white--- 
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.

On Spring...

Ah, Spring. When a young man's thoughts turn to love.
Spring comes to Montreal quickly. When I saw this poem the other day, its imagery of the green flame, the conflagration of life, of spring, reminded me of the sudden burst of spring on the Island:

The Enkindled Spring

BY D. H. (DAVID HERBERT) LAWRENCE

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

Where the wood fumes up, and the flickering, watery rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration

Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze

Of growing, these sparks that puff in wild gyration,

Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among

This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed

About like a shadow buffeted in the throng

Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

Spring comes to Montreal Quickly. But spring also comes to Montreal like the proverbial double edged sword. It lifts the grinding, grey weight of the last days of winter, true. But it come so very, very quickly. One week, snow, and all the cumbersome accoutrements, all the boots and scarves, gloves and heavy coats. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, hot sun and green grass, flowers and budding trees, shoes with no socks and t-shirts. Even the sweaters, those perfect symbol of spring layering, gone.
Spring was particularly elusive for me this year, to add to the turmoil. A few well timed trips broke up the habitual coming of spring on the Island for me. A return to my ancestral home thrust me back into the cruel maw of winter, a few brief days after the first glimmer of spring appeared on the fair Isle. An epic roadtrip to Syracuse (University conference; work) and then a flight to Vancouver (family vacation; play) further added to the confusion. Syracuse was far enough south to be in full bloom, and Vancouver's climate ensured the cherry trees were pink to greet my coming.
But the Vancouver spring is not the spring of my Island home. It is much more the spring of my ancestral home, cool, and damp, gray. The sun comes more rarely, but is the more welcome for it, perhaps. Fog and rain and mist, with views of the English Bay reminded my of my love of the shore, surely bred in the bone, if forgotten from time to time. Every boy dreams of boats, and pirates, lagoons lost and found, maybe.
Vancouver is a beautiful city, to be sure.
My return to the Island further upset the rhythm of spring. For my Island had turned back the clock, and a week of warm sunny weather (the week, of course, that I was on the West Coast) was displaced by rain, and temperatures easily counted on both hands, and sometimes on one alone.
But yesterday... Ah, yesterday. A true spring day. Sun, but not to hot. Cool in the shade, and breezes. A long walk with someone special, and a barbecue with good friends. Pilfered lilacs (the lilac have bloomed, gentle reader, and my heart is glad for it) as a gift, and naps in the cool evening air.
A very fine day indeed, gentle reader. A very fine spring day indeed.

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction"

I received an email, sometime last week, exhorting me to return a book I had borrowed from the library of an institution of higher learning other than my own. It took me a moment or two to remember why I had even taken that book out. It was not the type I usually check out of academic libraries. It was Catch as Catch Can: The Collected Stories and Other Writings, a collection by Joseph Heller.
I had checked it out with the intention of finding in it a line I remembered reading as a child, in a publication I probably shouldn't have been reading. I had mentioned the line to a friend in the context of

discussion I probably shouldn't have been having. The line had something to do with an old man, in a hospital bed, fingering the lacy edge of the nurse's slip, because that was as much as she would allow him. I wanted to find the quote for my friend, the context, the original language, knowing I had not done it justice.

It's funny, the things we remember. I looked, with some urgency, in the collection for the story I knew held the sought-after line. There were two potential stories, where there should have been one. it was a story, I knew, that served as a sequel of sorts to Catch-22, Heller's masterwork. In any case, I can read quickly, and so two stories were no real impediment, save the fact that I was under unrelated deadlines.

But my line, my hem-fingering hero, was nowhere to be found. I had, Gentle Reader, remembered it all wrong.

There was another set of stories that ran in the aforementioned publication I oughtn't to have been reading. Involving an assassin, a gun for hire, a knight-errant. Perhaps he was the aged man in the hospital bed, perhaps he is the one I was looking for.

I'll try to find him, Gentle Reader, now that I know my mistake.

On War...

War. War never changes.
I read an article in today's paper wherein one of the columnists mused on the prevalence of war metaphors in recent election coverage.
It reminded me of my undergraduate, when my friend and I would compare our progress during the semester with language borrowed from Vietnam War movies, with Platoon being the most notable.
I have, lately, been tempted to return to war metaphor in an effort to describe my life.
Yesterday, I noted to a colleague that despite being in the Humanities (or social sciences; we never seem to know which), my life had become governed by the cold hard facts of mathematics. I can read 20 pages/hr. There are 24 hrs in a day. I have 500 pages to read in 7 days (light stuff too. Feminist philosophy).
Math, Gentle Reader, is not my friend. I do not like its logic, its cold relentless march toward an essential truth.
No, I prefer the hazards and vagaries of war. Valor, chance, and might. God on our side. Or someone's side, anyway. Me vs. the books. Once more unto the breach, dear friends.
Shakespeare (Henry V - Act III, Scene I):

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'

I do, on occasion, and more so recently, enjoy a good quote from Shakespeare. I have not, truth be told, read all that much of him. No more really, than your average lit major, and in some cases, much less. Nevertheless, the Bard is eminently quotable, and I enjoy doing just that.
There are a few things about this particular speech that really thrill me. Firstly, the breach. With the possible exception of "Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war" (also the bard, Julius Caesar, Act III, Scene I), no line so encompasses for me the sentiment of girding oneself for strife (or horrendous amounts of reading). In addition, it describes a war face, including instructions. Big fan of the war face.
War, Gentle Reader. War.

"Then I'd lie in my bed once again"

It is no secret, at least not to we few, we proud, we band of readers, those of us who regularly read those words written here (Hello, Denmark!), that poetry has become significantly more present in my life now than some times previous.

In part, this lies in the rediscovery of poetry read aloud, preferably to me by someone else (and pretty girls seem to work best), but, in a pinch, by me to me. I suppose I always, somehow, knew this to be the best means of receiving verse, but, as with all things, time occasionally robs us of knowledge and memory. I forgot, Gentle Reader, as I grew older, that one aught to read poems aloud, forgot that one should read them at all.

God! What a horror show. I am so glad that I have come back to my senses. A poem:

Danse Russe


If when my wife is sleeping


and the baby and Kathleen


are sleeping


and the sun is a flame-white disc


in silken mists


above shining trees,--


if I in my north room


dance naked, grotesquely


before my mirror


waving my shirt round my head


and singing softly to myself:


"I am lonely, lonely.


I was born to be lonely,


I am best so!"


If I admire my arms, my face,


my shoulders, flanks, buttocks


against the yellow drawn shades,--



Who shall say I am not


the happy genius of my household?



William Carlos Williams


This poem, read to me not once, but twice this weekend, sparked a discussion (and rumination) on the nature or rebellion (mostly of the youthful kind), and also as to the nature of Kathleen. Over all, it reminded me of a story I once heard (and have since told) about a boy who enjoyed sneaking out of his house at night, and running naked in the woods of the back lot. Would that boy grow up to be the happy genius? If he did, Gentle Reader, I hope in my heart that he would not forget the beauty of poetry, the childish wonder of the meter and the rhyme (sometimes the rhyme, anyway). Too many people see poems as elitist stuff, complicated or esoteric. Not so, not so. Think of songs, for instance. It was an revelation to remember the beauty of verse, as an adult, to rediscover the simple joys of poetry, and to remember the story of the boy running naked through the woods, night wind and moon light on pale skin. Don't forget, boy. Don't forget those feelings, don't forget the childish pleasure, or the ease of joy.