Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 122
October 14, 2023
A Writer's Moment: 'Genius is the Recovery of Childhood'
'Genius is the Recovery of Childhood'
“Geniusis the recovery of childhood at will.” – Arthur Rimbaud
Known for his contributions tosymbolism and influence on modern literature and arts, Rimbaud was born inFrance on this date in 1854. He startedwriting at a very young age, abandoned his formal education in his teenageyears to run away and join the army during the Franco-Prussian War, and wrotevoraciously in his late teens and early 20s before abruptly stopping. Becoming a merchant, he traveledand traded extensively on 3 continents before a premature death from cancer atage 37.
His poetry influenced many laterwriters who adopted some of his themes and his inventive use of form andlanguage. For Saturday’s Poem, here isRimbaud’s,
Dawn
I have kissed the summer dawn. Before the palaces, nothingmoved. The water lay dead. Battalions of shadows still kept the forest road.
I walked, walking warm and vital breath, While stones watched, and wings rosesoundlessly.
My first adventure, in a path already gleaming With a clear pale light, Was aflower who told me its name.
I laughed at the blond Wasserfall That threw its hair across the pines: On thesilvered summit, I came upon the goddess.
Then one by one, I lifted her veils. In the long walk, Waving my arms.
Across the meadow, where I betrayed her to the sun. In the heart of town shefled among the steeples and domes, And I hunted her, scrambling like a beggaron marble wharves.
Above the road, near a thicket of laurel, I caught her in her gathered veils,And smelled the scent of her immense body. Dawn and the child fell together atthe bottom of the wood.
When I awoke, it was noon.
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October 13, 2023
A Writer's Moment: Exploring 'The Rhythm of the Words'
Exploring 'The Rhythm of the Words'
“Ithink with all my books, language has been their subject as much as anythingelse. Language can elide or displace or sideline whole groups of people. Youcan't necessarily change the way language is used, but if it becomes somethingyou're conscious of... that gives you a certain power over it.”– Kate Grenville
Born on Oct. 15, 1950 Australia's Catherine Elizabeth "Kate" Grenville has authored 15books – including fiction, non-fiction, biography and books about the writingprocess. Along the way, she's won both the CommonwealthWriters’ Prize and the Orange Prize, two of the writing world's top awards.
Grenville’s career startedin film before she wrote a collection of highly regarded short stories in theearly 1980s. Her 1985 novel Lilian’s Story established her reputationas one of Australia’s leading fiction writers. That multiple award-winning book also was made into a successful movie.
Grenville's writing has exploredAustralia’s colonial past and relationships among its peoples, especially in her acclaimed booksThe Secret River, The Lieutenant and Sarah Thornhill.
Also a writing teacher, shehas written or co-written several widely used books about the writing process. “I read a lot of poetry, and I lovewhat it does with language,” Grenville said. “I love music, too, and I think there'sprobably no coincidence there, that the rhythm of the words is almost asimportant as the words themselves.”
October 12, 2023
A Writer's Moment: 'Because this is what you do'
'Because this is what you do'
“I write because I write - as anyonein the arts does. You're a painter because you feel you have nochoice but to paint. You're a writer because this is what you do” – Richard Price
Born in New York City on this datein 1949, Price has earned acclaim for his many screenplays and television episodes and his 9 novels, led by the award-winning The Wanderers and Clockers,both also made into movies. The novelsexplore late-20th century urban America (set in New Jersey) in a gritty,realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim.
Price's screenplay for the movie The Color of Money earned him an Oscar nomination, andmany of his others – Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment ofNew York Stories); Sea of Love; Mad Dog and Glory – allwere highly praised. On HBO, his worksinclude episodes of The Wire and The Night Of.
Inducted into the American Academyof Arts and Letters, he is a recipient of that organization’s top literaryprize.
Price started his writing career while still in graduate school at Columbia University and never looked back, but he said sometimes the process can be a struggle. "Writers spend three yearsrearranging 26 letters of the alphabet. It's enough to make you lose your mindday by day.”
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October 11, 2023
A Writer's Moment: 'It's what you produce that matters'
'It's what you produce that matters'
Nellie Bly not only was one of thenation’s most famous 19th Century writers but also an adventurerextraordinaire. I’ve long been fascinatedwith the story of her career, writing for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World in the years Pulitzer wasestablishing his own reputation as a champion of the First Amendment andaspiring young writers.
Toward that end he not only gave Bly her chance but also funded many of the adventures that led to someof the day’s most widely read stories. Among those was her “Around The World in 72Days” trip in the Autumn of 1889, pitting her against Jules Verne’s “Around The World in 80 Days”fictional character Phileas Fogg.
The World’s readers hung onher every dispatch as she circumnavigated the globe – a solo young womaneclipsing Fogg’s achievement. Few knowthat en route she took a side trip to Amiens, France, to meet the writer whoinspired her effort.
Her note on thatencounter should inspire all writers.
“When I met Jules Verne and asked tosee his writing desk,” Bly wrote, “I hadexpected to see a hand-carved desk filled with trinkets, but I only saw aplain, flat-topped one. It was in asmall room, modest and bare, with a single latticed window. It made merealize that it isn’t the place that you write that matters; it’s what youproduce that matters.”
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[image error][image error]October 10, 2023
'Use your own voice and don't overwrite'
“I'mnot aware of a cadence when writing, but I hear it after. I write in longhand,and that helps. You're closer to it, and you have to cross things out. You puta line through it, but it's still there. You might need it. When you erase aline on a computer, it's gone forever.” – Elmore Leonard
Born on Oct. 11, 1925, Leonard established himself as one of America’s greatest writersof “realism” during his lifetime. A novelist,short story writer, and screenwriter, his earliest novels, published in the1950s, were Westerns, but he went on to specialize in crime fiction andsuspense thrillers, many of which were adapted into movies and TV shows(Count me as a big fan of his Justified booksand TV series). To call Leonard’s writing “gritty,”might be an understatement,
but regardless of how you classify it, it’sexcellent. He shares a segment ofAmerica’s culture and dialogue that few other writers have been able tomatch. To get a sense of how hedeveloped his works, look at his essay (widely available on the Internet)“Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing.” In that, the most telling one might be: “If it sounds like writing . . . rewrite it.”“Everyone has his own sound. I'm notgoing to presume how to tell anybody how to write,” he said in an interviewshortly before his death in 2013. “Ithink the best advice I give is to try not to write. Try not to overwrite, trynot to make it sound too good. Just use your own voice. Use your own style ofputting it down.”
