Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 375

The 'Genius' of Her Poems

“What is genius but the power of expressing a new individuality?”– Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Born this week in March in 1806, Elizabeth Barrett burst onto the British arts scene in 1844 with her first poetic volume, simply titled Poems.  Not only did it bring her great success, but it also attracted the admiration of writer Robert Browning.  Their courtship and correspondence, including the poem “How Do I Love Thee,” and marriage were carried out in secret, for fear of her father's disapproval, and as she feared, he disinherited her following their marriage.                                           But she went on to become one of the most admired and successful poets in the world, living with Browning in Italy until her death in 1861.   For Saturday’s Poem, here is her well-known and often-quoted sonnet,
                                     How Do I Love Thee
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


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A Writer's Moment: Creating A 'Flourishing Environment'

A Writer's Moment: Creating A 'Flourishing Environment': “There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish. –  ...

Creating A 'Flourishing Environment'

“There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish. –  Warren Bennis

Born in the Bronx, NY, on this date in 1925, Bennis was a scholar, organizational consultant and author, widely regarded as a pioneer of the contemporary field of Leadership studies.    Also the Founding Chairman of The Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California, he wrote 21 (mostly groundbreaking) books on leadership and the skills needed to be an effective leader.  An advisor to 4 U.S.  Presidents and numerous FORTUNE 500 Company CEOs, his own leadership began in the military during WWII where he became one of the Army’s youngest combat officers and was twice decorated for bravery.                                               During his lifetime (he died in 2014), The Wall Street Journalnamed him as one of the top ten most sought speakers on management.  His book, On Becoming a Leader, originally published in 1989, lays the foundation that a great leader is a combination of experience, self-knowledge, and personal ethics.
 “Taking charge of your own learning,” Bennis said,  “is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person.”


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Writing With 'Unlimited' Imagination

“I believe that it's an author's job to cast his imagination into the far spaces. Your life should - and I think it's inescapable that it will - inform your work. I'm all for using anything that can make your art better, but your intuition should be an equal partner.” – Brent Weeks
Born in Montana on this date in 1977, Weeks is the bestselling author of two Fantasy Series – The Night Angel and Lightbringer – now read worldwide thanks to releases in about a dozen different languages.
A one-time bartender, using bar napkins and other scraps of paper to sketch out his early story ideas, Weeks holds a degree in English from Hillsdale College and now makes his home in Oregon.  Noted for his “surprising twists” in his stories, he said writing is sometimes like trying to eat a grape with a fork, “It’s always trying to get away from you.”  
                             “It's easier for me to write certain character types because of my own life experiences,” Weeks said,  “but I find it too artistically limiting to only write about red-headed kids who grew up in small town Montana. That's really part of the fun of fantasy, I think. Our imagination is basically unlimited. Okay, that's a terrifying thing about fantasy, too.” 
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A Writer's Moment: Writing With 'Unlimited' Imagination

A Writer's Moment: Writing With 'Unlimited' Imagination: “I believe that it's an author's job to cast his imagination into the far spaces. Your life should - and I thi...

A Writer's Moment: 'It's The Story That Matters'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's The Story That Matters': “History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events.” – Robert Harris ...

'It's The Story That Matters'

“History is what we bring to it, not just the events themselves, but how we interpret those events.” – Robert Harris
Born on March 7, 1957, Harris is an English novelist whose writing career began as a print journalist and morphed into television reporting (for the BBC) before he switched to historical writing in the late 1980s.  While he started writing nonfiction about history it is in historical fiction that his fame rests.
A native of Nottingham (made famous by the Legend of Robin Hood), Harris hit his writing stride with the bestseller Fatherland and built a loyal following with books focused on WWII, including the wildly successful Enigma– both a bestseller and an award-winning movie.   Since then he has had successful forays into ancient Rome and contemporary history, always telling tales that readers find “highly engaging and gripping.”
His most recent work Munich returns to his love of the WWII era, but he promises that his newest book, tentatively titled The Second Sleep and due out later this year, will be “set in the future.”     “I write as well as I can. I'm a journalist at heart, so it's the story that matters,” Harris said.       “To tell a good story and to illuminate the world: the two things are completely linked. That is the point. That is what I've always wanted to do.”

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A Writer's Moment: Commenting on Life

A Writer's Moment: Commenting on Life: “The function of the novelist... is to comment upon life as he sees it.” – Frank Norris Born in Chicago on this date in 1870, Norris ...

Commenting on Life

“The function of the novelist... is to comment upon life as he sees it.”– Frank Norris
Born in Chicago on this date in 1870, Norris was a Progressive Era journalist and novelist whose fiction was predominantly in the naturalist genre.  His notable works include McTeague, The Octopus: A Story of California, and The Pit, all famous (or infamous as the case may be) for their depictions of suffering caused by corrupt and greedy turn-of-the-century corporate monopolies.
While his writing was lauded for its detail, vigor and intensity as well as favorable comparison to other Progressive writers like Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser, he also was held in contempt by many for his blatant racism and anti-Semitism.                                     Norris said he was misunderstood and would make amends, but before he could do so he suffered a ruptured appendix, developed peritonitis and died suddenly at age 32.   In a note shortly before his death, he wrote, “No art that is not in the end understood by the People can live or ever did live a single generation.”


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A Writer's Moment: The human condition; in verse

A Writer's Moment: The human condition; in verse: “As far as I am concerned, poetry is a statement concerning the human condition, composed in verse.” – N. Scott Momad...