Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 4

A Writer's Moment: 'Ordinary language to the Nth power'

A Writer's Moment: 'Ordinary language to the Nth power':   “Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough...

'Ordinary language to the Nth power'

 

“Poetryis ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is nerved and blooded withemotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.” –Paul Engle

 

Bornin Cedar Rapids, IA on this date in 1908, Engle was a poet, editor,teacher, literary critic, novelist and playwright. He served as long-timedirector of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and co-founded the University ofIowa’s International Writing Program.   By the time of hisdeath in 1991, he had authored a dozen collections of poetry, a novel, amemoir, an opera libretto, a children's book and dozens of articles and reviewsfor magazines and journals around the globe.    

 

 ForSaturday’s Poem, here is Engle’s,

 

                                                             Twenty Below

Twentybelow, I said, and closed the door,
A drop of five degrees and going down.
It makes a tautened drum-hide of the floor,
Brittle as leaves each building in the town.
I wonder what would happen to us here
If that hard wind of winter never stopped,
No man again could watch the night grow clear,
The blue thermometer forever dropped.

I hope, you answered, for so cruel a storm
To freeze remoteness from our lives too cold.
Then we could learn, huddled all close, how warm
The hearts of men who live alone too much,
And once, before our death, admit the old
Need of a human nearness, need of touch.

 

A Writer's Moment: 'It's your sound, so use it'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's your sound, so use it':   “I just believe that young people need to be able to learn how to write in their own voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself on ha...

'It's your sound, so use it'

 

“Ijust believe that young people need to be able to learn how to write in theirown voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself on having your owndistinct sound.” – Terry McMillan

 

Bornin Port Huron, MI on Oct. 18, 1951 McMillan grew up in Michigan, earned adegree from UC-Berkeley, and started her writing career in her late30s.  Her “breakthrough” book was 1992’s Waiting to Exhale,credited with contributing to a shift in Black popular cultural consciousnessand the visibility of a female Black middle-class identity. 

   

Andwhile she drew on her own experiences for part of that book, it was hersemi-autobiographical novel How Stella Got Her Groove Back thatfirmly cemented her writing as a force to be reckoned with.  The most recent of her now-published dozennovels is It’s Not All Downhill From Here.

 

Characterizedby relatable female protagonists, her books, she says, reflect a part ofherself, something she thinks all writers have incorporated into theirwork.   

 

“Fewwriters are willing to admit (that) writing is autobiographical,” shesaid.  “But it mostly is.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the deepest reflection of all'

A Writer's Moment: 'It's the deepest reflection of all':   “Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shap...

'It's the deepest reflection of all'

 

“Yourwriting voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job ofyour voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In yourvoice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, yourheart, your soul.” – Meg Rosoff

 

Bornin Boston on this date in 1956, Rosoff has split her adulthood between theU.S. and Great Britain, primarily residing in London since age32.   A multi-award winner for many of her works, she is perhapsbest known for her Young Adult novel How I Live Now (also anaward-winning movie); Just in Case, named by British librarians asa  “Best Children's Book Published in the UK,” and Picture MeGone, a finalist for the U.S. National Book Award for Young People'sLiterature.   Her latest is the 2022 novel Friends LikeThese.   

 

Rosoffis a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society of Literature, and has been selected forthe Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, the richest prize in children’sliterature given by the Swedish government to honor the famed Swedishchildren’s author and creator of Pippi Longstocking. 

 

“Oneof the more interesting things I've learnt since becoming a writer is that ifyou like the book, you'll generally like the person,” Rosoffnoted.   “It doesn't always work in reverse - there are hugenumbers of lovely people out there writing not very good books.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Immoral, illegal or fattening'

A Writer's Moment: 'Immoral, illegal or fattening': “Success comes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of a shock to him to look back and realize the heights to wh...

'Immoral, illegal or fattening'

“Successcomes to a writer, as a rule, so gradually that it is always something of ashock to him to look back and realize the heights to which he has climbed.” –  P.G. Wodehouse

 

Bornin England on this date in 1881, Wodehouse was one of the most widely read andquoted humorists of the 20th century.  The son of a Britishmagistrate based in Hong Kong, he studied business and worked in banking for atime before realizing that what he most enjoyed was writing.  “I knowI was already writing stories when I was 5,” he said. “I don’t know what Idid before that.  Just loafed I suppose.”

 

Noloafing was involved from that point forward as he authored more than 90 books,40 plays, and 200 short stories and other writings right up until his death in1975.

 

Whilemost of Wodehouse's fiction is set in England (he is credited with creating thestereotypical English butler character Jeeves), he spent much of his life inthe U.S. and used New York and Hollywood as settings for some of his novels andshort stories. He also wrote a series of Broadway musical comedies during andafter WWI – together with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern – that played an importantpart in the development of modern American musicals and musical comedy.

 

SinceWodehouse's death there have been numerous adaptations and dramatizations ofhis work on television, and the Oxford English Dictionary containsover 1,750 quotations from Wodehouse, illustrating terms from crispish to zippiness.

 

“Everythingin life that’s any fun,” Wodehouse wrote shortly before his death, “is eitherimmoral, illegal … or fattening.”

A Writer's Moment: 'Trying out' other lives

A Writer's Moment: 'Trying out' other lives:   “Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better by far to write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing ...

'Trying out' other lives

 

“Lookingback, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better by far towrite twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.” –Katherine Mansfield

 

Bornon this date in 1888, Mansfield – the pen name of Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp– was raised in New Zealand and had her first stories published at age 16 inthe High School Reporter, a New Zealand-wide journal

 

Barelyout of high school, she wrote a hard-hitting series of stories taking NewZealand’s white elite to task for their treatment of the native Maori.  At age 19, finding herself the target ofsevere criticism and exclusion, she decided to emigrate to England.  There, she not only advanced her career but alsobecame close friends with such modernist writers as D.H. Lawrence (author ofLady Chatterley’s Lover) and Virginia Woolf, and quickly became one of England’smost popular modernist writers.   

 

Butjust when she was getting into her most prolific writing period – in the late 19-teens – she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died from the disease in 1923.  John Middleton Murry, her husband and editor of the popular magazine Rhythm,then led an effort to posthumously publish many of her writings throughoutthe 1920s – continuing her popularity and legacy.

 

In1973, Mansfield was the subject of the BBC miniseries A Picture ofKatherine Mansfield starring Vanessa Redgrave, and in 2011 thefilm Bliss focused on her early beginnings as a writer.  Writing,Mansfield said, was not only her life but her chance to experience other’slives.  

 

“Wouldyou not like to try all sorts of lives?” she asked.  “That is thesatisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.”