Dan Jorgensen's Blog, page 411

Thoughts On Poetry

For Saturday's Poem, a few "Thoughts on Poetry" from some of our leading practioners of the craft. Enjoy!   ****
“Poems have a different music from ordinary language, and every poem has a different kind of music of necessity, and that's, in a way, the hardest thing about writing poetry is waiting for that music, and sometimes you never know if it's going to come.” – C.K. Williams 
****“I've always thought of music as something which gives the words their flight and their wings and the music often comes first, although sometimes I'll have a concept, a title idea, a lyric idea that I want to write and the lyric will come first.” – Neil Diamond****“Talent combined with passion, tenacity and decency can reinvent the possible.”  – Rita Dove. ****  “If we can write or sing or create in some way, even when we are dealing with difficulties or pain, then it becomes something bigger than ourselves — and often beautiful.” – Brenda Peterson**** 
"Love of beauty is taste.  The creation of beauty is art." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Time To 'Read Across America'

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” – Dr. Seuss
Today is Read Across Americaday in honor of the birthdate of Theodor Geisel – better known, of course, as Dr. Seuss, author of some 50 books, primarily for kids.
Born on this date in 1904, Geisel started his career as an ad agency writer.  While on a 1936 cruise to Europe, he was inspired to write his first book, And to think I saw it on Mulberry Street.  But the book was rejected so many times he was about to burn the manuscript in frustration when a close friend urged him to give it one more try as a “shared cost” publication.  It immediately clicked with kids.    So Geisel wrote a second book, The 500 hats of Bartholomew Cubbins and was on his way as one of the most successful children's authors ever.                Seuss’ most famous book started as a publisher’s dare.  In May 1954, Life Magazine published a report on illiteracy, concluding that children were not learning to read because their books were boring.   William Ellsworth Spaulding, director of education at Houghton Mifflin (later to become its chairman), compiled a list of 348 words he felt were important for 1st graders.  He challenged Geisel to cut the list to 250 and "bring back a book children can't put down."   Using 236 of the words, Geisel wrote The Cat in the Hat, the most successful beginners’ book ever created.  Still selling more than half-million copies annually it’s found in nearly every American home, school and library and undoubtedly being read by thousands of kids today.    “Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living,” Geisel said.  “It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.  Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.”

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Sharing Mankind's Complexities

Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by. –Ralph Ellison

Born in Oklahoma City on this date in 1913, Ellison is best known for his novel Invisible Man, which won the 1953 National Book Award and catapulted him to worldwide fame.  For the rest of his life – Ellison died in 1994 – he struggled to complete a second novel and never succeeded, although ultimately it was assembled posthumously from his voluminous notes and published as Juneteenth.   A noted essayist – both for political and social commentary – he published two major nonfiction works, Shadow and Act and Going to the Territory, and was a frequent contributor to the The New York Times.
Ellison studied at the renowned Tuskegee University where he was admitted on a music scholarship because of his ability with the trumpet.  Although he never finished it was his time at Tuskegee that started him along the writing path, which he credited to English teacher Morteza Drezel Sprague.  Sprague, he said, “opened his eyes to the possibilities of literature as a living art,” and he began seriously writing after serving in the Merchant Marine during World War II.                                                  One of America’s most honored writers, he was named for two President’s Medals, the State Medal from France, a number of honorary doctorate degrees, including one from Harvard, admission into the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and being the first African-American elected to The Century Association, a private literary and arts club in New York City.     “Power, for the writer,” Ellison once said, “lies in his ability to reveal if only a little bit more about the complexity of humanity.”

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Inspired to Create

“Blank paper has always inspired me.” – Daniel Handler
Born on this date in 1970, writer, musician and journalist Handler is best known under the pen name Lemony Snicket, having published the children's series A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions under this pseudonym.     Handler, who writes all of his books longhand on yellow legal pads, also has published a number of adult novels under his own name, including his first book The Basic Eight and his 2017 book All the Dirty Parts.
Handler began writing A Series of Unfortunate Events – about three orphaned children who experience increasingly terrible events following the death of their parents and burning of their home – in 1998 after struggling to get The Basic Eight published.  “My first novel took almost six years to sell and was rejected 37 times in the interim, and then finally sold for the smallest amount of money my literary agent had ever negotiated for a work of fiction,” he said.   
The 13 Lemony Snicket books, however, were an immediate success worldwide, selling some 65 million copies in 41 languages while spawning a film, a video game, assorted merchandise, a mainstream movie, and a Netflix television, a big surprise to Handler.    “ I kind of always think my work is unfilmable, and when I meet people who are interested in filming it, I'm always stunned.”


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That Storytelling Tradition

“Writing is not a matter of choice. Writers have to write. It is somehow in their temperament, in the blood, in tradition.” – N. Scott Momaday 
Born in Lawton, OK, on this date in 1934, Momaday is a Kiowa novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel House Made of Dawn, the first major work of what’s been termed the Native American Renaissance.  His follow-up work The Way to Rainy Mountain blended folklore with memoir about how the Kiowa came from Montana to Oklahoma.

For his celebration and preservation of Native American oral and art traditions, Momaday received the National Medal of Arts in 2007.    A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has been awarded 20 honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities across America. 
Also an acclaimed watercolor artist, Momaday designed and illustrated the mixed media book In The Bear’s House and has been lauded for his attention to detail about the land.  “I am interested in the way that we look at a given landscape and take possession of it in our blood and brain,” he said.        “None of us lives apart from the land entirely; such an isolation is unimaginable.”
Momaday has also written and illustrated a number of children’s books and says he loves portraying the stories of the Native people and sharing their traditions.   “Indians are marvelous storytellers,” he said.  “In some ways, that oral tradition is even stronger than the written tradition.”


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Writing - It's In Our Tradition

“Writing is not a matter of choice. Writers have to write. It is somehow in their temperament, in the blood, in tradition.” – N. Scott Momaday  Born in Lawton, OK, on this date in 1934, Momaday is a Kiowa novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel House Made of Dawn, the first major work of what’s been termed the Native American Renaissance.  His follow-up work The Way to Rainy Mountain blended folklore with memoir about how the Kiowa came from Montana to Oklahoma.

For his celebration and preservation of Native American oral and art traditions, Momaday received the National Medal of Arts in 2007.    A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has been awarded 20 honorary doctorate degrees from colleges and universities across America. 
Also an acclaimed watercolor artist, Momaday designed and illustrated the mixed media book In The Bear’s House and has been lauded for his attention to detail about the land.  “I am interested in the way that we look at a given landscape and take possession of it in our blood and brain,” he said.        “None of us lives apart from the land entirely; such an isolation is unimaginable.”
Momaday has also written and illustrated a number of children’s books and says he loves portraying the stories of the Native people and sharing their traditions.   “Indians are marvelous storytellers,” he said.  “In some ways, that oral tradition is even stronger than the written tradition.”


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It's A Novelist's Job

“It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.”– Elizabeth George

I’ve written of George before, especially about her terrific book on writing, but couldn’t resist doing so again since today is the anniversary of her birth in 1949.  A writer of mysteries and suspense, she is best known for a series of novels featuring British Inspector Thomas Lynley – many of which have been adapted into television movies.  To date, about two-thirds of her 30 books have focused on the titled and wealthy Lynley, and despite being a native of Ohio who makes her home in the western U.S. she’s earned rave reviews in Great Britain as well as the U.S. for her stories.
George’s work has been honored with the Anthony and Agatha awards, the Grand Prix de LittÉrature PoliciÈre, and the MIMI, Germany's prestigious prize for suspense fiction.  A longtime instructor of creative writing, she has taught at colleges, universities, writers' retreats, and conferences internationally. 
“Writing is no dying art form in America because most published writers here accept the wisdom and the necessity of encouraging the talent that follows in their footsteps,” George said.           “ I write the kinds of novels I like to read, where the setting is rendered with love and care.”



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That's A Novelist's Job

“It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.”– Elizabeth George

I’ve written of George before, especially about her terrific book on writing, but couldn’t resist doing so again since today is the anniversary of her birth in 1949.  A writer of mysteries and suspense, she is best known for a series of novels featuring British Inspector Thomas Lynley – many of which have been adapted into television movies.  To date, about two-thirds of her 30 books have focused on the titled and wealthy Lynley, and despite being a native of Ohio who makes her home in the western U.S. she’s earned rave reviews in Great Britain as well as the U.S. for her stories.
George’s work has been honored with the Anthony and Agatha awards, the Grand Prix de LittÉrature PoliciÈre, and the MIMI, Germany's prestigious prize for suspense fiction.  A longtime instructor of creative writing, she has taught at colleges, universities, writers' retreats, and conferences internationally. 
“Writing is no dying art form in America because most published writers here accept the wisdom and the necessity of encouraging the talent that follows in their footsteps,” George said.           “ I write the kinds of novels I like to read, where the setting is rendered with love and care.”



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What Is A Novelist's Job?

“It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.”– Elizabeth George
I’ve written of George before, especially about her terrific book on writing, but couldn’t resist doing so again since today is the anniversary of her birth in 1949.  A writer of mysteries and suspense, she is best known for a series of novels featuring British Inspector Thomas Lynley – many of which have been adapted into television movies.  To date, about two-thirds of her 30 books have focused on the titled and wealthy Lynley, and despite being a native of Ohio who makes her home in the western U.S. she’s earned rave reviews in Great Britain as well as the U.S. for her stories.
George’s work has been honored with the Anthony and Agatha awards, the Grand Prix de LittÉrature PoliciÈre, and the MIMI, Germany's prestigious prize for suspense fiction.  A longtime instructor of creative writing, she has taught at colleges, universities, writers' retreats, and conferences internationally. 
“Writing is no dying art form in America because most published writers here accept the wisdom and the necessity of encouraging the talent that follows in their footsteps,” George said.           “ I write the kinds of novels I like to read, where the setting is rendered with love and care.”



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Perserverence Is Key To Success

“What a writer asks of his reader is not so much to like as to listen.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
Born on Feb. 27, 1807, Longfellow may be the only American poet to ever have a rock song written about him.  Neil Diamond's 1974 hit, “Longfellow Serenade,” and his reverence for Longfellow only echoes the reverence people had for the man when he was living in the mid-19th Century.
Longfellow wrote many lyric poems often known for their musicality and for presenting stories of mythology and legend, including the renowned Song of Hiawatha and the favorite of school children almost from its first day, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.                   He was the most popular American poet of his day and also had success overseas.  So admired in the U.S. that his poems commanded huge fees for the time, young people turned out to welcome him much like rock stars of today are greeted when they come to town.  His 70thbirthday took on the air of a national holiday, with parades, speeches, and the reading of his poetry. 
Although a “rock star” at the end, the beginning of his career started more slowly.  “Overnight success” didn’t come until he’d been writing for more than 20 years.  “Perserverance is a great element of success,” he said.  “If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody eventually.”


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