On Tyranny vs. Writing In The Cracks
Dear Blog,
I ended my post last week with a poem by Lucille Clifton. Somebody asked her once why her poems were so short and she said it was because she had six children and a memory that could hold about nine lines. That made an impression on me, even before I had kids.
My grandfather was a writer. He was the kind of writer whose writing became the terrible god of the house. His daughters tiptoed around trying to be silent. He was Not To Be Interrupted, and if he was, there would be Hell To Pay. Now, when I am constantly interrupted in my own writing to fix snacks and encourage the sharing of toys, when I write to the crashing of lego and the roaring of dinosaur warfare and, sometimes, the overlong silence that means without a doubt that my boys are Up To No Good and I pause at the keyboard, wondering if I should keep going while I can and pay the price later or if I should get up and nip whatever is going on in the bud, I can sort of appreciate his Writerly Tyranny. I could never pull it off, of course, because I don’t have the kind of temper and narcissism required (not to say that I am not temperamental and narcissistic, but I lack the self-assurance to go all out with my worst tendencies). And anyway nobody is scared of me, which is probably for the best but is occasionally a bit frustrating.
When I was in my teens, I struck up a correspondence with my grandfather, because I wanted to be a writer too and wanted to know The Writer In The Family. (In fact ours is a family of many writers, but he was the one who made it his life and defined himself by it). He wrote wonderful letters, and I tried to write wonderful letters too. When I was seventeen, I visited him by myself for the first time, staying in the spare room in his cottage in the Welsh village of Hay-on-Wye, known for its bookshops and literary festival. He gave me food that had clearly gone bad, read me poetry tapping out the rhythm on the table, and took me to visit a man he called “the One Real Intellectual in Hay-on-Wye.” The One Real Intellectual may well have been just that. From my seventeen-year-old perspective, he was a man who was very drunk at midday and had pornography all over his walls. I think even my grandfather decided, partway through the visit, that it had been a bad idea. Except for the food, I had a wonderful time.
Not long after this visit, I discovered Lucille Clifton’s poetry (via Ani DiFranco). I wrote my grandfather a letter all about her. I copied out several poems at the end of the letter, a series of poems to God from the fallen angel Lucifer, from The Book of Light. Now, the WHOLE LETTER was about Lucille Clifton, and at the top of the page where I’d copied out the poems, I’d written POEMS BY LUCILLE CLIFTON. However, my grandfather obviously didn’t read the letter or look at the top of the page. It’s sort of touching, I guess – he thought I was sending him my poetry, and was so excited he just read it and reacted. He called my mother and my aunt, raving about my talent. He sent me a postcard, raving about same. A letter, raving, followed. I was brilliant. Brilliant.
We both felt crappy when I explained that I hadn’t written those poems, and of course I never did send him any of my own poetry after that.
Neither my grandfather nor I have anything approaching the brilliance of Lucille Clifton. Still, I find it comforting, as I try to write in the cracks between the chaos of life with children, that the Tyranny Of The Writer who locks himself in his study did not, after all, produce the kind of beautiful and lasting body of work of a mother who could hold nine lines in her memory while taking care of her six children. In the end, I tell myself (as often as I need to hear it), perhaps a full heart is better inspiration than ten uninterrupted minutes.
i am accused of tending to the past
(by Lucille Clifton, in case you didn’t read the letter)
i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
this past was waiting for me
when i came,
a monstrous unnamed baby,
and i with my mother's itch
took it to breast
and named it
History.
she is more human now,
learning languages everyday,
remembering faces, names and dates.
when she is strong enough to travel
on her own, beware, she will.
Yours, unpoetically,
Catherine
I ended my post last week with a poem by Lucille Clifton. Somebody asked her once why her poems were so short and she said it was because she had six children and a memory that could hold about nine lines. That made an impression on me, even before I had kids.
My grandfather was a writer. He was the kind of writer whose writing became the terrible god of the house. His daughters tiptoed around trying to be silent. He was Not To Be Interrupted, and if he was, there would be Hell To Pay. Now, when I am constantly interrupted in my own writing to fix snacks and encourage the sharing of toys, when I write to the crashing of lego and the roaring of dinosaur warfare and, sometimes, the overlong silence that means without a doubt that my boys are Up To No Good and I pause at the keyboard, wondering if I should keep going while I can and pay the price later or if I should get up and nip whatever is going on in the bud, I can sort of appreciate his Writerly Tyranny. I could never pull it off, of course, because I don’t have the kind of temper and narcissism required (not to say that I am not temperamental and narcissistic, but I lack the self-assurance to go all out with my worst tendencies). And anyway nobody is scared of me, which is probably for the best but is occasionally a bit frustrating.
When I was in my teens, I struck up a correspondence with my grandfather, because I wanted to be a writer too and wanted to know The Writer In The Family. (In fact ours is a family of many writers, but he was the one who made it his life and defined himself by it). He wrote wonderful letters, and I tried to write wonderful letters too. When I was seventeen, I visited him by myself for the first time, staying in the spare room in his cottage in the Welsh village of Hay-on-Wye, known for its bookshops and literary festival. He gave me food that had clearly gone bad, read me poetry tapping out the rhythm on the table, and took me to visit a man he called “the One Real Intellectual in Hay-on-Wye.” The One Real Intellectual may well have been just that. From my seventeen-year-old perspective, he was a man who was very drunk at midday and had pornography all over his walls. I think even my grandfather decided, partway through the visit, that it had been a bad idea. Except for the food, I had a wonderful time.
Not long after this visit, I discovered Lucille Clifton’s poetry (via Ani DiFranco). I wrote my grandfather a letter all about her. I copied out several poems at the end of the letter, a series of poems to God from the fallen angel Lucifer, from The Book of Light. Now, the WHOLE LETTER was about Lucille Clifton, and at the top of the page where I’d copied out the poems, I’d written POEMS BY LUCILLE CLIFTON. However, my grandfather obviously didn’t read the letter or look at the top of the page. It’s sort of touching, I guess – he thought I was sending him my poetry, and was so excited he just read it and reacted. He called my mother and my aunt, raving about my talent. He sent me a postcard, raving about same. A letter, raving, followed. I was brilliant. Brilliant.
We both felt crappy when I explained that I hadn’t written those poems, and of course I never did send him any of my own poetry after that.
Neither my grandfather nor I have anything approaching the brilliance of Lucille Clifton. Still, I find it comforting, as I try to write in the cracks between the chaos of life with children, that the Tyranny Of The Writer who locks himself in his study did not, after all, produce the kind of beautiful and lasting body of work of a mother who could hold nine lines in her memory while taking care of her six children. In the end, I tell myself (as often as I need to hear it), perhaps a full heart is better inspiration than ten uninterrupted minutes.
i am accused of tending to the past
(by Lucille Clifton, in case you didn’t read the letter)
i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
this past was waiting for me
when i came,
a monstrous unnamed baby,
and i with my mother's itch
took it to breast
and named it
History.
she is more human now,
learning languages everyday,
remembering faces, names and dates.
when she is strong enough to travel
on her own, beware, she will.
Yours, unpoetically,
Catherine
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