“To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June.”
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
PHOTO: Existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and his cat.
Archives for the month of: January, 2013
“Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.”
“Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.”
“I never consciously place symbolism in my writing. That would be a self-conscious exercise and self-consciousness is defeating to any creative act. Better to get the subconscious to do the work for you, and get out of the way. The best symbolism is always unsuspected and natural. During a lifetime, one saves up information which collects itself around centers in the mind; these automatically become symbols on a subliminal level and need only be summoned in the heat of writing.”
“You will have to write and put away or burn a lot of material before you are comfortable in this medium. You might as well start now and get the necessary work done. For I believe that eventually quantity will make for quality. How so? Quantity gives experience. From experience alone can quality come. All arts, big and small, are the elimination of waste motion in favor of the concise declaration. The artist learns what to leave out. His greatest art will often be what he does not say, what he leaves out, his ability to state simply with clear emotion, the way he wants to go. The artist must work so hard, so long, that a brain develops and lives, all of itself, in his fingers.”
“Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic.”
“I’ve often been accused of being too emotional and sentimental, but I believe in honest sentiment, and the need to purge ourselves at certain times, which is ancient. Men would live at least five or six more years and not have ulcers if they could cry better.”
“The only good writing is intuitive writing. It would be a big bore if you knew where it was going. It has to be exciting, instantaneous and it has to be a surprise. Then it all comes blurting out and it’s beautiful. I’ve had a sign by my typewriter for 25 years now which reads, ‘DON’T THINK!’”
“I absolutely demand of you and everyone I know that they be widely read in every damn field there is; in every religion and every art form and don’t tell me you haven’t got time! There’s plenty of time. You need all of these cross-references. You never know when your head is going to use this fuel, this food for its purposes.”
“I always say to students, give me four pages a day, every day. That’s three or four hundred thousand words a year. Most of that will be bilge, but the rest …? It will save your life!”
Photo: Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) in his 20s.
VERNAL SENTIMENT
by Theodore Roethke
Though the crocuses poke up their heads in the usual places,
The frog scum appear on the pond with the same froth of green,
And boys moon at girls with last year’s fatuous faces,
I never am bored, however familiar the scene.
When from under the barn the cat brings a similar litter,—
Two yellow and black, and one that looks in between,—
Though it all happened before, I cannot grow bitter:
I rejoice in the spring, as though no spring ever had been.
Photo: “Crocuses in Snow” by Websterpics, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
GREEN CORN TAMALES
by Gerald Locklin
First in Tucson,
Now at El Cholo in L.A.
On western just south of Olympic,
My wife and I make a point
Of enjoying them once a summer.
Some tamales are not hot.
These are sweet with the syrup
Of young corn, steamed within
The husks. Even the thin strand
Of a green pepper seems sweet.
Even the morsel of tender chicken
Seems sweet.
Sweet as sweethearts
On the evening promenade
Above the beach at Mazatlan.
Sweet as summer evenings.
Sweet as the respite, the
Renewal, at the end of day.
Think sweetly of green corn tamales,
Remembering that the water of the desert,
Hoarded by the thirsty cactus,
Is the sweetest water.
Reprinted by permission of the author from The Life Force Poems, © Gerald Locklin, 2002, Water Row Press, Sudbury, Massachusetts.
“Green Corn Tamales” by Gerald Locklin will appear in the upcoming Silver Birch Press Green Anthology: An Eclectic Collection of Poetry & Prose. The anthology will include poetry, short stories, essays, novel excerpts, and stage play scenes that touch on “green” in one way or another. The Silver Birch Press Green Anthology will be released on March 15, 2013.
We just received the year-end report for the Silver Birch Press blog and learned that our top postings for 2012 featured Cecilia Gimenez, the 80+-year-old Lady from Spain whose good-intentioned but ill-advised restoration of “Ecce Homo” — a portrait of Christ’s face on the wall of her church in Borja, Spain — made her an international art superstar.
Despite (or more likely because of) all the controversy, Cecilia is thriving — creating new paintings (drafted with admirable skill) and looking well rested (and always well dressed).
Happy New Year, Cecilia. Thank you!
Photo: Cecilia Gimenez and a recent painting.
the feel of it
by Charles Bukowski
A. Huxley died at 69,
much too early for such a
fierce talent,
and I read all his
works
but actually
Point Counter Point
did help a bit
in carrying me through
the factories and the
drunk tanks and the
unsavory
ladies.
that
book
along with Hamsun’s
Hunger
they helped a
bit.
great books are
the ones we
need.
I was astonished at
myself for liking the
Huxley book
but it did come from
such a rabid
beautiful
pessimistic
intellectualism,
and when I first
read P.C.P
I was living in a
hotel room
with a wild and
crazy
alcoholic woman
who once threw
Pound’s Cantos
at me
and missed,
as they did
with me.
I was working
as a packer
in a light fixture
plant
and once
during a drinking
bout
I told the lady,
“here, read this!”
(referring to
Point Counter
Point.)
“ah, jam it up
your ass!” she
screamed at
me.
anyway, 69 seemed
too early for Aldous
Huxley to
die.
but I guess it’s
just as fair
as the death of a
scrubwoman
at the same
age.
it’s just that
with those who
help us
get on through,
then
all that light
dying, it works the
gut a bit —
scrubwomen, cab drivers,
cops, nurses, bank
robbers, priests,
fishermen, fry cooks,
jockeys and the
like
be
damned.
Photo: Aldous Huxley and his cat muse (crawling up Huxley’s back!…a hallmark of creativity, as Bukowski referenced in “air and light and time and space,” included in a separate post on today’s blog).
air and light and time and space
“— you know, I’ve either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I’m going to have a place and the time to
create.”
no baby, if you’re going to create
you’re going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you’re on
welfare,
you’re going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you’re going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you’re giong to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don’t create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.
Illustration: Orgia
At the Silver Birch Press blog, we’re looking forward to a New Year filled with word explorations — prose, poetry, plays, and more! Thank you to our visitors and followers from around the world for joining us on our journey! You mean the world to us!
Illustration: New Yorker cartoon by Shannon Wheeler
The Silver Birch Press blog extends a “Happy New Year!” to all of our visitors and followers. Wishing you a wonderful year filled with fun, friendships, and fulfillment! Best wishes for a happy, healthy 2013!
Illustration: New Yorker cartoon by Harry Bliss
Silver Birch Press 