David Budbill
I promise to address the answer to the MacHado riddle in my next entry. But I found this poem recently, and I thought it captured my response to winter so perfectly that I had to include it in my journal. It is such a clear, clean, simple, true poem. That's the writer's job: to simplify. The author Raymond Carver pointed out in his essay, "On Writing":
It's possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things--a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring--with immense, even startling power. It is possible to write a line of seemingly innocuous dialogue and have it send a chill along the reader's spine--the source of artistic delight, as Nabokov would have it.
And there it is--one of the great secrets of writing. Easy to say, but this kind of writing can only happen when we prepare ourselves carefully: through our study, our contemplation, our reading, our experience.
I think David Budbill's poem fits Carver's description:
The Sixth of January
by David Budbill
The cat sits on the back of the sofa looking
out the window through the softly falling snow
at the last bit of gray light.
I can't say the sun is going down.
We haven't seen the sun for two months.
Who cares?
I am sitting in the blue chair listening to this stillness.
The only sound: the occasional gurgle of tea
coming out of the pot and into the cup.
How can this be?
Such calm, such peace, such solitude
in this world of woe.
6 comments:
I think this writing "lesson" is the one that hits closest to home with me. I think that in part, to put the power in those simple images and innocuous bits of dialogue, writers have to strip down to the essential truth of the moment. The poem you shared is a perfect example of that.
This is really helpful advice, Theresa. For someone like me, in love with words, I can sometimes get too caught up in the words, rather than the language. A bit like forests and trees, I think. I love the sound, the meaning, the look of words. I studied Latin and Ancient Greek in high school, and French, so I love to work out the derivations, but long fancy ones definitely can stick out and ruin the the poetry of a few little plain ones. Let this be a lesson to me! Thank you.
And I would venture to say that Robert Brimm, in his wonderful Chosen Words journal, has captured beautifully the craft of expressing much with a few commonplace words artfully placed.
Vicky
My Incentive http://www.livejournal.com/~vxv789/
It is always tempting to be too smart, too witty, too intellectual, too SOMETHING, to be a show off in our writing. My first attempts suffered terribly from this. I wanted so much to be "literary," whatever that means. Little by little I was able to let that go and I found true delight in trying to say complex things in a simple way. I love the way Carver says the simplest things can have "immense, even startling power." By the way, you may know the movie SHORTCUTS? Those are Raymond Carver stories brought to film. Carver's masterpiece, I think, is "A Small, Good Thing."
I love this poem. It is so peaceful. Gives me a good feeling when I read it.
Great poem! Writing is challenging...simple is best...But simple is HARD-est.
yes, yes, yes.
Great entry today.
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