It took me hours to answer her questions, but that was fine because they were interesting to me: how was I thinking about the permutations of story when I organized the book? how did those fairytale poems take shape? why don't I write songs? do I really believe what I say?
Nin: How does Same Old Story differ from your previous books?If only that could be true! If only, if only--
Dawn: I hope the writing is better. But that’s what I’m always hoping: that all my life I will continue to get better at using words to contain the invisibilities of poetry. I want the words to be the glass bottle around the djinn, not a distraction or an advertisement. Of course djinns assume an infinite number of forms, so the bottles, too, must be infinitely variable.
[And if only I could write the word djinn every day of my life.]
4 comments:
I'll look forward to seeing the interview. I try to read all of Andrews's interviews at BestAmPo.
Dear Dawn,
In reference to what you said about Virginia Woolf in your reply to me yesterday, I would say good writing is actually never enough in itself. There has to be something more than just craft -- there has to be a goal, light at the end of the tunnel, hope, well-springs, renewal, a sense that the struggles of both the writer and the reader are worth living for. And the fact that Virginia Woolf didn't find that something worth living for even in her superb writing may have something to do with the stultifying quality you feel in her work. That’s harsh, sad and terrible, but that’s there.
As to you, Dawn, you're already as fine a writer as anybody ever needs to be, so saying you want to write better means nothing. What you may achieve that's even better in the future won't be better writing but perhaps a new and fresh way to address the issues that arise as both you and the world grow older. And that doesn't necessarily mean a more accomplished style or a deeper feeling for the craft -- on the contrary, if you're really lucky in your life as well as your writing it will probably mean something simpler, purer, deeper even if it’s far more complex.
Christopher
Christopher, I adore a number of VW's novels, including her late "The Years," so my remarks about "stultifying" were pertinent only to "The Waves." It is an experiment, and an extremely poetic one, but she pressed it into prose. I wonder whether lineation may have been a solution, adding a sense of visual release, highlighting cadence, etc. As far as I know, VW never wrote anything she called poetry, though she read a great deal of it and was one of the best commentators on the Elizabethans that I'd ever read. I feel as if "The Waves" might have been a chance to cross the border, but she didn't quite allow herself to take that chance.
Regarding my own work: I know I can write better than I do now. By "writing" I don't mean "a more accomplished style"; I mean something far closer to that bottle that contains the djinn. I think you and I may be saying the same thing but choosing different words.
lytexpr placeThanks. I get that.
C.
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