In an attempt to answer your questions I'll let you in on something -- I'm little more than a literary magpie. I pick up bits and pieces of other's writing and let them stand in for me. For instance, in response to your meditation on writing and mortality, the works of Shelley come to mind. His poem "Ode to the West Wind" has this to say about the written word:
"Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
Of course, my professors would often get on me for this form, "Too many block quotes! Too little interpretation!" And it's here, for me, that a deep anxiety wells up. I feel like Dr. Reefy, (from Sherwood Anderson's short story Paper Pills which you can find in Winesburg, Ohio) up in my office above main street with the dusted shut windows filled with cobwebs unable to truly appreciate the world, writing original ideas on slips of paper only to let them harden into little paper pills in my pockets. Never sending my thoughts out into the world and left with the bitter sweetness of sour apples.
I suppose writing this response to your beautiful meditation on writing is an attempt to communicate past the anxieties and the poor form of my writing. I feel compelled because what you say about "abysmal communication" I think rings true to all of us. It's strange how writers block so closely mirrors emotional block isn't it?
In an attempt to answer your questions I'll let you in on something -- I'm little more than a literary magpie. I pick up bits and pieces of other's writing and let them stand in for me. For instance, in response to your meditation on writing and mortality, the works of Shelley come to mind. His poem "Ode to the West Wind" has this to say about the written word:
"Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like wither'd leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"
Of course, my professors would often get on me for this form, "Too many block quotes! Too little interpretation!" And it's here, for me, that a deep anxiety wells up. I feel like Dr. Reefy, (from Sherwood Anderson's short story Paper Pills which you can find in Winesburg, Ohio) up in my office above main street with the dusted shut windows filled with cobwebs unable to truly appreciate the world, writing original ideas on slips of paper only to let them harden into little paper pills in my pockets. Never sending my thoughts out into the world and left with the bitter sweetness of sour apples.
I suppose writing this response to your beautiful meditation on writing is an attempt to communicate past the anxieties and the poor form of my writing. I feel compelled because what you say about "abysmal communication" I think rings true to all of us. It's strange how writers block so closely mirrors emotional block isn't it?
Enough of my ramblings.