Writing the Australian Crawl by William Stafford

This an unassuming book from 1978 - I found it in a box at an estate sale.  It has been sitting on my shelf waiting for me to abandon my ineffective dreams of writing a novel and resume my focus on poetry.  I wrote poetry in college, as well as off and on throughout my years as a stay-at-home mom. I recently jumped headlong back into the practice.


Just this week, at Poemoftheweek.org, I was introduced to poet Carrie Fountain's work.  As I dug a little deeper and read her poems, listened to her interviews and readings, I heard her mention William Stafford's books on "the writer's vocation".  And I thought: a-ha!  I have his two best on my shelf.  I pulled them down, and began reading.

And I was hooked.  Not only did he remind me that poetry is my niche, but he has some thought-provoking ideas about writing: art.

Here are some of my favorites from this work:
p.27 When you write, tell me something.

p.51 The action of writing... is the successive discovery of cumulative epiphanies in the self's encounter with the world.

p.55 ...from the emergency of the encounter emerges the new realization, the now poem.

p.61 A poem is anything said in such a way or put on the page in such a way as to invite from the hearer or reader a certain kind of attention.

p.67 Writing is a reckless encounter with comes along.

p.88 ...writing...is a process of relying on pervasive feelings...

p.112 It seems to me a writer is engaged in adventuring into the language and all sorts of things occur to him or should occur to him, that's his job: the judging of these things, the selection of these things, and conduct in the light of these things, is everybody's job.

p.116-7 I believe that the so-called "writing block" is a product of some kind of disproportion between your standards and your performance.  (He tells us to "lower your standards".)

p.125 The poem was in the way, so I wrote it.

p.157 ...in poetry we were always within a syllable or two of something overwhelming.

It is one of the most empowering and encouraging books on "how to write" I have ever read!

Photo credit: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41NL9Pe%2BdOL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

 

I know I am a little behind the times on this one: international bestseller and major motion picture...  But I was never really interested in this story.  Cancer, young love, international travel... Then - my kids wanted to read it.  So I had to read it first.  Would this be another Twilight? I knew there would be sex - two teenagers, close to death??  I read Romeo and Juliet.  I know what happens.

This was a surprisingly innocent book.  Yes, there is a sex scene, but beside stating the color of her underwear and mentioning fumbling with a condom, there was less to this scene than many kissing scenes in other books. I discussed my views on premarital sex, whether or not death is imminent, with my teens and then we talked about the book's quality.

All in all, it was a quick read and an easy plot to follow. We liked the conversations between the characters.  They spoke easily and true to who they were.  It was a redeeming feature of this tale.  But we were not fans of the predictability of the plot, nor did we like the ending - it just seemed like loose ends had to be cauterized quickly to prevent the story from bleeding out.

There were some quotes from the book I enjoyed, though. 
  Neither novels nor their readers benefit from attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story.  Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the fundamental assumption of our species.

 The weird thing about houses is that they almost alwsys look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives.

Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom.  And in freedom, most people find sin.

What happened to them?  They all ceased to exist the moment the novel ended.

Some infinities are larger than other infinities.

Grief does not change you... it reveals you.

I am glad I read this with my children.  It covered important topics to talk about with teenagers, things that rest heavy on their minds.

book cover image fromhttp://www.amazon.com/The-Fault-Stars-John-Green/dp/014242417X