Once a Writer: A Digression.

Literature is the study of writing. Literature is the study of history and culture. Literature is the study of those who write. Literature is the study of form and structure of what they write.  Literature is the study of...

Once a writer now a man who wishes he could write. Once a writer, I am now a man searching for a place to place his words. Once a writer, now a man mentally boxed in, afraid to jot his thoughts on the page.

To write one must feel free within them self. Free to place words on the page, to lace the white spaces with inner, outer, wispy, crispy, or crazy lines. Lines which the writer or others wish to inject snort, or phusshh push straight into their brains.  In order to write one must feel that words matter to at least him, her, the dog, the cat, or a tiny piece of shit.  In order to write one must knock or block the inner, the outer, the twirling barbed wired, electric spire criers that zip, zing, flip, fling doubt lines and shards shot wrapped in membranes of snot by jitter critters binging in the mind.  To write one must at least have confidence in what they wish to, want to, or are about to jot, scribble, babble, spew, or say.  Many times I lack confidence.

"What the fuck?" those of you who have known me for years might say. “What the fuck, man you've been tossing words for over twenty years. You love the written word?”

Yes, I do.   But the more I jot my spew, fling my mental pencil, paint and primp my literary injected, infected, crass worthy wordy ass, the more I find that many folks like boxes.  Yes, boxes. I'm not talking about the prim and proper grammar, syntax, and punctuation. Sure, I bulked against that stuff when I was a kid. I now understand why folks arranged words neatly into those understood notches, sturdy nails, and familiar boards.  It packages ideas in ways that others can understand. The boxes I'm talking about are the boxes of form, the boxes of ideas, and the boxes which encapsulate those ideas and forms. 

Form?   Form is how something is written. Haiku is a form. Sonnet is a form. Essays have an understood form. Many story types have forms. Journalism has accepted forms. Shit, even free verse is a form. Form is a box made constructed by sets of conventions. These sets of conventions help folks keep comfy.  They let the reader and the writer know how the words are gonna lay on the page. Many times they dictate what images are to be used, what ideas are to be discussed, or what topics might be popped and tossed about.  In fact, I'll be bold enough to say that  for many comfy folks, who like to sit comfy in their comfiness,  it's sets of conventions that makes their favorite form of writing important and meaningful.  That's okay-- if you like to convene and restrict writing to forms of comfiness.

I don't.  I like to create forms, ignore forms, or take forms and play with them.

Take Haiku and free verse for example.  Rhyme and time. I like make an image by 5-7-5, free verse it, and mixed win an occasional  ab, aa, or bb rhyme. Free verse ain't supposed to have time. It ain't supposed to follow 5-7-5.  Haiku ain't supposed to have rhyme. Free verse is supposed to mimic how people talk. Aw, man please don't balk.  I've heard folks speak in rhyme.  It happens all the time. Shit, if you break up small exchange between two kids you might even hear it in 5-7-5.....

Literature is the study of one's self and the written expression thereof. Literature is the study of one’s own forms, the forms that live within them, or the discovery of ways to express one's self by using forms already discovered. Literature is authentic and spiritual.  But I digress, I guess. Anyone like Herman Hesse?

Cheers.

Why Study Literature?

Let’s get going.

Why do I read? I read to discover. I read for enjoyment. I read to cope. I read to connect. I read to escape. I read to learn. I read to see. I read to relate. I read to feed my soul. How does reading do that? How does literature…

Why literature? Why explore the lives and minds of fictional characters? Why ponder plot, structure, genre, alliteration, rhyme, and style?  What importance does literature hold for this technical world?  What importance is it to the nontechnical world?  What does it show us?  What power do well placed words hold upon the reader? Can we apply literature to the life away from the text? How does it affect the mind? How does it affect society? How does it enhance one’s life and the lives of others?

Is it important?  And why?

Why do I ask these questions? Because…well...I guess I got me an inner drive to do so. How am I going to find the answers, you might ask, and is it possible? I’m going to search for the answers. How? Well, by answering them myself and by asking other people.  I’m going to spend long hours thinking, talking, and writing.  Most likely, I make a discovery while tying my shoes or handing someone change for a donut, gas, or a cup of coffee.  Perhaps, I gain insight from a pal or professional on facebook. Perhaps, I’ll gather words of wisdom from a stranger while drinking beer at Chasers. Most likely, I'll make a discovery while tying my shoes or handing someone change for doughnuts, gas, or coffee. Who knows?

Now back to my Gevalia and The House of the Dead.

Cheers.

Dispelling the Myth of Jack.

Cunnell knows Jack.  Fast This Time: Jack Kerouac and the Writing of On the Road by Howard Cunnell does a damn sweet job of explaining the process of how Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road.  He then shows the process of how it was published.  He dispels the myth that Road was a raw, first draft, scrolled out in a three weeks benny binge.  He shows that it  took years (from 1947 to its publication 1957) of experimentation, conversations, note pads, journals,  letters, and miles and miles of road. Did you know Jack struggled with voice and style?  Road was not an instantaneous blurt.  Its publication was not immediate. Jack drafted, redrafted, cut, versioned, and re-versioned.  Did you know that in 1953 Malcolm Cowley— an influential literary man at Viking who help Hemingway and Faulkner in the 20s but who wasn’t much of a fan of Jack work—took interest in Road only after Ginsberg wrote him a letter asking him to take a look at it? No shit.  So, even though it had already rejected the book once, with Cowley’s’ prompting, Ginsberg’s nudging, and Jack’s reworking and removing of sections—some of which were seen as too obscene or libelous—, Viking published it in 1957.  This essay shows Jack as a person, as a writer and not some iconic, pie in the apple sky, beatnik king. Cunnell dispels the myth and makes Jack Kerouac real.  Nice.