Two new songs for The Dream Ship: “Romantique” and “Full Sail.” You can download them at this link.
Hello friends,
I finally made the decision to use this blog to write about writing, since I don’t do very much else.
I am always working on stories, so I will try to keep you updated on progress, ideas, and things like that. This also helps me keep things moving instead of getting bogged down trying to think of what to write.
So for my first post, I will tell you a story.
I am taking a class about modern American poetry, and recently we read some work by Wallace Stevens. Wallace Stevens was a great poet who worked for Hartford Insurance. He seemed like kind of a grumpy old guy and while I don’t think that I would have liked to meet Wallace Stevens, there are certain things about him that I admire. For one thing, I discovered that he was the source of a quote which I have always enjoyed ever since I first heard it from Keith Carter: “Poetry must resist the intelligence almost successfully.” And for another thing, Wallace Stevens made up poetry while he walked to work every day. When I was leaving class one day, I walked by a grove of trees where someone was sitting and making little sculptures out of wire. He had set out two or three of them on the curb beside the sidewalk where lots of people were walking past, but they were so small and low to the ground that I almost missed them. I didn’t think too much of it, but the scene stuck in my head, and a few days later when I had to do a lot of walking to and from work, making deliveries, I decided to make up a poem about it. I figured out about two lines at a time, then went back and repeated what I had so far in my head, until I had memorized quite a bit. I haven’t finished the poem yet, but here is everything that I came up with while I was walking:
“Wirebender”
The man sits crouched beneath the tree
His chin between his drawn-up knees
And in his hands, a tangled mass
Of wire-bits and plastic glass.
And like a wire mesh, the beard
Stretched red and coarse from ear to ear
Tells nothing of the crooked years
Or cigarettes, or cans of beer.
But in his countenance I find
A gentle manner, not unkind
Deliberate, tho’ undefined,
As fingers pinch a length of twine.
And on the sidewalk, neatly laid
Constructed, a minute parade
Of hours took and labors made:
Some little creatures in the shade.
A scorpion, metallic black,
Sphynx-like, seems to block my path
With stinger poised, as if to ask
Some riddle befitting to the task.
…[There is some missing space here, which I haven't written yet]
–and all the details hence
Were not a study, but a glimpse–
A snapshot-picture portrait made
Of a quiet scene in quiet shade.
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April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
- The Waste Land, “The Burial of the Dead” l. 1-4; T.S. Eliot.
Hello. My name is Hannah. I am a writer first and foremost. I like nature, tea, and T.S. Eliot.
I hope we can be friends.
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