Thursday, May 17, 2012

you are tired (I think)

You are tired,
(I think)
Of the always puzzle of living and doing;
And so am I.

Come with me, then,
And we'll leave it far and far away—
(Only you and I, understand!)

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,
And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate of your heart—
Open to me!
For I will show you the places Nobody knows,
And, if you like,
The perfect places of Sleep.

Ah, come with me!
I'll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,
That floats forever and a day;
I'll sing you the jacinth song
Of the probable stars;
I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream,
Until I find the Only Flower,
Which shall keep (I think) your little heart
While the moon comes out of the sea.

e.e. cummings 

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

whatever impossible beauty

And my nation was there. We were there: a loose association of lost causes and would-be scribblers, heart-broken artists and more- and less-happily out-of-work actors. We were from everywhere else and hadn’t fitted in. We probably still didn’t, but we were at home amongst ourselves. We talked nonsense and made cups of coffee last all afternoon in little cafes on St Martin’s Lane. We blagged free tickets for whatever we could get: exhibitions, concerts, readings, plays. We walked under blue spring skies between the big wedding cake buildings of South Ken, or down by the river, or along the King’s Road where there’d be more elongated coffees in the Farmer’s Market, or the Chelsea Bun, or Picasso’s. A blend of awkwardness and self-harm and self-obsession and a lack of proper jobs meant we were all holding out for what we wanted, whatever impossible beauty that might turn out to be. From "That Whole London Thing," A.L. Kennedy in Granta

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

the jumble of words

Finishing a novel is always linked with shameor rather, the lack of it. There's a moment when I realize I'm no longer ashamed of the jumble of words I've produced, that the embarrassment of having written a mishmash of ideas subsides and I'm no longer terrified of The Public reading it. This is when I begin to think of my manuscript as a novel. I never know when this is going to happen; during the writing of the manuscript, it sometimes feels as if that moment of clarity is never going to arrive, that the novel will never arise from the manuscript's fuzziness of thought and expression. I have friends who read the manuscript in its final stages, and this helps lessen the acute awkwardness of having to go public with my work: the comments give my work a kind of validity, a right to exist. Tash Aw in Daniel Alarcon's The Secret Miracle

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

on the starboard hand

But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Moby Dick
Photo: Renee Lilley, Dead Horse Bay, Brooklyn NY, January 2012 by Elizabeth Weinberg