ee cummings' memoir about his imprisonment in a French prison during WWI for suspected espionage. (He and a friend were volunteer ambulance drivers.)
This is what happens when poets write books! Poets, the most painterly writers. Mr. Pound's Impressionist "petals on a wet, black bough." Billy Collins' fine, dark brush, "The moth has flown from its line and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed."
He SAW the details, in the scruffy cell-mates, to paint them, excrutiatingly, as the most wrenching creature known to man: Man. Which is the most ... True. And True is exactly what knocks us on our butts, artistically. And that's what he really wanted to do -- France misplaced these lifes and forgot them.
What a writer! A portrait-painter. It's a phalanx of paradoxes: bright, bitter, satirical, beautiful. A story about justice, the value of a life, etc. But to me, personally, it's also about Art. (Which I'm always trying to define, just like the Tao. "Which I think is ..." Shhh, Earth inturrupts. "No, really, I think it's ..." Fingers of wind against my lips.)
I'm so fascinated by the HUGE FEELING involved in creating. Like, what is it? I will venture an audacious suspicion that ee cummings ... loved Life. That he searched Life's face (like a lover! Oh, the drama!), for these intimate details, in the faces of Fritz, Haree, Bill the Hollander, B., the Cook, etc. A deep Appreciation (of these flea-bitten, greasy-soup-swilling "Delectable Mountains"). Passion! Being consumed. Outrage. Love.
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5 comments:
Peace on eArtH...
thanks, Vincentt. back at ya.
For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain "the sublime"
In the old sense. Wrong from the start --
No, hardly, but, seeing he had been born
In a half savage country, out of date...
Could you please bottle your inspiration? I'd buy a six pack.
Seems to me that many writers are simply in love with the language and not the life it describes.
Frankly, there's a line where description goes beyond expressing reality and becomes surrealism or hyperrealism. Further, this distancing also removes the writer from the existential realities of the life s/he intends to describe (how many details do you ACTUALLY absorb as you live an experience?) ... this can make the entire project inaccessible to many literate people who might otherwise be interested.
Writing is both like an exclusive party and like caviar -- fis basically unappealing the first time, but if you go to enough exclusive parties you learn to like it. The community of "writers" is either something you identify with or do not ... and that's what gets you into the party, and gets you hooked on eating hyper-expensive fish eggs.
I think a lot of writers speak only to themselves --- but then again, isn't a writer typically his or her own PRIMARY audience?
True. He chose the details and elements, though, that inspired sympathy. Maybe for his own glory ... Hm! Interesting thought.
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