Since going through a disturbing and hurtful incident in my life, I've begun to amass some sayings that resonate with me. It's amazing how Facebook is a conduit for such comforting and applicable words. It must mean that I'm not alone, and I treasure that. Here's a few - in no particular order. I'll keep collecting and post more another time. … [Read more...]
A favorite poem – what do you think it means?
August 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment
The Man with the Hoe by Edwin Markham Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, The emptiness of ages in his face, And on his back the burden of the world. Who made him dead to rapture and despair, A thing that grieves not and that never hopes. Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox? Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw? Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow? Whose breath blew out the light within this brain? Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave To have dominion over sea and land; To trace the stars and search the heavens for power; To feel the passion of Eternity? Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns And marked their ways upon the ancient deep? Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf There is no shape more terrible than this More tongued with censure of the world's blind greed More filled with signs and portents for the soul More fraught with menace to the universe. What gulfs … [Read more...]
"It’s always a fiction"
February 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment
My writing teacher and mentor Jack Grapes sent out the email reproduced (in part) here over the weekend. I am in complete agreement with him that our sentences are always fiction. We cannot recreate the past except through writing our own version of the facts. In my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On, I wrote down the truth as I remembered it. Some of the sentences I wrote about my truth were not as my husband remembered, but since it is my book and not his version, he is okay with it. I'm not distorting his version. I am stating my own. Anyway, please read Jack's comments below. By the way, I took his method writing classes. I recommend them to you all. NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND, NOTES FROM OUTER SPACE: RE: David Ulin's review in Sunday L.A. Times, "Critic's Notebook: What is Fact, What is Fiction." http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-david-ulin-20120219,0,1862704.storySad to say, once again the subject of fact and fiction, fact and non-fiction, or fact and … [Read more...]
