Posts Tagged ‘Rainer Maria Rilke’
From Fragments to Fiction
Magician-like, the poet tunes language fragments from an out-of-print book to the pitch of a piece of political rhetoric, ordering the words to soothe, evoking rain. “What makes the poet the potent figure that he is, or was, or ought to be, is that he creates the world to which we turn incessantly and without knowing it and that he gives to life the supreme fictions without which we are unable to conceive of it.” So Wallace Stevens reminds us it is the poet’s responsibility to interpret the world. But what happens when the physical, emotional, and historical extend through …
Loving the Questions
Posted: January 11, 2010
Tags: writer's notebook, reflections, Gene Fowler, Rainer Maria Rilke, technology
As 2010 begins and a new decade stretches before us many of us will articulate goals for the new year — exercise thirty minutes a day, eat more vegetables, meet our best friends for drinks every other week. And for many of us, nestled between these goals will be a quiet, albeit fierce resolution to deepen our commitment to our craft. We’ve read Gene Fowler’s remark: “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” We know that the act of creation takes time and attention. …
Crafting Connection: Christina Davis Reaches Out
“I think I’ve always been fascinated by freedom and the fear of freedom — and, among poets, the quest for some containment or some instruction, the quest for some criterion, for some way to know whether what we’re speaking is correct, or appropriate, or arriving somewhere.”
