Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

Writing Essays: A Few Thoughts by Scott Russell Sanders

I hadn’t heard of US author / teacher Scott Russell Sanders until the latest issue of the Englewood Review of Books (Lent 2012) arrived in my inbox. Now I find myself wanting to engage his thinking and the wisdom that bubbles out of the little I have now read. I want to read more of his essays, in the same way I’ve long read the likes of Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, Gary Snyder etc. From what I understand, Sanders reflects on the importance of place, rootedness, environment, what it means to be fully human and alive, what it means to live in a web of relationships etc. 

Here’s an excerpt – some thoughts on writing essays - from the all too brief interview with Sanders that ERB published: 

“…ERB: There are several superb essays in Earth Works that explore the craft of writing, particularly “The Singular First Person” and “Letter to a Reader.” What one or two pieces of essential advice would you give to someone who aspired to be a writer of essays? 

SRS: First, read widely, and read the best quality work you can find – not only essay, but also poetry, fiction, history, philosophy, and kind of literature that interests you, on any subject that interests you. But, again, seek out the best, because you train your ear for language primarily through reading. Secondly, keep a journal — not a diary, but a notebook in which you record ideas, images, vivid passages from your reading, overheard bits of conversation, interesting words, dreams, anything that might later become material for your writing. The notebook is also a good place to practice framing sentences and paragraphs, articulating themes, sketching scenes. Third, treasure your questions, because in pursuing them, you are likely to do your best writing. Think of the essay not as a way of delivering knowledge you already possess, but as a way of discovering new knowledge, a way of coming to understand something for the first time, a way of revealing connections and meanings that had been hidden. If you make discoveries, the writing will be fresh, and the reader will be attracted by the resulting energy…” 

You can find a copy of his essay Breaking the Spell of Money here. 

The Sea; its Waves and the Gifts of Distance, Reading and Writing.

From an English translation of a Spanish book I’m meditatively browsing. It’s a collection of brief, evocative prose pieces, many of them only one paragraph long, in which Puerto Rican-born Giannina Braschi, a professor of Spanish at the City University of New York, describes moments of experience and their contingencies: 

“…Sleeping. Writing while kneeling. Praying. But to write dreams as I’m doing now is to let the poetry-writer run and flood me with dreams and memories. I’ve never believed in time or dreams. What do people mean when they talk of existence? What is the basis for saying that I exist? 

… Has anyone gotten close enough to existence to be able to say that anyone who exists without a notion of death exists without a notion of life? A curious thing just occurred to me. I’ll let things swim over the waves of the sea for now. You shouldn’t force the movement of the waves of the sea. Be at the mercy of things. Do you mean to tell me that if a wave knocks me down and drags me away, I should let it? Yes, you should stay wherever it leaves you, so you’ll discover distance … [I thought here of this recent post featuring a reflection by Roger Housden on “Love”] 

… To be at the mercy of the waves is to be at the height of existence. To allow things to exist…  

…Do you know what I’m doing now? I’m floating. To float is to survive. Wait a minute. I don’t like this stuff about surviving. I don’t want to be above life. I want to be … with each moment of my life…

…By writing, I’m reading what I write. By writing, I used to read my past, my present, and in even my future in my writing. Even when I walked along the beach this summer, I felt that I was reading as I was contemplating the sea in the wandering of my eyes. It was as if the infinite were momentarily condensed. The infinite isn’t divine – it’s human – absolutely quotidian and real…

…I [have] to cry and I [have] to suffer in order to [feel and] write how the sea moves…”

Giannina Braschi, Empire of Dreams, pp. 217-218.

 

David Foster Wallace

James K. A Smith introduced me to David Foster Wallace (February 21, 1962 – September 12, 2008). Earlier this year, I began to read Although of Course you End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky. Though not (often) enamored by Lipsky’s interruptions and asides in what are otherwise (edited?) transcripts of his conversations with Wallace, I was caught over and over again in the grip of Wallace’s insights and experiences. 

I’ve dipped into other things, and articles about David Foster Wallace. I’m looking forward to reading my copies of Consider the Lobster (a non-fiction collection of essays) and his posthumously published unfinished novel The Pale King (which was released in NZ a month or so ago). 

The other day, again via Jamie Smith, I read David Foster Wallace’s commencement address given by him to the 2005 graduating class at Kenyon College. In fact I’ve now read it a couple of times. You will find it here (the unedited version) and if you do read it, I hope you’ll be as touched as I was. In my case I was moved by both by the discovery of myself (how I am in a supermarket, how I make space for possibilities, or am (on occasion) in a car in traffic) and also in my hope to grow ever more deeply free, and thus more fully human (and the value of that hope in a world that doesn’t naturally value such things). 

Here are some excerpts: 

“…And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out" really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine and petty frustration. The parents and older folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about…

…Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness…

…There are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving.... The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day…”

He concludes:

“…It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness; awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over…

…It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really IS the job of a lifetime. And it commences: now.

I wish you way more than luck.” 

If you want to hear Wallace, you’ll find some truly fascinating radio interviews here. Just wonderful to listen to him talking about all manner of things including structure in writing, loneliness, the importance of art, his books, morality / spirituality etc etc. I highly recommend them. 

 

James KA Smith and a Few Thoughts on Writing

Paul writes – More from James K A Smith. Some really useful thoughts on writing. Here's a few excerpts from him: 

“…You will know you're on your way to being a writer when you have a love/hate relationship with language: when you can be either thrilled or vexed by the cadence of a sentence or turn of phrase--when you can't quite leave the paragraph on which you're laboring because there's a tic of timing that's driving you mad. Or when you begin to consider the force of a sentence in terms of its ability to move rather than prove. In sum, you'll know you've become a writer when you consider the sheer play of language to be a country to which you'd gladly emigrate… 

… consider some of these as new habits:

1. Immerse yourself in fiction and poetry. If you don't love fiction, I can't imagine how you'll ever be a solid writer. The imaginative worlds of novels and the linguistic intensity of poetry should be your daily bread. Central to your apprenticeship should be mimesis, learning to imitate good writing. To familiarize yourself with that, you need to be regularly swimming laps in the deep pool of literature. If you can't imagine this being true for you, then stick to being an "author." 

2. Apprentice yourself to the craft of writing. Granted, there's an entire industry of wannabe writers out there that keeps Poets & Writers afloat. But there are also some very helpful books that are themselves examples of engaging writing. I'd recommend starting with Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life… 

…4. Be patient. Recall Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours rule (in Outliers): What looks like overnight "genius" exploding onto the scene is usually the product of about 10,000 hours of practice. This is the (admittedly discouraging) math of expertise. Now, I think you can log credit for all the hours you spend reading fiction and poetry as hours of practice. But you also just need to write. And write. And write. Write stuff that will never see the light of day. Write blogs. Take form seriously in your emails. Never miss an opportunity to make language dance and play. Embrace the craft at every turn. You might just become a writer…” 

You can read his full post here. Also worth a read are his two earlier reflections Writing (and) Theology, and (Unsolicited) Advice for Young (Theological) Writers.

 

Words that Shimmer and A Winters Bone

Paul writes – Some weeks back US Radio Program Speaking of Faith featured a fascinating interview with US-poet Elizabeth Alexander. Here’s the blurb for the show. I loved it, and needless to say, highly recommend it, especially if words, metaphor, symbol and language more generally are important to you. 

“…Poetry is something many of us seem to be hungry for these days. We're hungry for fresh ways to tell hard truths and redemptive stories, for language that would elevate and embolden rather than demean and alienate. Elizabeth Alexander shares her sense of what poetry works in us — and in our children — and why it may become more relevant, not less so, in hard and complicated times…” 

You’ll find the page with the link to the podcast here. 

The other fascinating interview I’ve listened to this week was one with very intelligent and articulate American independent film maker Debra Granik, whose acclaimed second feature, Winter's Bone is currently in limited theaters around New Zealand. Its also features in the nominations for the 2011 Academy Awards celebration later this month, and I wish it every success. 

You’ll find the interview here (scroll down)

 

The Blanket that I Threw Over the Invisible Man

“…Writing allowed me direct access to my imagination, to inspiration and, ultimately, to God. I found that through the use of language I was writing God into existence. Language became the blanket that I threw over the invisible man, which gave him shape and form. The actualizing of God through the medium of the Love Song remains my prime motivation as an artist…”

He ends his lecture with these achingly beautiful sentiments wrapped loosely in paper of words:

"...I'm happy to be sad. For the residue cast off in this search, the songs themselves, my crooked brood of sad-eyed children, rally around, and in their way, protect me, comfort me and keep me alive. They are the companions of the soul that lead it into exile, the sate the overpowering yearning for that which is not of this world. The imagination demands an alternative world and through the writing of the Love Song one sits and dines with loss and longing, madness and melancholy, ecstasy, magic and joy with equal measure of respect and gratitude."

Nick Cave, musician/writer – from The Secret Life of the Love Song, a lecture delivered at the South Bank Centre, London, 1999. Available on CD or in written form (pages 2-19 of a total book of 451 pages + index).

"...society actually has a problem with sadness. They don't like sadness. They try to cure sadness, and actually I don't believe that sadness is necessarily a bad thing. i think its something thats an essential part of our character, especially an artistic character..." Nick Cave, quoted in The Moose and Nick Cave: Melancholy, Creativity and Love Songs, an essay written by Tanya Dalziel in "Cultural Seeds: Essays on the Work of Nick Cave edited by Karen Welberry & Tanya Dalziel, p. 194

And this from a review of Greg Garrett’s We Get to Carry Each Other: The Gospel According to U2, Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY, 2009; 141 pp.: 9780664232177 by Gareth Powell (formerly part (perhaps still is) of the MOOT community in London before going to Pembroke College, Cambridge - if I’m not mistaken) in the January / February 2011 issue of the journal Theology. 

“…One is also left wondering why so much attention continues to be devoted to U2 when so much could be done on other more religiously ambiguous artists such as Nick Cave, who, in a manner akin to Wordsworth’s, stands at a critical distance from Christianity, yet treats its theological questions with genuine sophistication…”

While I have an extremely high regard for U2, I agree with this reviewer’s “wondering”. As proof of the potential, albeit limited from a specifically theological perspective, I’d direct you, by way of an example of the possibilities, to this brilliant collection of essays Cultural Seeds: Essays on the Work of Nick Cave published by Ashgate in 2009. Or to this recent post (on this blog) – reflecting a more theological example. Or, for more on the themes of the religion and the bible, see this 1997 online interview by Jim Pascoe with Cave – Awash in a Bleak and Fishless Sea. 

Finally, here's three podcasts that were connected with the 23rd May to 19th July 2009 Nick Cave exhibition at the Western Australian Museum - an interview ( Mp3 - downloadable) with curator of the exhibition (Janine Barrand) about her experience of visiting Nick Cave at his home in the UK, a telephone interview with Cave (Mp3 - downloadable) himself on the exhibition, and the exhibition podcast tour with its curator. The latter two can be found here.

 

Natalie Goldberg: Writing as a Spiritual Practice

Paul writes – I recently had the delight of listening to Natalie Goldberg talk about writing as a spiritual practice. I first came across Goldberg via her very insightful 2000 publication Thunder and Lightning: Cracking Open the Writers Craft. Her conversation develops and explores themes from this and her other books and I highly recommend it, whether you’re a writer (and writers or aspiring writers will really benefit) or not. It offers rich human insights at a number if levels depending upon how you listen to it. 

Here’s an excerpt from the conversation: 

“…Interviewer (TS): Now, 35 years of writing practice yourself and teaching writing practice, I’m curious if you could let us know where you have seen people get stuck with writing practice, or your own experience of getting stuck with writing practice, and what then dislodges it.

Natalie Goldberg (NG): Well, people believe their monkey mind or their critic that says, “This will go no place; this is a waste of time.” We apply it to anything we really want in life. The people who come to study with me want writing, so they apply it to writing. You know, “This is stupid, you have a family, why are you doing this? No one will like it; you might reveal things that aren’t right.” And yet, I tell my students, “You traveled all the way here to be with me. Don’t believe that little voice. Something in you wants it bad, because it’s a long trip to get here.” And that voice, we keep working with it. And sometimes the voice gets so loud that I tell people, “OK, 10 minutes. Let monkey mind out. Just let it rip, and let’s study what it has to say.”

So unfortunately, we follow that critic in us as though it was God: “I hate you, you’re stupid.” And we believe it all. And really, it’s just a dot in the huge sky.

TS: Now, you’ve made this very strong statement that writing is a legitimate, I think did you say “Zen practice,” a legitimate spiritual practice. And I’m curious, is it possible that anything can be a legitimate practice? I mean, I’ve heard people say, “My relationship is my practice.” Could we take this further and say, “Gardening is my legitimate Zen practice”?

NG: Yes, I guess so. But you know what? I think the meditation element is important, just facing your mind with nothing. And when you’re gardening, you have an activity, and you can get very worked up, and want to really achieve something: “I have to have the best flowers, the best roses.” And you can do that with writing practice: “I’m going to make a great novel.” That’s why I separate writing practice from writing a novel. Writing practice is just meeting your mind over and over. But there’s something wonderful about adding the element of just facing the mind with no activity at all…”

You can listen to the conversation (and/or read the transcript) here. The photograph is Natalie Goldberg and was taken by Kevin Moul. A Brief written interview with Goldberg can be found here. 

 

James K A. Smith on Writing

Paul writes – I’m always interested in how people write – their process and practices. 

James K. A Smith has written a significant number of essays and books. It took me three days, but I’ve just finished his essay The Logic of Incarnation: Towards a Catholic Postmodernism – well outside my everyday world, but I like to stretch my thinking!

His writing ranges along a continuum between “academic” and more “popular” (i.e. for well read laity, e.g. his excellent 2006 Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church or The Devil Reads Derrida: And Other Essays on the University, The Church, Politics and the Arts).

I’m sufficiently ill educated to not understand anything but a small percentage of Smith writes, but those bits that do resonate do so in significant and exciting ways. I shall persevere.

Anyway, I’ve gone off at a bit of a tangent. Jasmine Wilson recently interviewed Smith on the themes of “Scholarship” and “Teaching” (with some snippets thrown in for good measure), and here’s what he said about writing:

Jasmine Wilson: How exactly do you do your scholarly work? 

Jamie Smith: I write in big chunks, I can’t just sort of sit down and generate stuff… I need big chunks of time and really whole days. I also tend to write under pressure. I’m not like some people who wake up and write for two hours every day. That’s not me. I’m more like a binge writer. So I work at home Mondays and Friday for the most part, and then I teach Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I’m on campus Wednesdays. Sometimes I’ll go to the Sparrows or write from a coffee shop or something like that. 

JW: I hope this question is not offensive at all, but I’m just wondering, how, as someone on the philosophy track, you were able to so easily transition to being a writer, which is kind of seen as being a different discipline.

Jamie Smith: What do you mean by writer? 

JW: Well I just mean you’ve published a lot, and significant volumes whereas others in the department maybe are into the academic journals… 

Jamie Smith: Right, absolutely. I get this question a lot, and I’m always disappointed in my answer because I don’t really have one, except that, writing comes really easily to me. And I do think it’s not unrelated to having read so much, right, so if you read a lot and you’ve read a lot of good writing, then who knows whether it starts as a kind of mimicry. I also read a lot of fiction, and I feel like if my writing has improved it’s without question because I’ve also been reading fiction and poetry. Even my sort of scholarly writing. And the reason I can write so much… I do try to kill as many birds with as few stones as possible, so I try to make things overlap as much as possible. But I don’t think I’m a prodigy or anything, it’s just that I can write three thousand in a day without really being taxed by that. Maybe it’s because I just sort of keep everything fertilized, so there’s just always lots waiting there to be [written about]… I don’t know what other people’s practices are like, it’d be really interesting to know what other people’s practices are like, because to be honest, I don’t think I work that hard. I mean I don’t think I’m lazy. But I think some people think I don’t sleep or that I don’t know my kids or that I work 80 hours a week. I don’t, I don’t work at night, I never work on the weekends unless I’m grading or something like that, I’ve tried to have pretty good boundaries and work within those…”

You can read the whole interview here. 

Henri Nouwen: Writing to Save the Day

“Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.  Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be "redeemed" by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.”