“Choice of subject is of cardinal importance. One does by far one’s best work when besotted by and absorbed in the matter at hand.”
—AdviceToWriters - Home - Choice of Subject Is of Cardinal Importance
October 2011
16 posts
“Avoid worrying about whether what you write will be worth reading. Instead ask whether it is worth writing; and, if so, how it may best be written. Avoid worrying about whether what you write will be original. When originality occurs at all (which is rare), it occurs as a by-product of conviction.”
—“Time and the Art of Living” Robert Grudin
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“I think teaching makes me smarter, not only about poetry but also about many other subjects. I read things I wouldn’t otherwise read. Plus, I have to leave my house to teach; without that, my reclusive tendencies might turn me into an Emily Dickinson who only speaks to the world from behind a barely-open door.”
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Mary Jo Bang: On Learning, Self-Discipline, and Taking the Road Less Traveled
Currently on the road, on the way back from another six hour session for poets who want to develop their teaching practice, this time in Nottingham. Aside from the slightly dodgy tuna melt courtesy of the AMT Coffee concession at the station, in the immortal words of Ice Cube himself: “today was a good day.” There was an energising selection of poets-stroke-education-facilitators in the room, but also the added bonus of two young poets I have a lot of love for, Miriam Nash and Deborah Stevenson. Miriam is currently serving as Production Assistant for Shake the Dust (the national youth SLAM project I’m working on for 2012), while Deborah is the creative director for Mouthy Poets— a collective/community of poets associated with Nottingham Playhouse. Both are fantastic poets and facilitators in their own rights. I first met Deborah through the Roundhouse Poetry workshops I used to run (how many years ago now?) and I’ve acted as Miriam’s mentor since 2008. Having them both in the room was a joy— I’ve seen them develop and grow as writers and literature professionals, and to see them presenting their work… well, it’s not as if they’re “mine” to feel proud of, but I certainly do.
“I think I’ll keep on describing things / to ensure that they really happened.”
—Stephen Dunn, ‘Sixty’
“Great work is doing stuff that gives back to the world, as well as serving your own purposes. It’s the difference between writing things down to remember them versus writing things down to teach others.”
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—Gina Tripani.
I’m on a train back to London from running a masterclass for poets in education at the Contact in Manchester, and this quote popped up in my feed reader. Nice.
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. Then go and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
—Howard Thurman (via minimalmac)
“You are underestimating the future. You are fretting about the now; worrying about little things that don’t matter. You are wasting precious energy obsessing over irrelevant details. You don’t believe that a better future is out there and can be built, that it can exceed people’s expectations, because you’re spending so much time considering the truth of the present and the seemingly important lessons of the past.”
—Rands In Repose: You Are Underestimating the Future
“Depth, to me, means complexity, not complicatedness, complexity in the sense in which many things are happening at one time - complex, as we say a wine is complex. My poems do not need “unpacking.” I do the unpacking myself by writing the poem.”
—What You See Is What You Get: Marvin Bell in Conversation
“Resolve to do lots of writing along the way. Much of it will be routine note-taking, but you should also write reflectively, to understand: make outlines; explain why you disagree with a source; draw diagrams to connect disparate facts; summarize sources, positions, and schools; record even random thoughts. Many researchers find it useful to keep a journal for hunches, new ideas, random thoughts, problems, and so on. You might not include much of this writing-to-discover-and-understand in your final draft. But when you write as you go, every day you encourage your own best critical thinking, understand your sources better, and, when the time comes, draft more productively.”
—Andrea Mignolo | Always Write
“Stories,” the green-eyed Sigrid said, unperturbed, “are like prayers. It does not matter when you begin, or when you end, only that you bend a knee and say the words.”
—Catherynne M. Valente, In the Night Garden (via holdonmagnolia)
“Today seems to be a suitable day for us all to step back and assess the influence and legacy of the work that we do. Jobs always said he wanted to put a ding in the universe. We don’t have to be quite so ambitious in scale, but it does seem prudent to consider the effect of our work in this larger concept of time. How will our efforts affect people now, and how will the way they change people extend into the future?”
—For Steve, via Frank Chimero
