More on lines...
Of course, in talking about my improving command of line I should mention my new willingness to daven -- to rock back and forth, as if in prayer -- while writing. More proof that poetry, at least the writing of it, is physical. Two quotes, both from lectures by Betsy Warland:
"Line's core confidence is in touching its writer. Its scoring must clone the movement of the speech of the body -- or bodies, in the case of characters."
"Line, like our hands, feels its way in the dark."
Thanks, Betsy, for everything. Are you out there, somewhere, with your ancient shuddering mac? I hope you're well.
It's amusing what brings people to Vivid. Today, with "Writing about Sex" on the top, I got several visitors coming in from Dan Kukwa's classroom newsletter: dear Dan teaches at St. Benedict Catholic high school. Possibly I should tell him I can be both erotic and blasphemous -- sometimes in one breath (the erotic Zechariah poem, for instance.) Also today, someone found me by entering "where can I get a writer notebook at" into google. Hmm... where to start. And yesterday's entry should boost the number of people drifting in looking for vivid sex.
I used to think people's connections might be modeled as a fluid -- where each person interacts with those nearest, almost exclusively, and yet the whole maintains a strange cohesion I've never understood. But the internet is different. I thought for a moment -- we are all neutrinos, and the internet is the vast earth's body, which we zip through, having only a few random interactions. But that doesn't explain how certain sites can capture us, and bring us back... or how friendships form online. I will need a new model. (Dr. Meg? -- over to you!)
3 Comments
Oh my god…what a way to know that people are actually visiting my class website
Lives converge and diverge and in some small infinitiseminal way every person’s thoughts and views touches upon everyone else’s. We are not so alone as we think. Perhaps you want to turn to mysticism or philosophy rather than Physics. We are not neutrinos, because we are particles with thought and feeling and choose to return to places (and sites) and people who interest us. Particle thermodynamics does not apply, neither does gravity as the attraction is hard to quantify, define.
As for “where can i get a writer’s notebook” is a difficult search. Try finding a “blank book” at amazon.com, they have many journals which one can fill, they’re hard to find, though, you’d be surprised. Better to go to your local bookstore or local artist store, stationary store if you are quite lucky and run your hands over the different covers, feeling the quality of paper inside.
I’m not sure the rocking is an image of yourself that you want to put out there. To me it’s mostly associated with different types of mental illness. I firmly believe that your writing, and the altered state it can put you into, is not a mental illness, rather a mental wellness.
I understand that you see the davan as a higher spiritual state, or at least getting you close to one. Isn’t the silence and effort of yoga getting you were you want to be?