INSPIRATION OF THE DAY: C.D. Wright on Writing Poetry
In the foreward to her 1986 book Further Adventures With You, C. D. Wright, a native of the "hill country" of Arkansas, considers writing from and about home. I find her thoughts on the relationships between voice and place fascinating. The foreward, called "hills," is both prose-poem and explanation. I'll let its awesomness speak for itself. Look for a poem or two from this collection in the coming weeks!
hills (excerpt)
"In my work I'm led by my senses but I understand practical matters. I am neither interested in preserving nor exorcising the poetry of the hills. There are luminous albeit terrible facts I must simply transcribe. I the scribe. Others, transform. But on the same point, I submit you have to strike down your own mythology, about yourself, your loves, your ravishing and atavistic homeland. I am interested in the vision beyond this confrontation. Boundaries of illumination between the created, the re-created, the newly gleamed, the as yet incomprehensible. Speaking for myself, this scribbling saves me from missing a minute of what would otherwise go unspecified, unstyled. Writing is a risk and a trust. The best of it lies yonder. My linguistic skills expand on the horizon. So does the horizon.…I don't want to break bread with the word unless convinced I have something in the mix that bears kneading. And someone to finsih off the wine with, who is listening. Who is intent. Who'll read me the riot act when I shut up."
AMEN.
