I'm a University Lecturer in English and the author of a novel, The Secret of Hurricanes (MacAdam/Cage 2002). My life is summed up by Rumi, who said: "My story gets told in various ways: a romance, a dirty joke, a war, a vacancy." Rumi's quote is the epigraph to Hurricanes. The purpose of this journal is to explore creativity and the writing life.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Provincetown 30
Been busy working and playing. My workshop was last week. Sure got to read and discuss a lot of great poetry like Blake and Comer and Denis Johnson and Jorie Graham. The workshop knocked me off line with the novel, though. I need to work myself back into the fever. Stopped by Tim's Used Bookstore and bought a collection of Jack Kerouac's letters, edited by Ann Charters. Amazing read. He makes me fall in love with writing all over again and again and again and again. Remarkable to think he was born in 1922 and died in 1969. He is forever young in my mind.
They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!"
ReplyDeleteJack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957
This quote was adopted by Apple marketing campaign...
Gretchen
Gretchen, really? JK would have hated that.
ReplyDeleteLovely reading...
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