Henry Miller, quoting his grandfather (in fiction, Nexus, at least):
Why are the dead so stiff?
Because there’s no joy in them anymore.
(Do I file that under Jewish Humor?)
Tag: Writing
I never realized how much I was surrounded by Greeks
For whatever impulsive reason, I ended my first published novel, Subway Hitchhikers (now revised into Subway Visions) in a Greek family’s restaurant in Indiana. In a town I I’ve dubbed Daffodil, which shows up in the title of the next book in the series., in fact
At the time, I saw it as emblematic of East Meets West, especially apt considering its Tibetan Buddhist twist.
Little did I know, once I picked up the trail again not quite two decades after that publication, of the ways Greek-Americans interacted with my life, even in the Midwest.
Consider these tidbits:
My best friend’s mother was delighted by her neighbor’s repeated explanation, “Athens! She is beautiful. The rest of the country?” A spitting sound I could never ever spell out was accompanied by the open palms of both hands coming down side by side from overhead.
His other best friend was Greek-American, someone of a philosophic outlook who wound up living in my circle in Upstate New York after getting out of the Army. Yeah, some hippies were veterans.
Later faint details of a landmark restaurant passing into a new generation much like the one in the novel, still in Daffodil.
In the Pacific Northwest, discovering souvlaki on our forays to the University District of Seattle.
Back in Northeast Ohio, the Greek bakery in a small storefront surrounded by houses on a quiet street six or seven blocks east of our home.
In Baltimore, “All the pizza’s made by Greeks,” which seemed wrong – where were the Italians? And, in my salesman role on the road, “All the diners are owned by Greeks.”
In New Hampshire, the Athens restaurant downtown – popular but, to my senses, bland and tired – in contrast to one of my favorite takeout places where we ordered for the office – the menu that introduced me to gyros.
Add to that the cathedral’s big Glendi, which sent food to the newsroom in gratitude for our coverage, or the little frame St. Nicholas church I’d pass on one route to and from the paper.
One of our older coworkers, a photo lab tech, was Greek – kind, smiling, though I got to know little else. Later, one of the men I worked more closely with in the composing room was half Greek. His name, Perry, was after his grandfather, Pericles.
All of this fleeting, fragmentary, but coming together in once I moved to Dover and its annual, free-admission Greek Festival. From there, I picked up Greek dancing and the liturgy of the Orthodox faith, not that I converted. It still enriched my Quaker Christian strand.
And then there was Davos, in Watertown Square, a block down the street from my weekly choir practice. The restaurant was expertly run by Hispanics after its founders moved on.
It’s an element I miss living on this end of Maine. The closest Greek restaurants are in Brewer and Waterville, both blissfully satisfying.
For more of what they present, look to the Cassia’s World category here at the Red Barn or to the novel, What’s Left, which is available in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. It’s also available in paper and Kindle at Amazon, or you can ask your local library to obtain it.
Along with the emergence of a personal voice and style
Preparing my collections of poetry for release, as well as the shorter chapbooks appearing at my Thistle Finch editions blog, has been eye-opening, especially after spending so much time concentrating on the novels.
A lot has changed in my half-century at this. At first glance, my work has seemed to shoot off in every direction. But then, in spite of that, commonalities appear. Some of them, to some extent, apply to both the prose and poetry.
Despite all of the changes in my life and the differing approaches of my writing that accompanied that, I believe some underlying qualities run through my output.
Here goes, mostly from notes to self from way back and up:
- No tolerance for fluff. Anti-romantic. Playful twists are another matter.
- My quest for accuracy has invoked sharp focus – despite the blur and whirl of my own life.
- I’ve relied on flashes, gathering. Like snowfall, curiously. A burst of storm, however brief or long the season.
- Surrealism & absurdity can be more accurate than what’s seen on the surface.
- Jagged and leaping make sparks, akin to my Kinisi here at the Barn.
- As for what makes my work unique? What makes me unique? (My niche?)
- In much of my writing, I’ve mapped organic geo-history, the overlapping energies of a locale and its spirit(s), as truthfully as I can, however fragmentary the result. Personal relationships, including marriage, hover within these landscapes, even as their own physical places as well as spiritual, influencing and influenced by the larger ecosystem. I try to comprehend this within a concern for the larger, more timeless harmony (Logos).
- My investigation of invisible vibrations of specific landscapes has led me to cherish alternative cultures that embody healing energies – Native practices, Amish, Mennonite, Quaker, and so on – in contrast to our increasingly rootless, violent, unstable society at large.
- An awareness of the wonder of the universe and an appreciation for our own unique places within it. Out of that, roots, a radiance of peace, and the sustaining nurture of a community of kindred souls.
- Mine is a unique, distinctive name reflecting my originality (or eccentricities) in bridging many diverse currents. My writings, as I see them, are tightly compressed, radiating clarity, and highly polished with a raw edge.
- What’s my trademark, my signature touch?
- Starting with poetry:
- Distillation. Compression. Radiance.
- Lean and polished lines.
- An aversion to formal forms.
- A rejection of poetry as a hidden code requiring an interpreter.
- A preference for allowing the images and details to speak for themselves.
- Delight in allowing the individual reader’s interpretation to unfold on its own.
- The land and the girl / spiritual landscape / the girl in a spiritual landscape. Somehow, they overlap.
- An unexpected snap in each line. (Thus, lines long enough for something to happen.)
- Silences as positive openings.
- Writing as a means of discovery and deepened memory, more than to embellish or escape.
- As a journalist, my touchstones have been Accurate, Informative, Useful, and Entertaining. I wonder how those apply to poetry, too.
- To honor life and its wellspring.
- Writing as an act of gratitude and humility.
- To be audacious without subterfuge or scrabble or sleight-of-hand.
- To be enterprising without deception.
- To be daring without falsification / ruse / trickery or bombast.
- Much of my writing emerges as an attempt to record and investigate the Hidden Way as it has opened and shaped my life. Often unconventional, prompting experimental inquiry, this unfolding has led me to its ancient roots and traditions, which in turn provoke contemporary responses.
And the fiction? You can add:
- That aversion to formula or genre, especially when it comes to marketing.
- A preference for allowing the images and details to speak for themselves.
- I write to discover, and to remember, more than to embellish or escape.
- As a newspaper editor, I have often found daily journalism to be better written than many of the novels and other books that crossed my desk.
- An awareness of the artifice of linear, rational exposition and development. How do we get beyond that?
- Deep Image is not confined to poetry.
- Life as an experiment. So much variability with the basic laws and given conditions.
- I’ve relied on flashes, gathering. Like snowfall, curiously. A burst of storm, however brief or long the season. Or even confetti or a ticker-tape parade.
- I’ve preferred discovery to fabrication. Accuracy to cleverness. Mandala engagement over private code. What is brought forth in each individual reflecting on the icon, from deep personal experience, rather than the artifact itself.
Well, that’s how I’ve defined my efforts over time. Sometimes the results do startle me, all these years later. And some of my results come closer to my ideals than others, not that I’ll fault those, either.
~*~
You can my works in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. Or you can ask your local library to obtain them.
Not every lover finds roses comforting
In support of that statement, let me offer Long-Stem Roses in a Shattered Mirror, my collection of poems released to the public today.
Think what happens when a hot relationship goes belly up and everything you trusted turns painful.
These poems arise in a brutally honest reevaluation of those interactions, as one of the lovers insisted on at the time, as well as the larger hopes and desires.
Many of the poems appeared in small-press literary magazines around the globe, but this is their first outing complete.
I have come a long, long way since, perhaps because of lessons I learned in these earlier relationships. The poems remain intense, vivid, and powerfully moving, even at my age.
For my series of passionate roses, check out my collection in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords.com and its affiliated online retailers. Or ask your public library to obtain it.
How would I have envisioned literary success?
Let’s start with the prompt: Imagine yourself in the position you desire.
For much of my life, that had two conflicting scenes, the newspaper editor in his community in contrast to the successful novelist in a tweed jacket in a New York study or a poet in something more funky.
Much less for the supporting people my life, starting with wife and children?
When I last looked at the question, it essentially asked me to consider my early retirement years. How curious! The newspaper editor, at least, was out of the picture.
At its core, I craved recognition (affirmation!) – after years of largely reclusive labor. But which circle did I most want to recognize me – hip, alternative culture? Quaker, international literary, Seacoast New Hampshire? At some level, perhaps, it was also wanting to visit Dayton and be known even there – or to hear again from many people I’d known and lost contact with in my relocations. The Quaker world is awfully small and restrained, especially with its three sharp divisions. The literary world, meanwhile, has so many high priests and exclusive emphases – could I move among them? Yet, if the Society of Friends is to survive and grow, I needed to move beyond its confines and reach out to a wider audience. In a larger sense, then, my recognition would be as one who brilliantly bridges these disparate worlds. If only.
I did imagine a significant amount of time would be engaged in travel – public readings, workshops, conferences. Eight weeks a year, split between Quaker and literary? Perhaps an additional retreat or camping trip? The travel could also include three-day weekends for symphony, opera, and galleries.
I also imagined having three books published on paper each year – one of poetry, one of Quaker practice, and one of fiction or memoir/genealogy. (They were already written.)
The rest of the time would be correspondence and basic living, including a social life, concerts/plays/etc.
I do believe such reflections are important in channeling what might otherwise be simply drifting through life.
So back to the questions.
Define what you are trying to accomplish. Be clear about what you’re setting out to do. What problem are you trying to solve? What new ground are you trying to break? What will happen if you manage this well? What will happen if it isn’t managed well?
I would have said, Brand myself as the leading new Quaker voice – or at least an original Thinker. (Think of Bill Stafford in the Church of the Brethren, Wendell Berry, even Mary Oliver the Unitarian – who has emerged since?) What I want to do is bring Quaker theology into the center of contemporary thought and discourse, and then to renew the life of the Society itself. The poetry and fiction add to my credibility as a writer.
Well, that has slipped past me.
Now for another hard question.
Who do you think would play me in the movie version?
~*~
You can find my surviving novels in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. They’re also available in paper and Kindle at Amazon, or you can ask your local library to obtain them.
How do you come upon the writing that excites you?
Assuming that you’re an active reader, let me ask where you’re obtaining your books of interest. With a thousand or more new novels every week, you can’t possibly keep up there. As for bookstores, there are only so many shelves. Ditto, public libraries.
Some of those stores and libraries do have sections where their employees recommend new volumes, and I applaud that, even while physical bookstores fight for survival.
Goodreads is another option, though also quite crowded.
For commercially released works, the New York Times reviews and a few other sites are key to the latest.
But my interest – and work – falls outside of that realm, and I do believe the real action takes place at the fringe.
Quite simply, I see opportunity for a dedicated reader – especially a recent graduate in literature – to set up shop online as an informed critic in a specific vein. What I’ve seen too often among the bloggers who review is gushing froth about stuff they like, akin to movie fanzines, rather than any critical detailing of why something soars above the pack or even why others fail. They don’t say what makes the piece they’re praising truly stand out.
The ideal I’ll acknowledge is the French film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, founded in 1951, which ran only pieces extolling new work of merit, rather than all new movies. It gave rise to a new wave of cinema, one based on daring directors rather than the film actors aka “stars.”
~*~
Real change originates at the fringe of society, not at the center. It typically develops in obscurity, sometimes flashing into widespread recognition and acceptance, and that’s been true in literature over the years.
Rarely will truly adventurous pages be found through the bestseller lists, but when one does break through, then everyone – writers, readers, publishers, and booksellers – will be in pursuit. Imitations will abound, as well as new labels and genres for marketing.
So how do you find fresh books and their writers, the kind who turn you on, fill you with a sense of discovery and make you want to tell everybody you know what they’re missing?
The history of novels is filled with instances of canon masterpieces that were rescued from oblivion by a single critic, either in a pivotal review or by sustained championship. And nothing beats word-of-mouth by a few fans.
So here we are, in a remarkable period of access for both readers and writers, thanks to digital advances. The problem is that there’s so much, there’s no way to keep up.
That’s where a few celebrity critics could step in.
~*~
Sometimes I regret writing novels that are “out there.”
It could be fun writing sharp reviews of many lousy books if I weren’t facing retaliation. (By idiots.)
Still, I feel it’s an opportunity well worth examining for an enterprising young English major graduate: sorting through the eruption of new writing and signaling what might be worthy of further examination.
By the way, online I usually don’t click the button on “pages” or “posts” that have more than 20 “likes.”
Like what is this, a popularity contest?
Still, on the receiving end, it is nice knowing that some folks are at least seeing this. Better yet is when you know that someone else “gets it.” Or, as I originally wrote, “Digs it.”
~*~
So back to the opening question, How are you finding the writing that excites you?
Are there any websites you would especially recommend?
Here’s your chance to give a shoutout.
What makes a particular writer stand out?
More directly, the question comes down to this: What makes my work unique? What makes me unique? (My niche?)
As I once would have answered, somewhere back along the path to here:
“My work largely seeks to map organic geo-history, the overlapping energies of a locale and its spirit(s), as truthfully as I can, however fragmentary the result. Since personal relationships, including marriage, appear as places hovering within this landscape – both influencing and influenced by the larger ecosystem – I investigate them often with a concern for the larger, more timeless harmony (Logos).”
My, my, what can I say about that now? Or:
“This investigation of the invisible vibrations has also led me to cherish alternative cultures that embody healing energies – Native cultures, Amish, Mennonite, Quaker, and so on – in contrast to our increasingly rootless, violent, unstable society at large.”
As for the question, “What do you want to be different after this effort? This project?” Well!
“I hope to renew an awareness of the wonder of the universe and an appreciation for our own unique places within it. Out of that, roots and a radiance of peace.”
Or: “How do you want to be remembered? Then think of your customer (reader). What exactly do you want people to say when they speak of you to others? Are you representing your quintessential self consistently? (Image is everything. Brands need an unchanging core.)”
And so, to continue: ”Jnana – a unique, distinctive name – reflects my originality in bridging of many diverse currents into a larger vision. Compression, clarity, highly polished with a raw edge.”
Or a mission statement?
“I summon others to join our waiting Quaker worship and community. (This is how I got here and what I’ve experienced along the way to Truth … ) (Look for young adults, especially.)”
What have I not asked that people ought to know?
“I am part of a generation that has not come to terms with its hippie past – both positive and negative. While we’ve retreated from the general effort to push the envelope, to advance to Edge City, to demolish boundaries, we’ve also failed to examine what we learned and carry from that experience. Instead, there’s a society-wide state of denial that is bound to erupt in unanticipated ways – likely, without any sustaining wisdom.
“When radical currents from both coasts connected in academic nerve centers in the Midwest, furious confrontations erupted, overturning repressive constraints of institutional America.
“The hippie movement that is usually thought of as the Sixties actually appeared most fully during the Nixon administration, 1969-74, and brought changes that younger generations now take for granted.
“Crucial to the outcome were personal transformations that few today will speak of.”
~*~
Well, that’s some of what I’ve wrestled with in my zig-zag journey to here. Other writers will have to speak for themselves. Some of my responses sound today pompous and airy, but I’ll leave them at that for now.
A writer is allowed to aspirations, no?
~*~
You can find my novels and poems in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. They novels are also available in paper and Kindle at Amazon, or you can ask your local library to obtain them.
Back to the press and a personal debt
The first printing press in Britain was established at Westminster in 1476 (during the reign of Edward IV, 1461-1483) by William Caxton. Modern movable type had been invented not that much earlier around 1450 by Johannes Guttenberg.
Caxton is considered a central figure in establishing Chancery English to the standard dialect used throughout England. In his haste to make translations for publication, he imported many French words into English.
Well, England did rule much of France during the century.
As a reader and writer, I’m indebted to both men and a host of those who followed.
Lately, I’ve been returning to the Baskerville typeface, which we used for our high school newspaper, though now its in honor of an earlier resident of our house. The face dates from the 1750s.
One classic I’ve long been fond of is Caslon, from the 1720s, by another English designer. It’s similar to Goudy, a 1915 American design based on historic Italian faces and one I’ve been using on my Thistle Finch publications. It really is elegant.
Sometimes the very appearance of a word in type or a well-designed page will make my heart sing.
Just so you know what happens when ink gets in your blood.
As for fireworks
Let’s start with a pitch I once considered using.
“Hi, my name is Jnana Hodson and I’m a retired hippie. One of millions and, unlike many, I’m not embarrassed to admit it was a time to remember, no matter how short we’ve fallen from its potential. What is often overlooked is that the central element was the hippie chick. My novel, Hippie Farm, celebrates her in her many guises, even if you can’t even use the term “chick” anymore without being corrected. At the time, though, it was a badge of honor and invitation – one leading, in this case, to a rundown farmhouse in the mountains outside a college town. May I introduce you to the full story?”
Well, that attempt has now been woven into what stands as Pit-a-Pat High Jinks. Still, as I also proclaimed:
“In many of my novels, the hippie movement opened their minds. Or at least their horizons. Or even a few hearts. What’s most opened yours?”
That led to these points:
- Crucial to the outcome were personal transformations that few today will speak of.
- We’re still caught between two worlds (or) unfinished business. I wanted to present my work as letters from a retired hippie or letters to youth and a call to action.
- I wanted to tell them I’m sorry about what you’re inheriting. I’m sorry about the parts we messed up.
- And yet, it wasn’t all our fault. We were too trusting, for one thing. And so green, as in naive.
- Looking around, there are the old losers and the sense of hippie as essentially a girl thing.
- It was a youth movement. What you need to know about its legacy is this.
- Economics:. globalization and digitalization versus small-is-beautiful. As for the tax base? And the kleptomaniac One Percent? How about selling yourself into slavery?
- Relationships: the restructuring of marriage and family (dare we consider ashrams and similar shared householding).
- Environment and the earth: Global warming is a reality, despite years and millions of dollars expended in its denial.
- Justice and equality. Dare I say more?
- Alternative lifestyle. Think of clothing, the arts (Edge City), food, even basic skills such as use of a broom or hammer.
- Drugs, alcohol, etc. Legalization is one thing, appropriate usage another. Jail is not the deciding point. Oppressive life situations, however, are.
- Yup, the whole system of shaping our children.
- I’m not going there today, other than to say deep readjustments are in order. I hope they get to the bottom rather than enrich the most elite of society.
- Discipline and self-discipline. For me, that leads to the next.
- Spirituality and religion. Personal experience of something divine and then holy community.
Now, back to those contributor’s notes possibilities:
- As an unabashed political liberal, Jnana despairs for public sanity.
- He knows nothing good can come from a politics of hate.
- Jnana is a Lincoln Republican who votes Democrat by default.
- I was UPROOTED, repeatedly. In location, relationship, my career, even faith.
- The undertow or rip current, pulling me away. I expected to live in large cities, my life filled with opera and symphony performances. Instead, it’s been mostly small cities in rural conditions.
- My life journey has had little resemblance to what I anticipated from college on. Repeatedly, it seemed I was uprooted – in location, career, relationship, and even spirit – just as I began to address a situation fully. Outwardly, the result has been fragmentary, unified only in the mind and heart that embrace its many facets.
- In recent years, much of my experience of wandering and sojourn has constellated in an investigation of the metaphors of Light and Seed as they were expressed in the early Quaker movement. I now perceive a semblance between the Dharma bums of Asian religious practices and the vagabond ministry of itinerant Quaker ministers, and find comfort in their legacy, with its parallels to my own movements.
- After throwing myself into business crusades and tumultuous relationships, I consider myself a survivor. I love classical music and opera, mountaintops and the North Atlantic, Quaker Meeting and New England contradancing.
- For me, poetry is a state of mind. Its essential element is silence, linking it to sacred (An impossibility, of course, considering the nature of words. And yet!)
Or, to reconnect with Ezra Pound, literature is slow news, something allowing some breathing space and reflection, rather than the minute-by-minute confusion before us.
Which takes me back to Scripture, diving into antiquity for parallels to today.
Now, let’s sit back tonight for some gloriously fleeting pyrotechnics. Something that might inspire and awe almost everyone.
Anyone else taking notes in an art gallery or museum?
I’m not sure when the practice started in my own life, but somewhere it did.
Typically, in a first visit to an art museum, I’ll move along quickly to get a sense of the fuller collection. In the returns, however, I’ve become more inclined to sit down in front of a particular piece or even a full wall or room and then more fully immerse myself in particular pieces, usually while the rest of our party roves on. Yes, I’m with notebook in hand.
Those scribblings have led to poems, especially those in which Norman Rockwell and Gertrude Stein appear commenting, somewhat like poet Lew Welch’s Buddhist Red Monk who kept popping up at the bottom of the page. I’m not quite sure how they showed up, either, but there they are, as you’ll find in recent entries at my Thistle Finch editions blog.
Let me repeat that I’m generally averse to poems about poetry or celebrating poets or that somehow place artists of any stripe above the rest of humanity, ditto that for movie stars or professional athletes or billionaires or politicians. We do need our heroes, but I’m convinced that it’s healthy to keep their human frailties and shortcomings in perspective.
In that regard, I do believe we artists need to keep our vision beyond our studio door. Anything less strikes me as incest, even for an interdisciplinary addict like me. It’s why I refuse to respond to political pollsters. Go ask somebody on the street, OK?
Still, I made the central character in my Freakin’ Free Spirits novels a photographer. Even having him make a living by working at a newspaper was skirting my taboos.
~*~
The term “ekphrasis” defines poems that describe visual artworks though it can be applied more broadly. Sometimes the results are admirable, as exemplified in music by Gunther Schuller’s “Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee” or Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
~*~
Lately, I’ve become quite fond of the Alex Katz galleries at Colby College, not just because he almost collected a painting by my first wife. Rather, I sense something in the plainness of his depicted figures and where I’d like my own work to head. It’s stripping something down to essentials.
We’ll see.
~*~
For Rockwell and Stein, take a look at at Thistle Finch editions. For Freakin’ Free Spirits, look for the four novels in the digital platform of your choice at Smashwords, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Scribd, Sony’s Kobo, and other fine ebook retailers. They novels are also available in paper and Kindle at Amazon, or you can ask your local library to obtain them.
Jnana's Red Barn 