Dan Jorgensen's Blog

A Writer's Moment: 'Light on stone in a forest':   “Fiction's essential activity is to imagine how others feel, what a Saturday afternoon in an Italian town in the 2nd Century looked li...

 

“Fiction'sessential activity is to imagine how others feel, what a Saturday afternoon inan Italian town in the 2nd Century looked like. My ambition is solely to getsome effect, as of light on stone in a forest on a September day.” – GuyDavenport 

 

Writer,translator, illustrator, painter, intellectual, and teacher, Davenport was botha Rhodes Scholar and a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, one of the few peoplein the world to achieve both major honors.  Born in the Appalachianregion of South Carolina on Nov. 23, 1927 he was a self-taught reader andwriter who graduated from high school by age 16, then went on to earn degreesat both Duke and Harvard.

 

Overhis lifetime he had more than 400 nationally published essays and reviews,wrote 17 novels, a dozen books of poetry, and contributed to several dozenother books or collections.  And, he did all that while teaching fulltime and drawing or painting nearly every day of his life from age 11 on. A number of his art works are on display in galleries across the country.

 

Indefatigablewas often a word used to describe him, but he said it was “just something Ifelt I had to do to keep my life in balance.”  He wrote right upuntil his death in 2005.  He said that of all his writings, he mostenjoyed fictionalizing historical events and figures – a sort-of “What If?”scenario that make his works both fast-paced and intriguing.  Among his many award winners were TheBowmen of Shu, The Drummer of the Eleventh North and The Bicycle Rider.

                                                                                                         

“Aslong as you have ideas, you can keep going,” he said.  “That's whywriting fiction is so much fun: because you're moving people about, and makingsettings for them to move in, so there's always something there to keep workingon.”

A Writer's Moment: Responding to the 'lightning' effect:   “ A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.” –         James Dickey   Born in Atlanta in 1923...

 

“Apoet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck bylightning.” –      JamesDickey

 

Bornin Atlanta in 1923, Dickey was a multiple award winner for his poetry and otherwritings, including the taut bestselling novel Deliverance – also madeinto an acclaimed movie.  His book Buckdancer'sChoice earned him the National Book Award for Poetry and an appointment asU.S. Poet Laureate in the mid-1960s.   All 331 of Dickey’s poems were collected into TheComplete Poems of James Dickey following his death in 1997.   ForSaturday’s Poem, here is Dickey’s,

 

                                         At Darien Bridge

                                  The sea here used to look
                                  As if many convicts had built it,

                                 Standing deep in their ankle chains,
                                  Ankle-deep in the water, to smite

                                  The land and break it down to salt.
                                  I was in this bog as a child

                                  When they were all working all day
                                  To drive the pilings down.

                                  I thought I saw the still sun
                                  Strike the side of a hammer in flight

                                  And from it a sea bird be born
                                  To take off over the marshes.

                                  As the gray climbs the side of my head
                                  And cuts my brain off from the world,

                                  I walk and wish mainly for birds,
                                  For the one bird no one has looked for

 

                                  To spring again from a flash
                                  Of metal, perhaps from the scratched

                                  Wedding band on my ring finger.
                                  Recalling the chains of their feet,

                                   I stand and look out over grasses
                                  At the bridge they built, long abandoned,

                                  Breaking down into water at last,
                                  And long, like them, for freedom

                                  Or death, or to believe again
                                  That they worked on the ocean to give it

                                  The unchanging, hopeless look
                                  Out of which all miracles leap.

A Writer's Moment: 'The instruction . . . is like fire':   “The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becom...

 

“Theinstruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours,kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property ofall.” – Voltaire

 

Bornin France on this date in 1694, François-Marie Arouet (known as Voltaire) was one of history’s great thinkers, writers, historians and philosophers, famous forhis wit and his advocacy of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.    Voltaireproduced some 2,000 books and pamphlets, wrote plays, poems, essays andhistorical and scientific works, and more than 20,000 letters.  And he wasan outspoken advocate of civil liberties, despite the risk it placed on himwith the French monarchy. 

 

Oftencredited with a quote that serves as a foundation for our 1stAmendment – “I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death yourright to say it.” – he said that what he really said (or wrote) was:  "I detest what you write, but I wouldgive my life to make it possible for you to continue to writeit."  Fluentin five languages, including English, he also was a voracious reader and oftensaid it was the thoughts and ideas of others that were the basis for his ownwritings.  

“Originality,” said Voltaire, “is nothing butjudicious imitation. The most original writers have always borrowed one fromanother.”

A Writer's Moment: 'It's a brand on the imagination':   “The creative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. The writer loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize ...

 

“Thecreative act is not pure. History evidences it. Sociology extracts it. Thewriter loses Eden, writes to be read and comes to realize that he isanswerable.” – Nadine Gordimer

 

Bornin South Africa on this date in 1923, Gordimer became the first writer from hercountry to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.  Gordimer, who died in2014, was a creative, political and humanitarian force in South Africa for nearly60 years.

 

Gordimer’sfirst novel The Lying Days was published in 1953 and by the early 1960sshe had gained both international acclaim and the ire of thegovernment.  Active in Nelson Mandela’s African National Congressduring the years when that organization was banned, many of her writings were inspiringfor Mandela’s cause, but like Mandela’s political efforts banned in her own country.  All told she authored dozens of essays, 22short story collections and 15 worldwide bestselling novels.  And she helped Mandela edit his famous trialspeech “I Am Prepared To Die.”  

 

 

Led by multiple-award winning novels like The Conservationist and Burger's Daughter, Gordimer's works deal with the themes of love and politics.   Alwaysquestioning power relations and truth, her stories tell of ordinary peopledealing with moral ambiguities and choices.   She won the Nobel in 1991 and said thecensorship she endured for her writing was life-scarring.  

 

“Censorshipis never over for those who have experienced it,” she said.  “It is abrand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it,forever.”

A Writer's Moment: Creating 'Something to think about':   “When I'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotional experience, rather than separate myself from it and l...

 

“WhenI'm writing, I'm trying to immerse myself in the chaos of an emotionalexperience, rather than separate myself from it and look back at it from adistance with clarity and tell it as a story. Because that's how life is lived,you know?” – Charlie Kaufman

Bornin New York City on this date in 1958 Kaufman is a screenwriter, producer,director, and lyricist who wrote the films Being JohnMalkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshineof the Spotless Mind, for which he won an AcademyAward.   Those three scripts are all in the Writers Guild ofAmerica’s list of the 101 greatest movie screenplays ever written. 

 

Agraduate of NYU – Kaufman currently lives in California where he said of hiswriting, “Iwant to create situations that give people something to think about.”   

                                                    

“WhenI write characters and situations and relationships,” he said, “I try to sortof utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear frommy friends and see with my relatives.”