Never am I more aware that as a writer I am engaged in a conversation with all the other writers I have ever read than when I am involved in the act of putting together my notes to poems, as I was this week when assembling a short manuscript for another poet to look over. Then I am overwhelmed with the influences that have lead me to write and think as I do, and I feel grateful.
This week one of you wrote to me to tell me about how many Moby Dick references there are in Louise Erdrich's work, and I realized I am going to have to reread Erdrich now that I have read Moby Dick, so that I too can join in that conversation I hadn't even know was going on.
Yesterday I was listening to podcasts on the bus as I was on my way to a meeting, and during my hour commute, I heard two different podcasts about artists responding to other artists' work. First was a KUOW podcast, "Pessimism, Optimism and the Songs In Between," about a project in Seattle in which bands were assigned books and had to write and perform original songs in response. The books chosen included Nabokov's Pale Fire, Maggie Nelson's book of poetry Bluets, and Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island. The songs are assembled by Levi Fuller on the CD Ball of Wax.
The other podcast I listened to yesterday on the subject of artist-on-artist influence was an interview with best-selling author Arthur Phillips about his new book, The Tragedy of Arthur, at New Letters on the Air. Phillips does a number of interesting things in this novel (one of which is to blur the lines between fiction and memoir, something I have a fascination with, but that's for another post another time), one of which is that he writes a play that in the novel may or may not be an authentic work of Shakespeare.
So it's on my mind this week not only how much I owe to other writers, but also how much I owe it to myself to be selective in what I read, especially as I age and have less time to indulge in books. I used to read everything that came my way, start to finish, but lately I look at the stack of over 50 to-be-read books in my home, and don't feel motivated to open most of them. I am craving a new conversation, or a different one than the ones I have been having in the last few years, and I think it is the writer in me more than the reader that is craving inspiration. While I do read for escape, these days escape-reading bores me, and instead I want to be astounded by the creativity in what I read.
I read a lot of popular science, poetry, and short stories for ideas and stimulation. I also have been reading essays a lot in the past decade. And, I am a bit loathe to admit, some spiritual reading. But clearly I am in need of something new, something different, these days. I wonder what it will be.
6 comments:
Jessica, I, too, am finding it difficult to read books lately. Do you think it's because we receive information differently now b/c of the Internet and our brains have changed, or something else? Maybe it's age and a greater awareness of limited time. In the last year or two I've been getting more creative inspiration from films and visual art than I have from books. But this may also have to do with all the reading and thinking I've had to do for my work; the visual provided a respite from all that text.
Mari, I've been wondering if it's my consumption of podcasts. I am so desperate to hear English that I have my iPod plugged in to podcasts all the time when I'm not doing work that requires concentration, or my family isn't around. I am getting tons of information and listening to lots of writers talking about or reading their work that way, and I was wondering if that had anything to do with my decreased desire to read.
Ineresting, isn't it? Visual sounds wonderful....a great respite and still such an inspiration.
Jessica, your desperation to hear English reminds me of my desperation to hear Japanese. I pay $25 a month just to have Japanese cable television at home (NHK)! Your theory about listening to podcasts is an interesting one; in contrast, I rarely listen to them -- somehow I get impatient with them (perhaps for lack of a visual accompaniment? I don't feel this way with the radio...). Right now I want to simply CLEAR THE CLUTTER; one way is to decrease my Facebook use (and I'm bored with it at this point)... Thanks for your posts, as always.
When I lived in the States, I used to watch this awful Japanese drama on Sunday nights. My friends would come over and watch it with me to laugh hysterically over the over-acting (and there were subtitles, so they could follow along.) I totally know the need to have Japanese, but for me, the need to have English is almost overwhelming.
SO I was listening to this podcast about simplifying and unplugging (great irony, I'm getting advice to unplug while being plugged in), and I was thinking about how for 6 days of vacation I was unplugged, even from my iPod, and it was marvelous, but of course it was a vacation and there weren't the kinds of stresses that drive me to turn my iPod on anyway. But I was thinking maybe I should do an uplugged 2 weeks or so, or maybe make stricter rules about my usage of all my devices....
And then I thought, maybe I should do a post about my favorite podcasts. Clearly feeling ambivalent about this!
Me too about being bored with Facebook, and Twitter is even worse...
But then again, everything bores me right now, clearly an indication that I need some kind of change....
Unplugging allows space for something new to come in. I'm currently in the process of recalibrating on all fronts.
I'd love to read a post on your favorite podcasts. Think about it...
I think I will write about some of the better podcasts out there, even as I wean myself off of them....Like writing a cookbook while on a diet!
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