She taught me the speech rhythms that are essential to being a good storyteller. There is a drumbeat, in which you have to get your idea across in a breath.
~ Ken Kesey, The Paris Review, The Art of Fiction
I reread the Kesey interview last night my hero my friend and I discovered as I always discover in his words the reason why I needed to dance my way through the poems I wrote in April they were so raw that I needed that drumbeat to force the words out and while I wrote I was breathing in a drumbeat little breaths huh huh huh huh huh an actual breath cadence which I've been doing since I started writing Queer Wing-ed or at least since I began trusting myself in writing it but I didn't realized it until I started dancing in this house and now there are some poems I want to go back into breathe life into them this morning I had a great conversation with my son about how as artists we need to trust our gut instinct about whether our art is perfect or flawed but how we must question our process all the time so we don't get stuck I'm curious what you might think of this in terms of your art
and then I danced
it's ten degrees cooler this morning than it has been all week so I'm heading out to work on the garden then I'll go to the beach then I'm going to go fetch my book from the library then I'm going to scrub all the mildew off my beautiful metal window frames I live on an island after so there it is then I have to finish an interview I began when I got sidetracked by April an unimportant day except for the fact that I spent over an hour and a half writing this morning on Slack where Ifinally decided (this is a lie nothing is final) that I need to trust my Henry poems to let them stand and turn my voluminous research into its own separate ideas its own book I believe in my stupid pinched heart that the research is important
Good morning Darklings Happy Friday and Fuck the NRA and all of its goons
xo
~ Ken Kesey, The Paris Review, The Art of Fiction
I reread the Kesey interview last night my hero my friend and I discovered as I always discover in his words the reason why I needed to dance my way through the poems I wrote in April they were so raw that I needed that drumbeat to force the words out and while I wrote I was breathing in a drumbeat little breaths huh huh huh huh huh an actual breath cadence which I've been doing since I started writing Queer Wing-ed or at least since I began trusting myself in writing it but I didn't realized it until I started dancing in this house and now there are some poems I want to go back into breathe life into them this morning I had a great conversation with my son about how as artists we need to trust our gut instinct about whether our art is perfect or flawed but how we must question our process all the time so we don't get stuck I'm curious what you might think of this in terms of your art
and then I danced
it's ten degrees cooler this morning than it has been all week so I'm heading out to work on the garden then I'll go to the beach then I'm going to go fetch my book from the library then I'm going to scrub all the mildew off my beautiful metal window frames I live on an island after so there it is then I have to finish an interview I began when I got sidetracked by April an unimportant day except for the fact that I spent over an hour and a half writing this morning on Slack where I
Good morning Darklings Happy Friday and Fuck the NRA and all of its goons
xo
posted by Radish King at 9:41 AM
3 Comments:
Trusting your Henry poems, letting them stand, then turning your voluminous research into its own book - well, of course. I find that everything I do, everything I think I may know, comes back to process, it is the heart of it all and takes whatever time it requires, will not be hurried, no matter what. Process, for me, continues to evolve, to become. As artists and simply as thinking entities we need to trust our guts, we need to recognize and trust the sometimes unidentifiable voices that guide us. We may ask, Why am I doing this? yet know we are meant to wonder and do it anyway. I was so happy to see your beloved Mr. Kesey in your post with his drumbeats and breath to steer by. I will listen for him today. When we are, as I am and have been for a while, guided to practice stillness, doubt slithers in and says, This can't be right. Must be a mistake. Trust and trust some more. Process in one of its many somewhat threadbare circus costumes is always in the room, smelling of sawdust and horse. Yeah, fuck the NRA and ALL the goons. I have my Star Wars resistance badge and am as happy as any eight-year-old has ever been. Love times infinity. xoxo
I saw a special on Paul Simon once and when he starts writing a song, he takes a tennis ball and bounces it off an overhanging wall in his house and the rhythm of it becomes the bones of the song.
I will never forget that. It starts in his body.
Just like with your dancing.
Your Henry poems are brilliant. Yes, trust them. And trust the instinct to compile your research too. I would definitely read it.
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