An open letter to Kathy Charles and other writers/poets

Dear Kathy, I read HOLLYWOOD ENDING in two sittings. Reading it has made me order as an inter-library loan, DAY OF THE LOCUST to re-read. It also made me think about the welfare hotel where I lived (not on welfare) in downtown LA in the 1980's, catching LA buses, admiring the labels of NIGHT TRAIN (white wine) more than the contents and lining up at downtown soup kitchens. Looking at your blog has also reminded me of a weekend in London where I read three John Fante novels in one sitting, 14 hours straight and a weekend in Paris where I read three Earle Stanley Gardner novels in one sitting. I've been writing poetry exclusively for 26 years and it's still a case of facing the blank page non-anxiously - non-anxious about time and non-anxious about one's capabilities - to remind yourself "I've written before, I'll write again, I've been published, I've received praise for my writing". Charles Bukowski said "A writer should be writing". Also on his gravestone the epitaph is "Don't try" - by this I reckon he meant "When writing a novel, don't make a big deal about it and say "I'm writing a Novel" I reckon facing the blank page is a admixture of focus and calm. In the physical, emotional act of writing, you learn. Personally I've got to toil and discard, toil and discard, before I realize the engine, the guts of the piece of writing, the writing "steered" by the burning reason for that piece and in that writing I'm always checking the rear view mirror, asking "What am I trying to say in this piece of writing about people and life and have I said it clearly and strongly?" When facing the blank page I have my three P's - positivity, practice, perseverance. Often I see each line/each stanza as a hurdle. I stay at the writing desk until I hurdle that line, that paragraph/that stanza. A piece of writing has to have a beginning, a middle and an end - any section can be sparse but not skeletal, not uninteresting scaffolding through which a cold wind yawns - there has to be a world/a tableau created and the reader at best succumbs, is right there in that world for the whole revelatory, symphonic ride. Writing is about devotion, devoting protected time to writing for the whole of your life. It is anchor, flying carpet, mirror, diving board, coal miner's shovel. I encourage you to not lose one minute's sleep about similes. For close to a decade I've refrained from using the word "like" - "x" was like a picnic table etc" because I find the majority of similes are not plausible/believable/they don't work. Flannery O'Connor talked about "a reader" looking over her shoulder whenever she wrote lazily/inaccurately, saying/screeching "I don't buy it" You can write a lifetime's worth of books without using one simile. When you are feeling despondent or have the "difficult follow-up book" syndrome remember those three P's - positivity, practice, perseverance. US President, Harry S. Truman said "If you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen" - When writing is extra-difficult/daunting I say "I want to stay in the kitchen of writing" Every good wish to you and yours, Peter Bakowski

What writing poetry requires

It requires regular (preferably weekly) practice. Facing the blank page regularly. What to leave behind? Negative or excusing inner voices saying, repeating “I can’t write today”, “I’ve no ideas”, I’ve got a backlog of other things to do”.

The poet is threatened by time, the telephone, the internet inbox, the lure of sunshine and walking outside away from bullring of the blank page.

The blank page is daunting but not writing induces guilt, despondency, erosion of our compass and rudder.

Facing the blank page is where we learn…and what is knowledge? –an attempt to pierce fog, murk, swamp, darkness, to reveal, to illuminate and by doing so we set an example.

The poets we admire, they have written their poems. Look at their poems, the choice and order of their words, but the narrator in your poems should be you, or one of your selves that has key, amusing or thought-provoking things to show or convey.

Writing a poem involves focus and calm simultaneously, even if the subject matter may be difficult and costly.

Writing poetry involves control and sometimes letting go of the steering wheel .

Writing poetry involves gathering what people say, how they look, what they do or refrain from doing.

Writing poetry involves noticing the shape and veins on a leaf, what the sea, night-time, and waking today, holds and means.

Writing poetry involves sifting, selecting, deciding which paints and brushstrokes to try,

which to retain.

Writing poetry involves thinking about people and life, thinking about important questions.

Reading and writing go together. Reading contemporary poetry, history, crime fiction and biographies, have given and continue to give me nourishment. Images, facts, pictures, characters, personalities from this pleasurable reading have given me many seeds for poems.

Much writing is a mix of personal/historical fact and the imagination. Both careful and vigorous mixing of fact and imagination has given and continues to give us engaging pieces of writing.

Literature survives due to our writers utilizing image and story. To ignore image and story is to have a hulk of words without windows, an engine or a colourful driver.

Tell the reader, the listener, the truth of your life, how you have perceived yourself, those around you, your neighbourhood and country, this spinning and phenomenal earth.

Writing involves courage, crossing the tundra of the blank page, but you can turn that blank page into a dancehall, a boudoir, the Amazon river, a mirror.

Writing is about the reality of putting words on paper or on a computer screen. I’ve written this today. Now I can move on to the next piece of writing, my next appointment with putting one word foot in front of the other, something that toddlers, pilgrims, explorers and sages do.