i've longed claimed that i'm a reader first, should i hyphenate my obsessions it would be reader/poet. something along those lines, anyway. so when i sit down to write i'm also reading blogs, zines and googling favorite poets at the same time. like all writers i'm a bibliophile and love being surrounded by journals, chaps, zines and books. anna is thinking about how to arrange more bookshelves in the house that would be aesthetically pleasing with the decor and design of our house, while expanding much needed space to corral the books and papers before i start stacking them up in corners.
so then, before i hit the hay tonight want to point out an interview by a younger poet that i've been actively seeking out his work for some time now. ryan laks writes poems that are wild, cool and great looking on the page/screen. i know nothing about him personally, except that he is prolific and now one of the editors of the new zine siren. check him out.
3 Comments:
Hi Richard,
A former teacher of mine told me, more or less: "In poetry, reading and writing are the same thing."
This was a major revelation to me when he first said it, because it made me realize that all those hours of seeming "leisure" I spend only reading are integral to anything I might write. To cultivate and listen to the silence only reading can provide.
I sometimes wonder if that was partly what Syd Barrett intended when he abandoned music, to become a listener, a reader first. To acknowledge the need for more readers and listeners.
guillermo:
couldn't agree more. what always vexed me when i was in school is that no one seemed to read anything, esp. those that took creative writing courses. reading, i think, comes first. tho, as i get older the distinctions between reader and writer are less significant and indeed exist in the same creature. i spent most of my college years, and this ain't romaticizing or a diss on the educational systems and/or students pe se, in the stacks of the library where one discovery dovetailed into another. i'm still that same reader who is still making those discoveries.
Thanks, Richard, for the kind words.
Anything (personally) you want to know? *smile*
And thanks again.
Wednesday Afternoon v Best
-Ryan
Post a Comment
<< Home