Sunday, March 20, 2011

Free Write 1, Week 8

Operation Odyssey Dawn for a hundred.
I think it was Bukowski who said that when writers don’t have anything think to write about they write about writing. This coming from the man who has ‘Don’t Try’ written on his head stone in San Pedro, California. It’s a funny thing sitting in a stupid uncomfortable library chair, surrounded by stories and I struggle for a hundred words. Sixty nine and still have said absolutely nothing about the Libya crises or the Everest steep gas prices choking the salt of the earth or why the guy at the computer across from me doesn’t speak to his father, the drink. So many lives without words to back them and it’s my fault, because I’m writing about writing and not about living.

1 comment:

  1. Ben,

    I find this free write particularly interesting. You've taken several different places, names, people, etc., yet manuevering them toward your prime focal point, your subject: writing. I think your opening line is exclusively fascinating. In all honesty, I tend to believe that opening sentence would make one heck of a poem title. How about you get started on that ;). I enjoy the feel of uncertaininy spreading throughout the text, which also suggests pinches of irony measuring back to the narrator's/author's uncertain/unstable relationship with writing. In this draft, you have contructed some really nice parallel's between ideas of distance and (un)familiarity. I would say you are off to good start with this draft, and I certainly believe you have several elements working together (and against each other) to help create an interesting poem.

    ReplyDelete