"When he was finished, we applauded, and I asked him: ‘How do you know when a piece is finished?’ I know now it was a naïve question, even a little foolish. But he answered me without pause. ‘When what I hear up here,’ he said, clasping a palm to his forehead, ‘corresponds to what’s written down here.’ He pointed to the score." - Brenda Miller, from her Essay, "A Braided Heart: Shaping the Lyric Essay"
Quote of the Day: Tuesday, September 13, 2005
"And yet, the fantasy of fairy tales has less to do with made-up characters and plot than with an illusion created about storytelling itself: the illusion that there always exists a single, true and knowable version of What Happened." - Laura Wexler, from her essay "Saying Good-Bye to "Once Upon A Time," or Implementing Postmodernism in Creative Nonfiction"
Quote of the Day: Monday, September 12, 2005
"Writing has always - and always will, I'm sure - scared the hell out of me. I'll do just about anything to get out of it, and have been known to spend whole afternoons circling my desk like a dog, wary, unwilling to commit to writing a single word. What is so frightening about it? I still don't know. Perhaps it's the horrible knowledge that no matter how well you write, the resultant product will never correlate exactly to the truth, will never arrive with quite the melodious voice you hear in the acoustic cavity of your mind." - Brenda Miller, from her Essay, "A Braided Heart: Shaping the Lyric Essay"
Quote of the Week: Monday, September 5, 2005
"In writing the poem I make the connection, find the neural pathways to a deeply felt memory-generated emotion. That is how I know it is the Truth (not to be mistaken by the Fact). Once I have located the Truth, I have the Subject. Not the triggering subject, but the Thing that I must use as the basis of my essay or story. It is not that the poem and the prose are the same Thing, only that they come from the same source. I use this technique in order to answer the all-important question I must ask before I commit my time, my energies, and my heart to a writing project: Is it worth part of my life? Who cares if I make this poem or story? If I am passionate enough about something to write a poem, then it is worth my time and no one else needs to care about it. It is necessary to me." - Judith Ortiz Cofer, from her essay "But Tell It Slant: From Poetry to Prose and Back Again"
Quote of the Week: Monday, August 29, 2005
"Sometimes, after I finish a poem, the poem continues to haunt me. 'You are not finished with me,' it whines. 'Give me a chance to explain myself.'" - Judith Ortiz Cofer, from her essay "But Tell It Slant: From Poetry to Prose and Back Again"