Hi Rebecca: I can tell from Natalie Goldberg's writing that she would most
likely not be a poet. Too klutzy to "carry a tune"? When the subject pushes
her, she can tell the story, at least in this book. But I think this book -
as different from poetry or a novel - is more about a certain kind of
bravery (artistic or not) when it comes to ways of dealing with heavy duty
violations of one's own memory and well being. I think she is special there.
But I think the issue that brought this up was ways in which poetry may
address horrifying memories. I think she advances a useful kind of clarity/
a way to get there.
S
Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
> Ah, well, I am glad to read this, Stephen, as I know Natalie Goldberg somewhat
> and so am glad that you found these qualities of "honesty and openness in
> coming to terms and reconciliation." The title is interesting too, because
> Natalie
> was originally a poet who became frustrated with the poetry world, I remember
> her saying in exasperated pain at some poetry thing in Santa Fe "I can't
> believe
> this was once my only world" and became very successful for writing about
> writing, _Writing Down the Bones_ instead of writing, which made some
> caustically say, "Oh I knew her when she used to be a poet," the usual sort of
> backbiting. And then she wrote a novel which was not very well received. So
> I'm
> glad for this bit of good word concerning her new work, as if some wheel of
> the
> world had turned in her favor for once, some karmic balancing at work,
>
> best,
>
> Rebecca
>
>
> ---- Original message ----
>> Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2005 14:32:04 -0800
>> From: Stephen Vincent <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: (memorial) Snapshot
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>
>> On someone's rec, I just finished Natalie Goldbergs new book,
>>
>> The Great Failure : A Bartender, A Monk, and My Unlikely Path to Truth
>>
>> From a Zen Buddhist practice perspective, she confronts the abuse of her
>> father and her Roshi. I think it's very balanced and - in both the actual
>> life and the autobiographical writing - she is able to come to terms with
>> both of them - a tale of honesty and openness in coming to terms and
>> reconciliation with each person rather a vanquishing revenge on both of
>> them.
>> Though the writing is not consistently good, I found her experience and
>> resolve brave and refreshing.
>>
>> Stephen V
>> Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> Hi Edmund
>>>
>>> On 31/1/05 3:22 AM, "Edmund Hardy" <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>>>
>>>> And for those at a remove by accident of birth or time, what can they
> write,
>>>> in what language? Geoffrey Hill's Triumph of Love is restricted to a kind
>>>> of
>>>> moral landscape of rhetoric, and I find it powerful because of it. Maybe
>>>> this too is "indirection" but it seems like poetry directed at that which
>>>> can be examined at this remove, the specific use of language.
>>>
>>> The Triumph of Love is a poem I like very much; I thought it emotionally
>>> powerful, in how it seemed to dramatise a kind of aesthetic breakdown, the
>>> neurotic repetitions of memory (which is one definition of trauma). Hill is
>>> one of those writers who merits the term "powerful", but, much as I admire
>>> it, the sheer polish of his earlier work, its control and recondite
>>> aesthetic, create a distancing that can be a problem, I think, when he is
>>> speaking of atrocity. No matter how beautifully done, it's a bit difficult
>>> to escape the feeling that atrocity is no more than the occasion for
>>> beautiful writing. TOL seemed to be a full-on confrontation with this
>>> problem, among other things.
>>>
>>>> Sometimes I want to ("go AT") the events my own family - Anglo-Japanese
> and
>>>> caught up in devastation, defeat, victory during the second world war -
>>>> lived through but when I try to do this it always veers away in my hands
>>>> from anything personal. How terrible to trespass. But is it always
>>>> trespass?
>>>
>>> It probably is trespass. That doesn't mean one shouldn't do it, but it's a
>>> question that has to be acknowledged honestly somehow. Have you tried
>>> reading Peter Handke's book about his mother, Sorrow Beyond Dreams? An
>>> extraordinarily painful book, which by some intense effort of will goes
>>> beyond the merely "personal" by being, um, intensely personal. There's a
>>> knife edge balance in the writing which gave me a clue about
>>> autobiographical writing.
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> A
>>>
>>> Alison Croggon
>>>
>>> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>>> Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>>> Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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