Friday, March 8, 2013

Well, time sure flew again.  A 28-day week just passed! Concrete proof of what I was talking about in my last post.

I'm sure it could be therapeutic to some blocked or cowed writers to read about my trials with academic writing, the way lots of people write about their addictions, lives of crime, experiences of abuse, years spent in underground radical cells on the right or the left, sojourns on other planets after abduction by aliens, etc., etc.  We're supposed, first of all, to admire these people for their courage in speaking out in spite of the shame, humiliation, or simple sliminess they must feel.  Then, of course, we can find hope and reassurance in the fact that someone has overcome a large obstacle to attain success in life, if success is measured by getting a book deal and possibly appearing on Oprah.  But by far the majority of readers obtain solace--and a bit of pleasure--from knowing there are people so much worse off than they are.  Well, I doubt if I'm going to get on Oprah (Is there still an Oprah to get on? [I mean an "Oprah," of course]) with sordid tales of writer's block, so maybe I'm not going to go down that path after all. 

But it's not all bad. Oddly enough, one of the few things I write easily and am willing to share is poetry.  Some of it is frivolous, what in the old days was called doggerel verse (see below), but most of it has some political or social message I'm trying to get across.  In addition to poetry, I have found that I am good at letters to the editor, opinion columns for newspapers, political policy statements, and, unfortunately, eulogies.  I believe that these types of writing work for me because they're based on inspiration--almost all the ideas come unbidden into my head; they're too short in duration and too urgent in timing to allow for my insecurities and complicating tendencies to kick in; and I believe they say something that is important enough to me--or to someone--to risk embarrassment from others' reactions.  Unfortunately, my scholarly writing has none of those characteristics, even the third one. Hence the difficulty, which I now understand is just going to be with me for the rest of my days.  (Sorry, you might have been hoping for something more reassuring from my testimonial.)

But let's end on a lighter note:

Life without Parole

I learned grammar
In the slammer
Hoping to prove
I had a studious manner

I tried to absorb it at a rapid rate
To get the parole board to soften my fate
But in, on, and at didn't change their decision
‘Cuz you can’t end a sentence with a preposition.

(Apologies, of course, to those who have more direct, non-humorous experience with the above-referenced system.)

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