I have hit a writing plateau. My poetry is terrible (not improving) and I cannot even begin to write prose. My words are weak. There is SOME thing I want to say, that is swimming around in my head but I can not for the life of my find the right words.
And so, I have been reading. Amazingly, Adrienne Rich is not at the top of the list this time (because I do not have the time!). Only assigned course readings but fun ones…well, my version of fun…which involves staring for hours at the blank space between the lines, trying to figure out what the writer has implied.
Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye – I read this before, about an year ago when I borrowed it from the college library (also where I discovered Rich). Loved it ever since. It is, stripping down to the bare essentials, a story of a little black girl named Pecola. Of course, that isn’t the real story. It never is.
Doris Lessing’s The Cleft - half way through this interestingly topsy-turvy retelling of the origins of “man” quite literally. That is, a boy child being born in a pre-existing community of women. It is interesting because although it is topsy-turvy, a lot of the conventional “female” attributes and roles are assigned to the first women. The novel explains it as the story being translated by a male historian presumably in Rome’s early ages. Even so, I think there is more to it. I will be posting a review of this soon, if I can manage it between…everything there is to be done.
I have also been researching on the Villanelle form for my english paper and have found beautiful poems by Marilyn Hacker, Martha Collins, Theodore Roethke and how can we forget Leonard Cohen! Click and enjoy your mind being turned to blissful mush.
On my shelf, waiting to be “completed”, are a billion other titles (well, 13 at least). But I must first complete a bunch of assignments and extra curriculars and yes…generally manage my time a hell of a lot better.
Signing out!
