Wednesday, January 24, 2018

to write and not to be a writer

John Ashbery loved Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus. In an interview Ashbery quotes a scene where Orpheus is being questioned by “three sinister judges … [O]ne of them says, ‘What do you do,’ and [Orpheus] says, ‘I am a poet,’ and the judge says, ‘What does that mean?’ to which Orpheus replies, ‘It’s to write and not to be a writer.’”

That’s more or less what I think about myself. I remember my dad once sent me a how-to book on writing magazine articles and, oh, the disappointment I felt upon looking at the gift. Dad did not understand me! I can’t seem to write to order. I’m not completely unable, of course. I did make it through school, producing essays and papers when required. I love to write! I love to write poems, that is. It is not the same thing somehow. 

source: Collected French Translations: Poetry by John Ashbery
edited by Rosanne Wasserman and Eugene Richie
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York

2 comments:

richard lopez said...

very taoist, writing without writing. i feel very similar. i managed to get myself thru school too and produced the required essays and such, but i preferred to make discoveries, on my own, in the library, by pulling books off the shelves, discovering poets that lead to the discovery of more poets. that was my education.

Glenn Ingersoll said...

No wonder I like you!