I started a post this morning as a follow up to my second post from yesterday…. I may publish it, I may shelve it. It was not what I had come in from the balcony to write. I actually wanted to write about writing in books… something I never do. This is that post.
This morning, I sat on the balcony with my cup of coffee, my journal, and two books. I’m reading some essays on writing. I came across a sentence that made me say, “yes, that’s what I’m afraid of…” and suddenly, I didn’t know what to do with it. I opened up my journal to copy it down, but decided against it. I was about to underline it, but stopped short. I thought, I’m sure I’ll use this in a blog post, might as well just type it in to the computer… half-way through my living room to grab my computer I turned around and went back out. Screw it, I’m gonna underline it in the book (the audience gasped).
The not so good personal poem makes us feel uncomfortable the way the problems of strangers do. We are not quite sure why they’re telling us what they’re telling us. At best, the problem is interesting, but we feel more like voyeurs than listeners who have some stake in what we’re being told.
-Stephen Dunn
I worry about that all the time when I write poetry. I toggle between narrators… between “I” and “A man” or “A woman.” The thoughts and images and ideas are all originating with me, but how much distance do I want from them? How do I take the personal and make it sufficiently large enough or relatable enough. How do I take what I’m seeing when I describe the sky and make it so everyone can see it? Two men sit in a boat on a lake, bobbers and lines in the water, a tackle box between them. One man looks up at the sky and sees lines of cursive in the dark underbellies of the clouds stretching from margin to margin marching their way down the page….. vs. My friend Jack and I sit in the boat not talking. The lake is still, our bobbers and lines… etc. etc. I’ve had neither of these experiences and a poem like that would either build to an internal conflict that is juxtaposed to the calmness of the lake… maybe climax at the same time the bobber sinks or it might run parallel with the setting – two men and one is thinking about the strife in the world or something more personal, but today, nobody gets in a fight, no children are kidnapped, etc etc.). As the writer, I have to think about how to effectively carry out whatever idea I’m trying to convey – is it an I moment, or a he moment, and why should the reader even care? Where will I deliver them, or will they just feel like an uncomfortable voyeur? I digress.
I put a mark in the book next to this passage. I started to feel bad for some of the other passages – they should probably be underlined too. I’ve committed. I went back and started to underline or mark the margins. This is a huge break from how I normally read a book. I NEVER write in them – I don’t even like to dog ear pages…. Who is this person?
I have no idea where this aversion comes from. I suspect on some level, it’s in defiance of my father. Pick up any of his books and there is so much ink, it’s almost disturbing. He uses a red pen with a heavy hand. He underlines entire passages and uses multiple exclamation points in the margin. Sometimes he underlines so much text that I’ve found myself asking (internally) if everything is underlined, how does he know what’s important? That thought plays in to another reason I might not mark up my books – I’m not sure I have the confidence to permanently commit to saying “This! This is important.” Who am I to know what’s important or not? I don’t think I trust my own judgement of text to be so declarative. It’s all just my opinion – it strikes me, but should it be underlined and called out – is it a capital T truth?
I’ve had a strange relationship with books. For much of my life, they were to be revered (maybe that’s why I don’t mark them). As a young child (first grade), I was a voracious reader. After the Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein books, there were two series of books that I simply tore trough “The Great Brain” and the “Choose Your Own Adventure.” Funnily, when I think of Shel Silverstein or The Great Brain, I always think of the rocking chair at my grandparent’s house in Lebanon, PA. It faced the kitchen in a little nook by a window next to the fireplace….
At some point, I became what I would call a reluctant reader. I stopped doing it for pleasure. Books took on a bit of a love / hate relationship. They were sometimes painful to tackle, and they were also the quickest way to my father’s approval. I can remember being in the mall, it was one of the things we did when my father came to visit during the week (go get pizza at the mall), and both liking and hating the time we spent in the book store. There was usually some initial excitement, but as my attention span wore down, I can remember wandering around and always making my way back whatever section my father was browsing (thick difficult books on history or political science – back when book stores had those sections). I would stand nearby, probably squirming a bit – picking out books and putting them back. Looking at the covers, all the black-spined penguin classic paperbacks. I distinctly remember that my stomach often got upset – bookstores started to make me feel gassy.
Years later, in middle school – my father and I would go to that same mall and the same pizza shop. We would discuss the chapters we had read – if I could demonstrate that I had done the reading, I got an allowance. I often had to do things like come up with chapter titles or sometimes answer questions that had been written out for me (in that same heavy handed red pen with a distinctive hard slant to the lettering). I enjoyed most of the books we read: Catcher in the Rye, Silas Marner, Epic of Gilgamesh, Heart of Darkness. They were probably a little advanced for me – and I totally didn’t want to re-read them in school years later.
In my last year or two of college, I worked at an independent academic book store and when I graduated, I went in to book publishing. I’ve amassed large collections of books, and for a while was buying a few first edition copies of books. Yet, for all of my involvement (or perhaps because of my involvement) I am not the reader that you would expect. At times, like last night, I am still a reluctant reader. The best excuse I can offer is that the payoff, while usually worth it, takes too much time and is too much work. I absolutely loved the novel Veronica, enough so that I immediately wanted to reread parts, if not all, of it. But it took me so long the first time around, the thought of going back was enough to keep me from doing it. I’m a slow reader. I’m easily distracted. I find I have to stop often. Sometimes I stop because I get caught up in the language and start to daydream a bit. I struggle to consistently put in the time, and if I skip a few days, I lose momentum. Picking up a book is seldom my first choice when I’m looking for a distraction.
I’ve had a long and complicated relationship with books and reading. From a young age I’ve loved and hated them. Like any relationship, it takes some time, it takes awareness, it takes trying and failing. Books and reading bring value to my life. Sometimes, I feel they deserve a larger part than I’ve given them – and I’m always trying to see where they fit in. Maybe by writing in them, I can take a little more pride of ownership.