Verbal Equinox The Weber State University Writing Center Journal Spring 1994 As I collect thoughts and ideas for this column, You thought the day would never arrive, but here perspective from the past comes into sharp focus once it is .. your piece in print. As we introduce the winners again. It was Spring quarter, and I was sitting in Glen of the 1993-94 Writing Center Writing Contest, we Wiese's American Literature class. On that first day of the congratulate all the entrants. The judges were pleased quarter, we received a handout titled "Some Values of with the quality of submissions and expressed delight that Literature." It listed various assets offered us whenever their task was so difficult. If your piece was not chosen we become immersed in good writing. One thought in as a winner this year, do not be discouraged. Too many particular stayed with me. It said simply, "Literature can writers still believe that they either "have it," or they don't, rescue feelings and ideas from 'the jaws of time."' that no progress is possible. The Writing Center philoso• During the last two years, I have come to believe phy, however, asserts that writing can always be encour• that mortals have the compelling need to leave behind aged to a higher plane. As every published author tangible evidence of their existence. In March, as we knows, writing ability evolves. watched Lee McKenzie slip away from us, she provided The very nature of writing is process. All the parts of a powerful example of this philosophy. Even in her the process may fall into place, step by step in an orderly weakened condition, she carefully wrote down each fashion, or the parts may free-fail--a glorious chaos of visitor, what they talked about, and ideas that came to her language and meaning which must be sorted, ordered, in her final moments. and reordered time and again. Time is the crucial word Writing. however humble or majestic, is the here, and the most aggravating of concepts. Time cannot offering we leave to time. Words may be hastily sprayed be forced. Talent cannot be forced. A contest like this in fluorescent form from a paint can on an alley wall. They reflects invested effort. All writers must, patiently or may be precisely weighed, measured, and meticulously impatiently, nourish the creative process in increments of anthologized. Others survive, carefully carved into stone time, volume and critiques. on a distant, wind-swept isle. They may be stick• Both analytical and emotional critiques are necessary. scrawled for a frail existence in sand on a beach. As wonderful as first ideas may be, they can always be However enduring or fleeting, the motivation for improved by revision and careful editing and, as painful as our writing remains the same. By separate means, we this process is, it is the only means to quality writing. This declare to an unseen audience, "I, like you, have fought is not to stifle the creative fire, but to blow gently on the and loved, despaired and understood. I have lived." flame. The writer must also be privy to a reader's first In The Immense Journey, Loren Eiseley describes unchecked emotional response. An audience is invaluable writing's immortal spirit: in leading the writing toward clarity and power, the I have been accused of woolly-mindedness for desired result. entertaining even hope for man. I can only respond that Continue writing. Continue to allow the Writing in the deep morning shadows of humanity, the Center to participate in your writing process. The effort is inarticulate creature who first hesitantly formed the worth the cost. words for pity and love must have received similar guffaws around the fire. Yet some men listened, for the Sundy Watanabe words survive. Editor Anne Robbins Editor Featured Poets CRYSTINE LOVELAND RICHES SUNDY WATANABE UNDRESSING FOR NIGHT I ONLY WANT In the cold darkness of WHAT'S BEST FOR YOU: the back bedroom, lit only by a night lamp, I take off my clothes COMPETITI ON #1 to undress for the night. Shirt in closet, undershirt Listen, baby. and jeans in the same drawer, I'm whispering to you. bra in the one beneath. See, So I sleep, I'm on the fringe of your dream cold and slim to pay murmuring wishes: penance for the day's comfort; an apology - to the earth, Conjure up a violin concerto to God - long hair now so crisp and clean it can't be faulted. off my neck, twisted into Like Moses• a plait, hard down my back- strike the rock. You can do this. all shelter is gone - Never mind the sweaty palms, the acid tips that strip the fingerboard I stand open at my bedside, of color. Embraced, touched at last Concentrate, by the coldness of winter. and issue forth a grand and glorious I shiver in the knowing, virtuoso. within four walls and beneath someone else's floor; Don't bite your lip while sleeping Sweet: martyr arms stretched overhead Yet these I admit I need and fist clenched tight around the bedpost against the inches of snow wiry, witchling hair and the marks below zero spread fierce upon the pillow, outside angelic, fanned on either side of And few go out naked, sowing shock. lid-locked midnight eyes. Few minds ever see each other naked, Touch each other Shh. with a lover 's tenderness - I press this incantation into your elbow. Or, as an infant, come out naked, Rest your fear on Mother's broom. full-seen by mother, all simple needs answered, met. I stand open at my bedside, going outside when I may 2 "There’s nothing left to wish for, "I said; “We are in the Second Place Essay country and it is spring. " (Marsh 17) EDWARD THOMAS He was no longer a faceless bundle of words on a by page; he was alive and vibrant. His life was a dream, a Gavin Harper perfect dream. There's nothing more beautiful, that I can imagine, than living happily with my family in a secluded The one thing I carried away from an other• country cottage in the English countryside. That's where wise forgettable British Literature class, in my soul, the connection started, I believe. was the poetry of Edward Thomas. I will always After a chance meeting with Robert Frost, remember his work because of the resounding and Thomas began writing poetry. At Frost's directive, he inherent poetic style he possessed, the strange per• wrote his first poem at the age of 36--rather late in sonal connection I had with his life, and the two life, but not too late. His nature poems were "snap• contrasting themes that struggled against each other in shots" of feelings or places that Thomas remembered his poetry. In my mind, Edward Thomas is not simply from his journal. He was always concerned with the a World War I poet. As a result of his nature poetry, he color green. It was like a safety blanket for him; if the became a person in my eyes, instead of a faceless author. poetry stopped flowing, write D. H. Lawrence called Thomas "a man full of Exuber• .. .green has about green. In contrast, I grew ance, Vitality, Heroic Vigour, and a dark passional always been a. up in a desert. The land was quality" (Smith 27). The stories that I am going to relate mystery to me. red, and orange, and yellow, to you are captured in Jan Marsh's biography entitled The beauty, with shades of blue in the north. Edward Thomas. serenity, and Thus, green has always been a Thomas hated cities, which was probably the comfort that mystery to me. The beauty, first shaping force in his writing career. He took serenity, and comfort that comes comes from a journals with him on nature adventures, often writing from that simple color has for hours. Edward Thomas kept a journal almost simple color has always astounded me. I can every day of his life from the day he turned seventeen. always as• never describe the feeling fully in This following journal entry about his mother, for tounded me. words, for the color is elusive. example, was written when Thomas was fourteen Thomas's snapshots connected years old. It shows his talent, even in his youth. Jan Marsh forcibly with me when I read his prose. quotes him as saying: "It is enough to lie on the sward in the shadow of green I liked the scent of her fresh warm skin and supposed it boughs, to listen to the songs of summer, to drink in the sun• unique. Her straight nose and chin made a profile that for light, the air, the flowers, the sky, the beauty of all. .I want to be years formed my standard. No hair was so beautiful to me as hers always in the company with the sun and sea and earth and was, light golden brown hair, long and rippling. Her singing at green." (Marsh 32) fall of night, especially if we were alone together, soothed and fascinated me, as though it had been divine, at once the mightiest and the softest sound in the world. (Marsh 7) The later themes of Edward Thomas's poetry dealt with the first world war. Thomas joined the battle to Edward married Helen Noble, his publisher's protect his country (in both senses of the word-- nation daughter, in 1899. His wife became a writer after their and woods). It was the Glorious Cause that propelled · marriage and kept a journal at the insistence of her him.