Arrangements

Brian Fawcett in an essay on Robin Blaser entitled "Robin and Me; The New American Poetry and Us" [Yes that is a semi-colon after "Me"] offers this as one of the things that he learnt

I learned that real thinking and writing is more about orchestration of materials than creativity. Your task, whether as a poet or novelist or scholar or union researcher or urban planner, is to integrate your own intelligence with the active intelligence around you to enhance articulation. You are not here to impose your signature on a set of materials, raw or cooked, human or inanimate. You are here to discover both their essential and detailed truth, and to then put both into action politically and personally.

As befits a good pattern maker, the theme is exemplified in the way the final anecdote is told:

I wasn't present for his last hours, nor did I attend the funeral. I'd said my final goodbyes during that three hours I spent with him, knowing full well that he was going to forget what I said to him within minutes. I told him that I loved him, and that I was lucky to have been a part of his very large world. He accepted my expression of gratitude as I expected him to. He said, "It was nothing."

Before I could protest — it had not been nothing; it had been the gift of a much larger world than I would have had without him — he looked into my eyes and added, "but you're welcome."

Note the appearance of the semi-colon. A mark of a linking hiatus.

And so for day 827
19.03.2009