Writing the Life Poetic~ Teaser Tuesdays

                  

Hosted by MizB at shouldbereading.

Here's how to play:

*Grab your current read,

*Open to a random page,

*Share a few “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page,

*Please no spoilers!

*Share the title and author.

Today's selection is from Sage Cohen's "Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read & Write Poetry".

"A few years ago, I spent the month of January at a cabin in the country where my only source of heat was a wood stove named The Duchess. The Duchess taught me much about my craft. I discovered that writing can be a kind of catalytic converter: I feed it the raw material of my life, which it transforms into a brilliant light, a useful and enduring heat. What once may have been painful and difficult is just as nourishing as what brought me joy and ease, because to feel anything at all, to be moved to happiness or sorrow, is the thrill of being alive. Emotion is a clean-burning fuel. I propose that you stay out  of  its way and let it take you wherever you are intended to go. Give it all away, and watch those diamonds glow brighter with exposure." (p.155)

AND, on the opposite page is a quote from Annie Dillard that I'd love to share as well: 

"One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now...Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes." 

Both powerful, timely, what I need to hear. Wishing you a great week.