sw00437a-con.versin gwithmyself
[ Updated 2007-09-24 ] Autobio The Yeats-Auden-Saenz-Mackey Connections Last night I got to reflecting: I am somewhat of an oddball poet, a strange poet. And so I did searches on both. Under the first I found and read an interview of two translators of works by a reclusive nocturnal oddball poet who lived out his life in La Paz, Bolivia. His name is Jaime Saenz. Though not as he was, going back to even before my 27 years working as a motel/hotel night auditor I was a creature of night. My reclusiveness applies more to my inner life than to my day-to-day life, but I have become more reclusive in my day-to-day life since my health forced me into an early retirement, a circumstance I did not expect and was not planning toward. There is a chance I may become less of a recluse. The oddball in me relates to my approach to writing as well as to my personality, though I believe the latter is the force beneath and within my views of and consequent expressions of whoever it is I am. Unless some other can gather a sense of me more clearly than I am able to, I contend I am a chameleon: one who does not have a locatable style. Why? Because my sub- conscious, my hidden brain, my below-ground brain is an ocean of possibilities, an ocean which is constantly changed. And it is from what that ocean does with what changes it that I so often am motivated. Rarely am I able to tell in advance what next will rise from it. It has been my way to go with what is presented to my conscious brain, however it is structured. Doing so is filled with risks, but I am possessed by a risk-taking personality. Yes, I have made significant errors because of it, but I have also made signal advances because of it. Should I be more rational? Sure. I have at times. - So where does Yeats fit into this? Centrally in his belief that we who do such making/ make poetry out of our arguments with ourselves. I definitely do this, and not just in poems I make. And where does Auden enter? Centrally in his: "How can I know what I think until I see what I say" idea. And Nathaniel Mackey? Two things--both ofwhich I learned from an online interview of him by Christopher Funkhouser: 1) his interest in math and science during his early years / 2) his belief writing is rooted in the author, and that therefore an author must take the risk of not appealing to anyone, must have the faith writings of his (of hers) will find their ways to appreciative audiences. - Here are two sites to see. If you go to the first one, scroll to the bottom of the page and read the information there, and heed it. - (this is the interview about Jaime Saenz) - (this is the Funkhouser Mackey interview) - footnote: recently one of my siblings told me I--when I was yet quite young--used to get up on top of the kitchen table and attempt to carry on a debate with my dad. My dad would then eat a little faster and go outside. My sibling, meanwhile, would sneak some of the food on my plate. - for copyright information see homepage Brian A. J. Salchert
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