ABOUT THIS EPISODE
I am delighted to interview my editor from Fortress Press about his new book on writing. No one has done more to call out my inner voice as a writer. He will be part of a free webinar this week, February 7 with well-known reporter Mark Wingfield . An excerpt from the book is below and a podcast link to our interview.
This book seeks to awaken the inner poet. Whether it can remains to be seen. The odds certainly stacked against it, as such stirring proves a tall order. Books rarely make poets of people. Life does that. But roused, the fantastic beckons, and the ordinary never again satisfies. The mundane only triggers deeper discontent, a restlessness about what can be found over the fence. This book more likely finds an earnest welcome with writing already self-conscious, but which also suffers constant ache. The book aspires to disrupt, to prod, to encourage, to grant full permission, to fortify resolve, to bolster. At the same time the book requests forgiveness of writing much further down the path. Such writing smiles knowingly. The book begs patience, even indulgence. It holds no illusions. It knows itself. The book draws upon the innocent belief that all are poets, even and especially the noetic, and all writing is poetry—even and especially the noetic.
The book decries conformity or converts—but neither turns its back to any. All welcome. But fair warning: disappointment awaits those supposing the hunt for writing’s Muse a simple matter. Writing pairs life. Writing’s habitus mirrors life’s complexities. Both life and writing reside just beyond the grasp. But the analogical extends well beyond asymmetrical. Being a poet comes at a cost. Writing demands sacrifice. Capricious readers wooed only by writing authored in a poet’s own blood. No true poet can hide behind their words, for poets are their words. Writing’s miracle transubstantiates the merely semiotic into the fully symbiotic. Writing meddles with primal mysteries, it strikes a bargain with Fate. But to write opens wide the door of self for all to peer in—just as it is to live. Poets live to write and write to live. They put themselves in, and on, the line. There can be no other.
To register for webinar
To order The Mango Tree
Tune in for regular readings of the Brueggemann biography and the forthcoming series!
