Some Of Poe's Thoughts on Writing

The founding father of eldritch horror.

Moderator: clong

Post Reply
RonPrice
Bookworm
Posts: 11
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:53 pm
Location: George Town Tasmania Australia
Contact:

Some Of Poe's Thoughts on Writing

Post by RonPrice »

The American poet William Carlos William’s used the term locality or ground and expressed his agreement with Edgar Allen Poe that this locality or ground was to be acquired by the “whole insistence in the act of writing upon its method in opposition to some nameless rapture over nature. . . with a gross rural sap; he wanted a lean style, rapid as a hunter and with an aim as sure — Find the ground, on your feet or on your belly. . . . He counsels writers to borrow nothing from the scene but to put all the weight of the effort into the WRITING.”(1) For me, for my written expression, this locality or ground in either my verse or my prose was not easily attained. Indeed, it has taken decades, looking back, at least since the 1950s. The evolution of my oeuvre since the 1950s and 1960s and its present style in my autobiography entitled: Pioneering Over Four Epochs---reveals my long struggle to capture the complex interrelationships between self, society and the sacred.

The time is ripe to articulate questions about the complex interdependence of internationalism, nationalism and locality and the critical need for a basis for communitas communitatum and, at the same time, to infuse literature and social analysis with a relevant vocabulary. After several thousand years in which the world has been the private preserve of a small leisured class, something that can truly be called humanity is being born and a world society fit for human beings to live in. The process is both slow and fast. -Ron Price with thanks to (1) William Carlos Williams, “Edgar Allan Poe,” In the American Grain, New York,1925, p.227.
married for 44 years, a teacher for 35, a writer & editor for 13, and a Baha'i for 53(in 2012).
Post Reply

Return to “Edgar Allan Poe”