Writing the Difficult Thing
MANY WRITERS ATTEST TO THE INHERENT DIFFICULTY IN THE ACT OF WRITING. George Orwell said, ‘Writing is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing, if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.’
However, there is another kind of difficulty: that of writing about ‘harrowing’ and ‘dark’ subjects where words themselves break down. This is an instance where the diabolic appears to have entered into the human life.
Adorno feared that, when faced with the ultimate evil, the resources of culture and art are no longer adequate. In his words:
‘To write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric, and that corrodes also the knowledge which expresses why it has become impossible to write poetry today.’
Kafka understood well this blackness when he described writing as ‘the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.’ Yet, writing the difficult thing defines the very creed of the writer.
Anaïs Nin said:
‘The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.’
This Per Diem collection is now online:
http://www.thehaikufoundation.org/It features thought-provoking and powerful poems by well-known and up-coming poets throughout the month.
Topic: November 'Writing the Difficult Thing' Per Diem (Read 1798 times)