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From: wfi@rti-sel.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: On Writing
Message-ID: <696@rti-sel.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Feb-86 16:02:42 EST
Article-I.D.: rti-sel.696
Posted: Fri Feb 28 16:02:42 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Mar-86 10:56:35 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, NC
Lines: 50

From time to time, there are postings in this group about getting
published or about being an SF writer in general. I thought the
following poem about writing might be of interest to some of the
would-be (or even won't-be :-) writers in this group. It's by W. S.
Merwin, and is from his collection "Opening The Hand," published by
Atheneum in 1983. John Berryman was a post-WWII poet who committed
suicide in the late '60s (as I recall). Those of you who are
interested in contemporary poetry and/or the language would do well to
look into Merwin's work. Since most copyright arrangements allow parts
of a poem to be published in the context of a review, I'm reproducing
several stanzas only and providing the following review for
net.legalists: Merwin is one of our greatest poets ... read him! :-)

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                      BERRYMAN
        
        I will tell you what he told me
        in the years just after the war
        as we then called
        the second world war
        
        don't lose your arrogance yet he said
        you can do that when you're older
        lose it too soon and you may
        merely replace it with vanity
        ...
        as for publishing he advised me
        to paper my wall with rejection slips
        his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled
        with the vehemence of his view about poetry
        
        he said the great presence
        that permitted everything and transmuted it
        in poetry was passion
        passion was genius and he praised movement and invention
        
        I had hardly begun to read
        I asked how can you ever be sure
        that what you write is really
        any good at all and he said you can't
        
        you can't you can never be sure
        you die without knowing
        whether anything you wrote was any good
        if you have to be sure don't write

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                           -- Cheers, Bill Ingogly