酷我-北美枫

Lake

so you want to be a writer?
by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

ericcoliu · 发表于: 星期三二月 04, 2009 6:56 pm 发表主题:

Is there any truth about writing or being a writer in this poem?

a sequel on charles bukowski's 'SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER? '

he has his message clearly said: a writer is chosen
he does not have to move heaven and earth
to make a poem or write an essay
or finish a novel, for he is the

privileged soul
the chosen one
the prophet
the messiah
the secret prince
the hidden king
the divine incarnate
whatever
whoever

and words simply come to him like
a light from the sun
embracing him with so much inspiration
that he merely sits there by the throne of his porch
and simply listens to the dictated poem.

he says it is a burst inside your heart
an explosion inside your head
and you simply have to listen with your heart
and mind and soul
and there everything comes so easily
day by day and on and on and on
ad infinitum ad aeternum

there is no sweat
or hard work, there is no striving at all
to become the chosen one
for the inspiration

it comes even if uninvited
it perches on your chest like a bird and sings
it stays there until you die or it dies with you
there is no madness
or murderous intent or this lostness
they are not necessary

to be a writer one does not have to
stay for hours and write a piece and stare at the
screen of the computer and tire your eyes
with so much pressure

Is that so Charles? Did you not once believe
that Elvis Presley is nothing?
Did you not look for a job, or even try to find your lost self
for twenty years or so or even more?

There must be this irony.
And if that be so, I think i must believe you.

He does not bother at all, how can he be a poet?
Not you Charles, someone else.

RIC S. BASTASA

Below is an excerpt from The Birth of Eric Liu on a Wintry Morning:

Two years have gone by. I have always tried and always failed to succeed in English writing, but I still keep on writing. As the poet Robert Louis Stevenson once claimed, "Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits." Based on my own writing experience, I find that writing can be a way of paying attention and acknowledging traces, of revising and erasing. For me now, to write in English is to attempt, to make a run at something without knowing whether I am going to succeed. It points a way for me to function with relative freedom in the unfamiliar world of the alphabet, and it helps me to make myself up from moment to moment and to gradually turn my old Chinese self into a new one.

Eric Liu, an alphabet apprentice
thwarted by time’s passing --
pines to be a poet

YES to Charles Bukowski's so you want to be a writer?
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

christine · 发表于: 星期三二月 04, 2009 7:58 pm 发表主题:

anna · Site Admin 注册时间: 2004-05-02 帖子: 7141

Hi Lake,

It is interesting to read this and thanks for sharing.

I guess everyone has his own thoughts about that.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

ericcoliu · 发表于: 星期三二月 04, 2009 9:25 pm 发表主题:

Lake · 发表于: 星期三二月 04, 2009 10:35 pm 发表主题:

hehehe... that's what I anticipated. Take what you think is true (even if there's a tiny bit ) and leave out the untrue. It'll be very interesting and fun to listen to what other people say about writing. I once posted something re what poetry is about from different poets and their words are quite different for they look at things from different angles.

No doubt, a lot of poets drink including Dylan Thomas... and Li Bai.

Cheers everyone.

ericcoliu · 发表于: 星期三二月 04, 2009 11:10 pm 发表主题:

Lake · 发表于: 星期三二月 04, 2009 11:13 pm 发表主题:

Perseverance is highly respected and admired, that's beyond question.

ericcoliu · 发表于: 星期三二月 04, 2009 11:21 pm 发表主题:

Lake · 发表于: 星期三二月 04, 2009 11:28 pm 发表主题:

ericcoliu · 发表于: 星期三二月 04, 2009 11:30 pm 发表主题:

I gave you a link to my piece and said it clearly that below is an excerpt.

Thank you so much for your impressionist readingof my piece and surely of Charles Bukowski's so you want to be a writer?
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

fanfan · 发表于: 星期四二月 05, 2009 6:49 am 发表主题: