English as the Other Language: Snippets from My Journal

"But to say what you want to say you must create another language and nourish it for years and years with what you have loved, with what you have lost, and with what you will never find again." George Seferis (from The Poet's Journal)

"Let us think of the answer of Oedipus." (from Seferis' Nobel Prize acceptance speech)
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One of the most important pieces of MFA wisdom for me came from my mentor Phil Stephens: "Go read Richard Wilbur's 'The Writer,' and get ready for a long haul yourself." I think that maybe he's right. (Here I originally scribbled "write."). I have to be both the child (the learner and drafter) and the father (the observer and reviser). I also have to start and stop and question myself constantly (There's the love, loss, and never-recovered/rediscovered part about which Seferis journals).

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Question: Seferis and Oedipus.

Answer: (One of many)
"The Child is Father to the Man." (capitalization mine own). See Wilbur's "The Writer."

Holy shade-of-Billy-Wordsworth, Batman!

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In discussions with my friend Chet about lyric time and narrative time, I always mean to mention Beth Ann Fennelly's excellent essay, linked here:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5907
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Notes to the Self: I Wish I Were

More like Alice, and less like the White Rabbit: Curiouser and curiouser.

More like the Caterpillar, less like Alice: Who are you? meets its match (and makes its metamorphosis) in Who am I?

See also Dickinson, Emily--I'm Nobody.