For the love of words

Homage and The Singing Line

I teach writing because at a very young age, I fell in love with words. My family aside, this has been the truest love of my life, and I have remained faithful while richer and perhaps just a teensy bit arrogant about it, and oh so much poorer than I am now; through better and far, far worse times although right now pretty much has me whipped; through sickness of the body, mind, and soul, and in fair, good, and gleefully robust health.

No matter where I am in life or who is sharing my heart and home, some of my most satisfying moments are when I read truly good writing. Michael Chabon describing the evening light reflecting golden off of an empty window in "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. " Anne LaMott describing the perfect selfishness of a smart and angry adolescent girl in "Crooked Little Heart." Charlotte Bronte--exquisite Charlotte Bronte--giving life to plain Jane Eyre, the elphin orphan who became my role model for all that a strong woman can be.

Writers have shaped my soul; there is no other way to put it. They have taught me how to see beyond the transient to the enduring. They have given me great wanderlust. They have made me grateful for the smell of night, the cold light of winter, and the season of life "where late the sweet birds sang" (WS's Sonnet 73.)

So I have tried, as a teacher and as a writer, to honor those gifts, those Faberge boxes of words, images, and ideas.

Paying homage is not always easy. While writing and revising (and revising, and revising, and revising) three books, a drawerful of short stories, essays, articles, and poems, I've spent hours staring at the paper or screen, my brain running through dozens of possibilities for a single word or phrase. I've written the same line nine different ways until my central nervous system said that it was note-perfect. When I hit that perfect note in a piece of writing, I can feel it throughout my body. It takes mindfullness, time, and hard work to hit it. And it is always worth the effort.

Edwin Markham, poet, scholar, and bibliophile of the late 1800's, once described another poet as having "the gift of the singing line." The singing line. Isn't that a singing line in itself? What a delicious way to phrase it.

So, my PCM 300 weekday college students, I am going to push you hard to have the patience and rigor to take apart your writing, sentence by sentence, word by word, until you know that you have done your very best. I am going to do my very best to make you acutely aware of concepts like parallel structure, active voice, and economy of line. And oh, those conventions--you know I am going to be merciless. In the process, I hope that you will learn to love your own words. This is a love affair worth persuing.

Jill