Category Archives: Writing

Notes on Henry Miller’s Nexus: Burying the Past

Posted on May 20, 2019 by Lee

In Europe, Henry will acquire “a new body and a new soul”. Then he can make use of his experiences: what he has taken from New York, and from all his life so far. We’ve seen throughout Nexus that Henry … Continue reading →

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To Own an Inch of Earth

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Lee

Neal Cassady wrote to Jack Kerouac that when writing “one should forget all rules, literary style, and other such pretensions.” And what he wrote next was really beautiful: “… Rather, I think, one should write, as nearly as possible, as … Continue reading →

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Love and Understanding (Notes on Jack Kerouac’s The Town and the City)

Posted on May 10, 2019 by Lee

To children and writers, a landscape presents mysteries to be contemplated rather than solved. Jack Kerouac opens his The Town and the City with a description of the course of the Merrimac River, its “broad and placid” flow “broken at … Continue reading →

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Get Out of My Garden

Posted on April 29, 2019 by Lee

Henry Miller’s Nexus is, above all, the story of Miller’s own development as a writer. He says he is learning to read between the lines. It is difficult for him to explain what he means by this: “How could anyone, … Continue reading →

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Stories

Posted on June 12, 2018 by Lee

I reach for my copy of Plexus by Henry Miller. I’m wondering if I’ve written all I can about Miller. I open the book to find out. There’s always something more in here. Today I read Miller’s version of Goldilocks … Continue reading →

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Notes on Charles Bukowski on Writing

Posted on March 5, 2018 by Lee

Charles Bukowski’s right: sometimes a poem just sounds too much like a POEM. You know it’s been worked up, affected, to make it sound like a poem should. Rather than being its own thing, an expression of something unique and … Continue reading →

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The Subject of the Drama is The Lie: Review of David Mamet’s Three Uses of the Knife

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Lee

All of your thoughts are bizarre and troubling, says David Mamet. So sit down with a coffee and examine your own head and there’s always something to write about. And if you’re asking yourself “Am I mad?” “Will people want … Continue reading →

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On Ursula K. Le Guin

Posted on January 29, 2018 by Lee

The poet’s task is to find the right words, or the true names of things. And in A Wizard of Earthsea, that’s the task of wizards too. You find the thing’s true name by capturing its essence: by seeing what … Continue reading →

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Sunday I Ching: On Throwing Things Away and Going to China

Posted on November 21, 2017 by Lee

Where have you been? There’s no getting rid of the clutter. In this life now I am surrounded by old papers, magazines, short blunt pencils, piles of wrinkle-spined novels, a dusty-lidded and long-closed piano, and plastic containers for used up … Continue reading →

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Cloud Mind Shadow

Posted on September 21, 2016 by Lee

“I believe that only a dreamer who has fear neither of life nor death will discover this infinitesimal iota of force which will hurtle the cosmos into whack – instantaneously.” What do you do when you have no fear of … Continue reading →

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