fear of writing

Sarah Dunant

"… within the writing there is a huge amount of pain, there is. You get lost, you don’t know what you're doing. You get frightened. You don’t think you can do it. I’ve written 12 books now and I’ve begun to realise that getting lost, being terrified, knowing this is the one I will not write, is all part of the process … quite a commitment to put yourself through … "

Jane Sullivan

"… there are always moments when you think, ‘what am I doing? this is a complete and utter waste of time, why do I fool myself into thinking I can write anything at all? this is a disaster, I’ll never do this again.’ And somehow you rise up out of that and you go on."

Melbourne Writer's Festival

History's Script

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandartsdaily/mwf3a-history27s-script/4912488 

sarahdunant.com

http://janesullivan.com.au/

democratic art and literature

"The slow fermentation of democratic spirit within significant sections of the American population was palpable. The ethos of equality with liberty guaranteed by elections was inscribed in their simple body language, tobacco-chewing habits and easy manners, their bold dreams and high expectations, their self-consciously democratic art and literature - for instance, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1855), a celebration of the potential boundlessness of the American experiment with democracy and the power of the poet to rupture conventional language, and the greatest of all nineteenth-century American novels, Hermann Melville's Moby Dick (1851), a tale that warned against the hubris and self-destruction that awaits all those who act as if the world contains no boundaries, rules or moral limits." 

John Keane, 2009, The Life and Death of Democracy, Simon & Schuster
http://johnkeane.net/books/the-life-and-death-of-democracy/about-the-book

Walt Whitman 'Leaves of Grass'

'snowbound'

'snowbound', a photo by brian hefele on Flickr.

In Praise of Journals that Publish Poetry and their Editors

"In a country that highlights Capitalism wherever it can, poetry journals have become a peaceful protest against money first. 

The majority of literary journals in this country(and other countries even more so) are done on a lima bean budget. The editors I know devote late night hours each week to reading, editing, corresponding, fact checking and producing attractive magazines --- with no ad money.
 
In other words: editors are good people. They believe in the radical notion that poetry matters."

http://thealchemistskitchen.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/in-praise-of-journals-that-publish.html?spref=bl 

I never give up or consider not trying

Poem 3, a photo by robert.juergens on Flickr.

It was a magical day in Humbug County

I Ate At The Starvation Army, a photo by Jeremy Brooks on Flickr.