Ken Stange

The Poet In Our Culture: But I’m Not Bitter (2015-08-17)

“It is a sad fact about our culture that a poet can earn much more money writing or talking about his art than he can by practicing it.” —W. H. Auden

Doing readings, talks, or ‘teaching’ creative writing—these are the tiny financial rewards for being recognized as a ‘real’ poet.  And I must confess it galls me that English professors can earn a good living by writing about poetry and poets, while poets work at day jobs to support them. But then what’s new? The working class that produces something of value doesn’t profit, while those that just capitalize on it do.

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Escaping From Reality (2015-08-15)

“What good are insights? They only make things worse.” ―Raymond Carver

I’ve always been interested in creativity. So much so as to write three books about it. Naturally, the creativity of writers holds special interest. I’ve examined the objective evidence, but I also have relied on introspection. I know personal experience should never be generalized to a group, but I can’t help noticing frequent parallels between what many writers say about practicing their art and my own experience—my own demons.

One such parallel is the feeling, perhaps delusional, that one sees some things more clearly than is average. And being blind to many of those things would be more comfortable.

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Reading: The Light To Be Found In Darkness (2015-08-13)

“Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself.” —Franz Kafka

“Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.” ―Alberto Manguel (A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books)

Misery loves company.

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The Truth Is Dangerous (2015-08-11)

“Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled "This could change your life.” ―Helen Exley

My wife recently came across this fine poem by Joseph Mills (relevant to the above quotation) on that excellent blog, Brain Pickings.

“If Librarians Were Honest

‘…a book indeed sometimes debauched me from my work…’

—Benjamin Franklin

If librarians were honest,

they wouldn’t smile, or act

welcoming. They would say,

You need to be careful. Here

be monsters. They would say,

These rooms house heathens


and heretics, murderers and


maniacs, the deluded, desperate,


and dissolute. They would say,

These books contain knowledge


of death, desire, and decay,


betrayal, blood, and more blood;


each is a Pandora’s box, so why


would you want to open one.

They would post danger

signs warning that contact

might result in mood swings,

severe changes in vision,

and mind-altering effects.

If librarians were honest

they would admit the stacks

can be more seductive and

shocking than porn. After all,

once you’ve seen a few

breasts, vaginas, and penises,

more is simply more,

a comforting banality,

but the shelves of a library

contain sensational novelties,

a scandalous, permissive mingling

of Malcolm X, Marx, Melville,

Merwin, Millay, Milton, Morrison,

and anyone can check them out,

taking them home or to some corner

where they can be debauched

and impregnated with ideas.

If librarians were honest,

they would say, No one


spends time here without being


changed. Maybe you should


go home. While you still can.”

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The Need For Truth (2015-08-09)

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” ―Stephen King

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Good Advice For Writers (2015-08-07)

“Always be a poet, even in prose.” ―Charles Baudelaire

One is most likely to be heard if you one speaks most effectively; i.e., poetically. I think of how poetic are the novels that most influenced me.

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One Has To Hope (2015-08-05)

“A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him.”  ―Dylan Thomas

All one can hope is that, as the charities say, "Donations of any size are welcome and appreciated. "

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Perhaps Tilting At Windmills? (2015-08-03)

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” ―Albert Camus

(Remember his philosophical essay “The Myth Of Sisyphus”. Meaning can be found in pushing that rock uphill.)

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The Return Of The Literary Jedi (2015-08-01)

I’m back, albeit briefly.

I have a great fondness for quotations, so I thought I’d use this blog to share some of my favourites by writers battling the forces of darkness. Their ‘lightsaber’ is the pen, which I like to believe is mightier than any real world sword.

For starters:

“Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.” —Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Custom House)

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