Love & hate

Working on my novel at the Pearl Bakery.

Chantler63 Shakespeare Challenge and National Poetry Writing Month
Plays & their themes
Day 24: Romeo & Juliet (love & hate)

My laptop is chained to the table, and I am chained to my laptop.
I love to write, I hate to write.
I love to edit, I hate to edit.
I love to work, I hate to work.
How would I survive without iced tea?

Today I came across an obituary in the New York Times
that I copied into my journal as inspiration, or rather as a goad.
"Promise has to be fulfilled sometime."

Alistair MacLeod, a Canadian writer whose only novel — composed over 13 years and extracted from him only after a campaign by his publisher involving surveillance, subterfuge and outright bribery — brought him literary fame, a lucrative prize and a bottle of very fine Scotch, died on Sunday in Windsor, Ontario. He was 77.

In 2002, The Herald of Glasgow described Mr. MacLeod as “one of the greatest living writers in English”; his work has now been translated into many foreign languages.
The sweep of Mr. MacLeod’s reputation today is all the more noteworthy when considered alongside his slender output, which at his death stands at the one novel and fewer than two-dozen short stories.

If, as he liked to say, he seemed constitutionally equipped to turn out a novel once every 60 years or so, he had his reasons.

“I don’t mind,” Mr. MacLeod said in a 2004 interview. “For a long time, I was described as one of North America’s most promising writers. Pretty soon, I was going to be one of North America’s most promising geriatric writers. Promise has to be fulfilled sometime.”


A poem? I have typed corrections to my novel until I've worn off my fingerprints, and you want a poem also? Okay, okay, but I'm cheating again. Here's a haiku poem I wrote in 2005 that was published in 2007 (with a translation into Spanish by carolinav).

READING NADINE GORDIMER IN FLU SEASON

“He has all the time he’s always needed for reading, now.
There is exegesis in everything he reads.”
— Nadine Gordimer in “None to Accompany Me”
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994, p. 299)

No, I’m not depressed —
should I be, sprawled with good books
in a cozy bed?

Outside, rain threatens —
indoors, window light is dim
but sickroom lamps blaze.

I study my life —
novels accompany me
in exegesis.

Books I meant to write
don’t hold a candle to these —
why bother? why grieve?

Reading’s my work now —
honoring vivid fictions
of a piercing mind.

Will I leave no trace —
no Library of Congress
catalog number?

Mark this on my grave,
perhaps my sole published line —
“Words and books, she loved.”