Robert Greene

"At your birth a seed is planted.  That seed is your uniqueness.  It wants to grow, transform itself, and flower to its full potential.  It has a natural, assertive energy to it. Your Life's Task is to bring that seed to flower, to express your uniqueness through your work."

Robert Greene

American Writer/Speaker

1959 -

Commentary
What makes you unique?  What is your life's work?  Are you doing your life's work?  Have you found your passion?  What is the reason you were born?  What are the gifts that you have been given?  What skills do you need to master?

I think my life's work has been to inspire others to be better than they are.  The seed for my life's work found expression when I was young in my desire to be a preacher.  Later, the seed was expressed in my desire to rid the world of racism and war.  Ultimately, my life's work found expression in my speaking and training within health care.  I've touched people's lives through my voice and the telling of motivational stories.

Creative Practice
This week write about your life's work.  What is your purpose for being here?  If you don't know why you are here, then use this writing exercise to help you discover your purpose for being.

Biography
Robert Greene was raised in Los Angeles.  He attended the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.  Greene estimated that he worked at 80 jobs, including construction, translation, and editing, before becoming a writer.  His first book, The 48 Laws of Power, was published in 2000 and has sold over 1.2 million copies in the United States alone.  His fifth book, Mastery, was published in 2012.  Green speaks five languages and is a student of Zen Buddhism.

A Book Review

Mastery
by Robert Greene

Mastery is a great inspirational book that every creative leader, who wants to master a skill or a talent, should read.  If you want to be a writer, an artist, or a musician, you should read this book.  If you want to own your own company, or be president of a company, or be a successful employee, you should read this book.  If you want to start a new career, become a doctor or a mechanic, or run a marathon, then read this book.

Robert Greene shares the stories of people who have become masters in their fields.  Using the stories of both dead and living masters, Greene reviews what it takes to become a master in a field of endeavor.  He shares the stories of Charles Darwin, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, John Coltrane, Martha Graham, Buckminster Fuller, Zora Neale Hurston and Wolfgang Mozart to name a few.  He also shares the stories of living masters like Yoky Matsuoko, Freddie Roach, Daniel Everett and Santiago Calatrava.  From these inspirational stories, Robert Greene identifies the keys to mastery.

This book is a must read for anyone who wants to become a master of some skill or talent.  Pick up a copy today and change your life.

Video

Here is Robert Greene discussing creativity and mastery at Google.

John W. Gardner

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."

— John W. Gardner

American Educator, Author

1912 -2002

Commentary

How would you feel if you did not have an eraser?  Or in our current language: a delete key?  How would you feel if whatever you typed into the computer or wrote on paper could not be changed?  Or if your brush strokes could not be covered up?  Or if the song you recorded could be done with only one take?

Some writers and artists suffer from writer's block because they feel their first draft or painting needs to be perfect.  They don't realize that they have an eraser and can change what they write.  We have all been given a great gift in the delete key.  Be sure that you use it responsibly. 

Life unlike art does not have a delete key?  Our actions cannot be erased as much as we would wish they could.  Have you ever done or said something that you wish you could undo?  We all have.  Art gives us this opportunity?  We can rewrite our story — repaint our world.

Creative Practice

This week identify 2 - 3 of your past actions that you wish you could erase.  Then rewrite the story and change your behavior and the outcome.  Or paint a scene from your new story.

Background

John W. Gardner is best known for serving as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under President Lyndon B. Johnson.  He also founded Common Cause in 1970.  Between 1955 and 1965, he served as president of the Carnegie Corporation where he helped to shape American education.

Gardner was born in Los Angeles to William and Marie Gardner.  His father died when he was one and he was raised by his mother.  He graduated from Stanford with a masters degree and earned a doctorate degree from the University of California.  In the late 1930's he taught college and then joined the Marines during World War II.

Gardner dropped out of college for a year and a half to try his hand at writing fiction before going back and finishing his degree.  His first of eleven non-fiction books was published in 1961.

Anne Tyler

"If I waited until I felt like writing, I'd never write at all."

— Anne Tyler

American Novelist

1941 -

Commentary

Many beginning writers feel that they can only write when the spirit strikes them.  They wait until they have the urge to write.  Unfortunately, they will write very little because the spirit is often on vacation.  Writers, artists and other creative leaders must develop the discipline and habit of working every day whether they are in the mood or not.  Somedays what they produce will be great and on other days it will be terrible.  The quality does not matter.  Just like there are bad hair days and good hair days, there are bad creative days and good creative days.  They will not always hit a home run or score the winning basket.

So what about you?  Do you wait until the spirit strikes?  Or are you up and at it every day?   Do you have the self-discipline to create something every day?  There is no boss looking over your shoulder or no parent coaxing you out of bed.  You have to be the one to get yourself up writing, painting or dancing.  No one can do it for you.

Creative Practice

Experts say it takes 21 days to form a habit.  So your assignment this week to choose a time every day when you will create.  Then for the next 21 days spend that time creating.  Begin now to form habits of a lifetime.  You are responsible for the life you live.

Background

Anne Tyler, the eldest of four children, was born in Minneapolis, MN.  Her father was a chemist and her mother a social worker.  Her youth was spent in several Quaker communities.  She did not attend public school until she was eleven. She graduated from Duke University and did graduate work in Russian studies.

Tyler has published 19 novels.  The first one, If Morning Ever Comes, was published in 1964.  She won the Pulitzer Prize for her 11th novel Breathing Lessons.

Tyler rarely gives face-to-face interviews.  In her first such interview in thirty-five years with Deirdre Donahue in 2012, she said: "I have to go to my writing room five days a week. I have to put in my time."  Donahue states that Tyler writes in longhand on unlined paper.

When I'm Sixty-Four

Today, I reach the ripe old age of 64 and must share with you the Beatles song: When I'm 64.  Listen!

To celebrate my birthday, I am giving away a free PDF copy of my book, Mother, Don't Lock Me In That Closet!  Here is a link to download.

https://www.yousendit.com/download/UVJqeEVhU1B6RStFQk1UQw

May your day be full of hope and joy!!!!

Jamaica Kincaid

"My writing depends on memory.  I have an unfortunate habit of remembering things that other people have forgotten and would like me to forget.  The trouble with remembering, is it makes it almost impossible to forgive."

— Jamaica Kincaid

Caribbean Novelist

1949 -

Commentary
I had the privilege of hearing Jamaica Kincaid speak for about forty minutes on Thursday night, March 28, at the Toledo Public Library.   She told a few stories, read from her new book, See Now Then, and talked about time and memory.

Writers are often encouraged to write about what they know, write about their own experiences, and if we do that, we often write from memory, and memory is very fragile and unreliable.  What we remember is not what really happened.  It is what our minds think happened, and the memory is altered and reshaped over time as it is retold again and again in our mind.  Our retelling reshapes the facts, leaving out some and embellishing others.

Readers often want to know what is autobiographical and what is fictional about a novel or a story or a poem, and sometimes they assume it is all autobiographical.  Yet for writers it is hard to distinguish between the two.  As you write your stories, as you share your stories, the two begin to blend together until we have no idea what actually happened and what we imagined happened.  

All great storytellers embellish and expand the truth.  We re-imagine ourselves and our place in events.  We change the events to fit the story we want to tell and this has recently gotten some memoir writers in trouble for adding events that did not happen.  What is truth?  What is fact?  Are they the same or different?  I think they overlap but they are not the same.  Just because something is factual does not mean it truthful.  And just because something is truthful does not mean it is factual.

My memories of my childhood are few and they usually come from stories that were told over and over in my family or from events that were traumatic to the young me.  So while my poems will start with a simple phrase from some memory it will grow and morph into something of its own that may bear no resemblance to fact.

Creative Practice
Your creative challenge this week is to select a memory to write or paint about.  I have a painting hanging in our personal art gallery where the painter paints a scene from her childhood of her mother hanging the wash on the clothesline.  What memory can you paint?  What memory can you write about?

Background
Jamaica Kincaid was born Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson on May 25,1949 in St. John's on the island of Antigua 51 days after I was born in Washington, Illinois.  She and I are celebrating our 64th birthday this year.  Jamaica grew up with a passion for reading although her reading matter was limited to the Kings James Bible, the dictionary, and epic poetry.  Once she was punished for misbehaving by having to copy books one and two Milton's Paradise Lost.

At the age of seventeen, Kincaid left her family, the island and her name behind.  She entered the U.S. under the name of Jamaica Kincaid.  Her first job was an au pair for upper class family in New York City.  She became a regular contributor to the New Yorker magazine for twenty years.  She tells the story that the first piece she  submitted was 300 words in length and composed of only one sentence.  Long sentences is her trademark style.

Kincaid has published more than a dozen books.  Her most recent novel, See Now Then, her first in ten years, tells the story of a family living in a small town in New England.  Some claim the book is autobiographical and based on her marriage to ex-husband, Allen Shawn, son of the New Yorker's long-time editor William Shawn.

Video:
Here is an interview with Jamaica Kincaid.

Leo Tolstoy

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."

— Leo Tolstoy

Russian Writer

1828 - 1910

Commentary:

Most of us at some point in our lives have a desire to change the world — to change how the world works and how others behave.  Some of us outgrow these desires and others spend a lifetime of activism.  Some of us become cynical and dropout.  Others rant and rave against the system.  Yet few of us ever think about changing ourselves.  

The perfect example is marriage.  I bet everyone whoever marries attempts at some point to change the behavior of his or her spouse.  Maybe it is putting down the toilet seat.  Or trying to change the spending habits.  We have all tried to change a spouse and nine times of ten we have failed.  You cannot change other people easily because most people resisted the efforts of others to change them.  If you want the marriage to be successful, you must learn to first change yourself.  And if you are successful, you will change the other person in the process.

As creative leaders, we must learn to work on ourselves first.  If your writing or your paintings are rejected, don't blame the editors and the gallery owners.  Look inside.  What do you need to do differently?  What do you need to change?  

Lasting change comes from within, not from without.  What work habits do you need to change?  What habits of procrastination do you need to change?  What attitudes do you need to change?  Changing a habit does not happen overnight.  Some experts say that it takes a minimum of 21 days to change a habit.  Changing yourself is not easy, but with hard work it can be done.  You can change who you are by changing what goes into your mind and heart.  

I believe the heart drives change more than the brain.  Most people know intellectually that smoking is harmful to one's life and yet many people are unable to stop.  You have to emotionally want to change for change to happen.  Our emotions are the basis for change.  Love for another person can motivate someone to change his behavior.  Fear can be a powerful motivation for change.

Creative Practice:

This week choose some habit that you would like to change and begin the work necessary for the change.  Remember that it takes at least three weeks for the change to take hold.  Commit yourself to the change.  Believe that you can change.  Choose to change.  Plant seeds of hope in your heart.

Background:

Born in the Tula Province of Russia, Tolstoy was the youngest of four boys.  He was two when his mother died and nine when his father passed away.  He was raised by his aunts.  French and German tutors provided his early education at home.  At fifteen he enrolled at the University of Kazan but failed to graduate because of partying to excess instead of studying.  He attempted to become a farmer on his parents' estate but failed as well.  He did develop the habit of keeping a journal.  After failing at farming, he joined the army and fought in the Crimean War.

Tolstoy published his first story, Childhood, in The Contemporary when he was 24.  His greatest novel, War and Peace, was published in 1869.  Anna Karenina, the second of his best novels, was published in installments between 1873 - 1877 to critical and public acclaim.

After the writing of Anna Karenina, Tolstoy suffered a spiritual crisis.  He rejected the Russian Orthodox Church because he felt it was corrupt.  He developed his own unconventional  and controversial spiritual beliefs.  His later fiction was more moralistic than his earlier work.

Video:

The Last Station, a movie about the last year of Tolstoy's life, was released in 2009.  Here is the trailer.

Les Brown

"Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago."

— Les Brown

American Speaker, Author

1945 -

Commentary:

What are you doing today that will help someone a generation from now?  We all need to be planting seeds today that will bear fruit tomorrow.  Whether you are a writer, an artist or a singer, you need to be giving back.  None of us have gotten where we are without the help of others.  And each of us owes something to future generations.

Years ago, when we lived in Indiana, we had sold our house and were moving to Minnesota.  My wife and I planted a flowering tree in the backyard.  We knew we would never see it grow, but we also knew that someone would enjoy its beauty some day.

As creative leaders, our gift to future generations is often our creative work.  People may not read our writing and buy our paintings while we are alive, but sometime in the future people will come to appreciate what we created.  People will be inspired by our work.  We will touch lives and change hearts.

Creative Practice:

This week do something that won't bear fruit for years to come.  Give back to future generations.  Create a masterpiece.  Plant a tree.

Background:

I have listened to Les Brown often on tape and CD.  He tells a powerful story about growing up poor in Miami, Florida.  He was born in an abandoned building in Liberty City, a low-income section of Miami.  He was adopted at six weeks of age by Mamie Brown.  Mamie was a 38 year old single woman, cafeteria cook and domestic worker, with little education or financial means.  The one thing she did have was love which she gave in bushel baskets to Les and his twin brother, Wesley.

In the fifth grade, Les was labeled, "educably mentally retarded" and returned to the fourth grade.  He later flunked the eighth grade and he was often call DT for dumb twin.  Les began his career as a DJ.  He has been a broadcast manager, community activist, political commentator, state legislator, nightclub emcee and keynote speaker.  In 1992, he was selected as one of the top five outstanding speakers by Toastmasters International.  He is the author of the books, Live Your Dreams, and It's Not Over Until You Win.

Video:

Here is Les Brown speaking:

Alan Alda

"If you are just looking to take bows, you'll almost always be disappointed, because the applause is never loud enough."

— Alan Alda

American Actor, Director, Writer

1936 -

Commentary:

As a speaker, I understand almost immediately what Alan Alda is talking about.  There are speakers who brag about getting a standing ovation every time they speak.  The applause is more important than touching the lives of people.  Applause is very short-lived.  If you blink, it might have faded away.  Yet, people yearn for the applause.  Whether you are a writer, a comedian, an artist or an actor, we all crave recognition and praise.  Yet the novel, the poem, the painting, or the performance are more important than the reward.

There are writers who become so caught up in the applause that they stop writing and instead live the life of a writer going from party to party enjoying the praise and recognition.  Some live off their reputation for the remainder of their lives.

Too much praise and recognition from the general public can be harmful to a person's creativity.  They may stop growing and maturing.  The key to avoiding the negative impact of applause is to remain humble.  True humility will free most people from the harmful impact of praise.  

Don't believe your own press releases.  You are not as good as people say.  And on the flip side, you are not as bad as people say.  I have had people tell me that I am the best speaker they have ever heard.  Now, either they have never heard any other speakers or they say that to every speaker.  Within 15 minutes of the end of the speech the meeting room is empty except for the speaker and the staff who are cleaning up.  Most people have moved on with their lives and the applause has faded.

The person we have to learn to please is ourselves, not our readers or our audience.  Our readers can be very fickle — love you today and hate you tomorrow.  Have you applauded yourself lately?  Have you given yourself a standing ovation lately?

Creative Practice:

Cast of M*A*S*H

This week find reasons to give yourself standing ovations.  Review previous poems, paintings and stories that you have written or painted and praise the good that you find.  Ignore the bad.  Be thankful for the gifts that you have been given.

Background:

Alan Alda was born Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo in The Bronx, New York City.  His father was an actor and singer and his mother was a showgirl.  Alda began his acting career in the 1950's as a member of the Compass Players.  In 1966, he starred in the musical, The Apple Tree, on Broadway.  Alda is remembered most for his role as Hawkeye Pierce in in the TV series, M*A*S*H.  He was nominated for 21 Emmy Awards for the show and won five.  He also wrote and directed many of the shows.  He appeared in all 251 episodes of the series.

Video: 

Here is a video of Alan Alda being interviewed on CBS about his memoir, Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself.

Quote Source:

Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself, by Alan Alda

Albert Einstein

"Don't think about why you question, simply don't stop questioning.  Don't worry about what you can't answer, and don't try to explain what you can't know.  Curiosity is its own reason."

— Albert Einstein

German Theoretical Physicist

1879 - 1955

Commentary

Do you question the world around you?  Do you ask: why? how? when? where?  Do you challenge the assumptions of others?  Do you challenge your own assumptions?  Do you challenge your beliefs?  Do you question your habits?  Or do you simply accept what was taught you?  Do you accept without question the statements of experts?  Do you question what you read in the newspaper or hear on television?  Are you willing to think differently than those around you?  Do you hang out with people who think like you do?  Or do you surround yourself with people who think differently than you?

There is so much that we don't know.  The more I learn; the less I feel I know.  Are you curious about the world in which you live?  Are you curious about your neighbors?  Your friends?  The physical world?  The world of the mind?  Are you curious about what you do not know?  Have you stopped learning?  Stopped reading?  Stopped growing?

There is a story of a man who was watching his wife cook a pot roast.  She cut off the end of the pot roast before putting it in the pot.  He asked her why?  She said that was what her mother always did.  Since she was curious, she called her mother and asked her why she cut off the end of the pot roast?  Her mother said because her grandmother did.  The woman called her grandmother and asked her why she always cut off the end of the pot roast.  And the grandmother said that she cut off the end because the pot was too small.  What habits have you formed that are based on out-of-date information?  What habits do you need to change?

Creative Practice

This week take a belief, an assumption or a habit that you have held your for most of your life and question it?  Challenge your assumptions. What assumptions have you made about the creative process?  Or creative people?  Painters?  Writers?  Actors?  Find out why you believe what you believe.  Where did the belief come from?  Where did the habit come from?  What makes it valid?  Is it true?  Or is it false?

Biography

Albert Einstein was born In Ulm, Germany on March 14, 1879 to Hermann Einstein and Pauline Einstein.  His father was a salesman and an engineer.  The Einsteins were non-observant Jews.  Albert attended a Catholic elementary school for three years.  Einstein built models and mechanical devices and showed a talent for mathematics.  In 1900, Einstein earned a Zurich Polytechnic teaching diploma.  He married Mileva Maric in 1903.  They had two sons born in 1904 and 1910.  They divorced in 1914 and less than 4 months later he married Elsa Lowenthal, his first cousin.  She died in 1936.  Albert and Elsa immigrated to the United States in 1933.  Einstein became a U. S. citizen in 1940.

Albert Einstein experienced internal bleeding caused by the rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in 1955.  When he was admitted to the hospital, he refused surgery, saying: "I want to go when I want.  It is tasteless to prolong life artificially.  I have done my share, it is time to go.  I will do it elegantly.  He died the next morning at the age of 76.

Naomi Shihab Nye

"The story is given to you through the process of writing.  I always encourage my students to trust the process of writing.  It will take them somewhere, and it may not be where they thought they were going."

Naomi Shihab Nye

American Poet

1952 -

Commentary

Sometimes we plan too much.  We want to control every detail.  We need to learn to follow the story.  It is a gift.  We need to trust the discovery process.  The story will not betray us.  

Creative Practice

This week write a poem or short story starting with the phrase, "On the day that I died ..."  Follow where the story leads.  Trust the writing.  Go where it goes.

Background on Poet

Naomi Shihab Nye was born to a Palestinian father and American mother in St. Louis, Missouri.  She began writing poetry at the age of six.  She spent her high school years in both Jerusalem and San Antonio, Texas.  She received her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio.

Nye described her writing experience in the Four Winds Press:  "My poems and stories often begin with the voices of our neighbors, mostly Mexican American, always inventive and surprising.  I never get tired of mixtures."  She describes herself as the wandering poet and interacts with different cultures.

Video

Here is a video of Naomi Shihab Nye talking about inspiration:

I believe that people have more similarities than differences.  Yet people tend to focus on what makes them different than what makes them the same.  In this next video Nye describes a poetry class she taught where she used poems written by both Jewish and Palestinian women.  She used poetry to show that we are more alike than different.

Philip Pearlstein

Self Portrait (2000)

"The sexual, psychological and social readings put on my paintings by anyone, even a professional art writer, are beyond my control and certainly beyond my concern."

— Philip Pearlstein

American Artist

1924 -

Commentary

We live in a world of critics and fault-finders.  Turn on the television and some commentator has a politician in the crosshairs.  As a society, we put people on pedestals and then proceed to throw stones at them.  Creative leaders face these same negative critics and it can feel very personal.  We are emotionally connected to our creative work and when someone attacks our work we can become very defensive.  Even the best artists, writers, musicians and actors have their critics.  For me, actors have it the worst.  Not only do they face criticism of their creative work, but also their physical appearance.  I appalled by these commentators who criticize what the actor or actress is wearing.

Pearlstein is on target with these comments.  Criticism is beyond our control.  We cannot stop others from attacking us.  The key is how we respond.  If we let it hurt us, it can damage our future creative work.  If we believe it to be true, we may change our creative work to please the public.  We must learn that it doesn't matter what other people say.  What is most important is what our heart tells us.  We must trust ourselves and not be swayed by the opinions of others.

I once shared some of my short stories that I wanted to publish with another writer.  She told me that my male characters weren't real men.  My response was to back off and stop writing stories.    Not a good response, I admit.  I let another person's negative comments change what I did.  And I am sure this as happened to some of you.

Some people have learned to harness the negative energy of others as a motivator.  The negativity inspires them to prove the person wrong.  In an introduction to psychology class in a junior college, the professor told my wife that she would never graduate from college — that she was not smart enough.  My wife transformed this negative feedback into the inspiration to finish college with honors.

How do you handle criticism?  Do you back off and stop doing what you were planning to do?  Or do you transform the criticism into a positive force in your life?

Creative Practice

Identify the negative, fault-finding people in your life.  Ask yourself if you need and want this person in your life.  If you don't, then let him go.  Negative people in our lives are very destructive.  They can cause emotional, mental and physical harm.  If you love the person and still want him in your life, then find a way to transform the person's negativity into a positive force.

Background of Artist

Philip M. Pearlstein was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1924.  During the Great Depression, his father, David Pearlstein, sold chickens and eggs to feed and support the family.  His parents were very supportive of Philip's interest in art and sent him to the Carnegie Museum of Art for classes.  His studies were interrupted by World War II.  He was drafted and was stationed in Italy where he was exposed to much of the art in Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan.  After the war with the help of the G.I. Bill he finished his schooling and moved to New York City.  He was a realistic painter in a time when abstract expressionism was the dominant form of painting.

Pearlstein married Dorothy Cantor in 1950 and they had three children.  He spent much of his career as a professor at Brooklyn College.

Video

Here is a video with Pearlstein and others discussing his work.

Pablo Picasso

"What I want is that my picture should evoke nothing but emotion."

— Pablo Picasso

Spanish Artist

1881 - 1973

Commentary

Does your creative work evoke the emotions of your audience?  Does the work touch people's hearts?  Or is it an exercise in intellectual games?  The best creative work, the work that will last, touches people deeply and evokes emotions.  Think of the music the you like or the paintings that you enjoy.  They touch some part of you very deeply.

Are you in touch with your emotions?  Or do you hide your emotions from yourself and others?  When was the last time you had a deep emotional cry?  Do you believe that it is okay to cry?  Movies, more than novels or poetry, tend to touch me very deeply and often make me cry.  I have recently been watching the first season of the TV show, Touch, starring Kiefer Sutherland.  Every episode has filled my eyes with tears.  I have been emotionally touched.

What creative works have touched you deeply?  Have made you cry?  Or laugh?  Or scream?  Or frightened you?  Think of those thriller movies that some people love to watch.  Years ago when I attempted to read Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre, it made me sick to my stomach and I could not finish it.  

Creative Practice

This week ask yourself if your creative work touches the hearts of other people.  Does your creative work evoke the emotions of others?  Then create a new work from the heart.  Create something that evokes the emotions others.

Poems That Touched Me

This past week I identified ten poems that have touched my heart over the years.  If all my books were taken away and I only could keep ten poems, these would be the ten that I would keep.  All ten poems can be found on the web.  I have linked the titles to copies of the poems.  If you have not read them, you should.

1.  The Waking by Theodore Roethke  

2.  The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

3.  Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

4.  The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Elliot

5.  anyone lived in a pretty how town by e.e. cummings

6.  Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas

7.  Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note by LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka)

8.  Underwear by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

9.  What I Learned From My Mother by Julia Kasdorf

10.  Watering the Horse by Robert Bly

What poems have touched your heart?  What paintings have evoked emotions in you?  What novels have left you sad?  Glad? Or mad?

Artist Background

One of the greatest artist of any century, Pablo Picasso was born in Spain but lived most of his life in France.  As an artist, he was constantly reinventing himself.  Known for founding the Cubist movement, he was a painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and stage designer.

Video

Here is one person's listing of the top twenty paintings by Picasso.  Not all would make my list, but the top 2 would.

George D. Green

"If you make pictures you are bound to be an abstract painter on some level."

— George D. Green

American Artist

1943 - 

Commentary

People are often divided between those who love abstract art and those who love realistic art.  Just like readers have different tastes in literature.  A few love poetry.  Most hate it.  Some love romance novels and a few look down their noses at people who read romance novels.  Yet all literature is made up of words.  And the same is true of art.  At its core, all art is abstract.  The artist must create the illusion of realism, because a painted tree is never equal to a real tree in the backyard.  Writers, when they tell their stories, are creating illusions of reality.  The fictional world they create is never real no matter how much they base it on the world they live.  Narrative non-fiction may blend the worlds of fact and fiction, but if the writer strays to far from the fact he is considered a liar and may have his books removed from the bookstores.  Yet all writers at some level write fiction.  The world we write about is not the real world.  Even when I write a story about my mother, the character is not my mother.  She is my fantasy of my mother.  At some level all forms of art — painting, music, literature — are not real.

Creative Practice

This week paint that tree in your backyard as an abstract picture of your mother.  Or write a story-poem in the first person voice of your mother describing the tree in your backyard to her mother.

Bones, 1982

Artist Background

George D. Green was born in 1943 in Portland, Oregon.  He received a B.S. degree from the University of Oregon and a M.F.A. from Washington State University.  He had his first solo exhibit in 1968.

Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at the close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas

Welsh Poet

1914 - 1953

Commentary

On Monday, January 21, my fifty-year-old brother-in-law died of cancer.  He did not go gentle into that good night.  I met Francisco when he was 12.  During the last four years, I spent hundreds of hours talking with him either on the phone or in person.  His wife divorced him and he seemed lost.  The first year he took what my wife and I called his Buddha walk.  He moved from the home of one sister to another.  He would take small jobs to give him some money before he pulled up roots and moved on.  When he finally arrived in our home, we almost did not recognize him.  He was truly lost.  During his two month stay with us, his spirit was restored and refreshed.  

When we said goodbye, we knew he was off on a new adventure.  He and a partner were going to open a restaurant.  That adventure lasted ten months.  On business trips to Texas over the next three years, I would have dinner with him and listen to the stories of his latest business venture.

For me, the way Francisco lived his life is like Dylan Thomas expressed in his poem — "do not go gentle into that good night."  Francisco attacked life with a passion.  He seized life by the throat and demanded that it give up its jewels.  But life had its own ideas and financial success elluded him to the end.  Francisco's greatest skill was his ability to sell anything to anyone.  He would quit a job one day and within 14 days would have a new one.  He was never afraid to walk up to a stranger and introduce himself.  He had a knack for meeting people when he needed them.  

In July, 2012, Francisco was diagnosed with stage four cancer in his kidney.  The cancer had spread beyond the kidney and the doctors said surgery was out of the question.  At the time, Francisco was in the midst of his latest business venture and he moved ahead full throttle.  Not even cancer and the possibility of death were going to get in his way.  Francisco chose not to go gentle into that good night.  He chose instead to rage against the light — to battle until his last breath. 

Creative Practice

What is your approach to life?  Have you seized it by the throat?  Or are you whimpering in a corner, afraid to look life in the eye?  What is your approach to your art?  Do you seize it by the throat and demand that it give up its secrets?  Or do you sneak upon it in the middle of the night and hope to catch it sleeping?

This week seize life by the throat.  Do something that you have been wanting to do but were afraid.  Do not go gentle into that good night.  Rage against the light.

About the Poet

The writing shed of Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas wrote the poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, about his father, David John Thomas.  Born in Wales, Thomas had bronchitis and asthma in his childhood.  He was 19 when he published several of his most famous poems, including And death shall have no dominion.  His first book of poems was published when he was 20.  Dylan's father died from pneumonia in December 1952.  His sister died of liver cancer early in 1953.  Dylan died on November 9, 1953 from pneumonia.  He was in New York to read his poetry.

Poem
The poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, is a villanelle which is nineteen line poetic form that consists of 5 tercets and one quatrain.  The poem has two refrains and two repeating rhymes.  Here is the complete poem.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at the close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, to late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see the blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



Here is a reading of the poem with pictures of Dylan Thomas.