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    Waking the Lion: Inside Writing (1984 to 2017)
    Waking the Lion: Inside Writing (1984 to 2017)
    Waking the Lion: Inside Writing (1984 to 2017)
    Ebook98 pages1 hour

    Waking the Lion: Inside Writing (1984 to 2017)

    By Mark Antony Rossi

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    About this ebook

    American futurist poet and playwright Mark Antony Rossi has selected essays, notes and interviews from the past thirty three years of writing covering poetry, short fiction and drama. A short book of instruction and discovery meant to help fellow writers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSoma Publishing
    Release dateJan 14, 2018
    ISBN9781537864075
    Waking the Lion: Inside Writing (1984 to 2017)

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      Book preview

      Waking the Lion - Mark Antony Rossi

      Author

      INTRODUCTION:

      WAKING THE LION

      Writing about writing is a battlefield of literary complications with seemingly no end in sight. How can you wisely instruct something as subjective and personal as writing? It’s like an attorney representing himself in court. Does he have a fool for a client?

      I wish I had a clear answer. But I wouldn't trust a farmer to have a clue about the finer points of flash fiction. It truly takes a practitioner to have a firm grasp. Not even this inside viewpoint is guarantee of accuracy or fairness. The writer, above all else, can have an intelligent conversation on poetic license, story structure and methods to harness inspiration.

      Writing is hard work. There's no secret or magic to the craft. If you learn to love rewriting something you wrote yesterday you will discover creative improvement tomorrow. Writing takes time and the sooner you learn your nuances and start filling a blank page, the faster writing will flow like water instead syrup.

      I believe what I learned about writing has a measure of value and its insights deserve to be shared with those seeking to improve their creative endeavors. But I'm not crazy enough to think I have the final word on fiction or writing in general. The final word belongs to you.

      SENTINELS OF THE

       21ST CENTURY

      Autopsy of an Art

      The days have passed when poetic standards were created and promoted in dank conference rooms of conformist universities. When English professors walked like gods and blessed their benighted disciples for producing manuscripts strangely akin to projects released by competing schools. The exclusionary philosophy practiced severely damaged the credibility of poetry. A philosophy that deliberately neglected significant segments of our society. That clung to, in maternal fashion, Greek mythology, as if this were humankind's only figurative reference storehouse. A pathetic attitude brazened in the belief that the masses were simple-minded sky watchers awaiting the next sign of the times. A malicious behavioral state that strongly advocated elitist action in every facet of art and life. These and other repulsive examples show quite clearly why poetry lost its primary audience. An audience that once consisted of average educated folk fond of the music and musings of men and women dedicated to poetic enlightenment. A willful abandonment had taken place. A conscious decision to leapfrog the common man to reach the finer members of our society. Translated easily as: the wealthy academic and artistic patrons, other professors and writers and artists deserving of official recognition.

      From here began a descent that did not decelerate until the arrival of the Beat poets in the early 50's. Scattered throughout this literary firing squad were surviving poets of merit and genius---Sandburg, Frost, Hughes and a few others. Yet even these were consistent outsiders who privately and publicly railed against an establishment valuing vassalage over vision. Great American poetry was snuffed out by academic hijinks and hysteria long before the convenient excuses of television and motion pictures entered the scene. It should surprise no one why people flocked to these mediums in the millions. The farmer wanted to hear more than stories of naked Greek men dodging lightning bolts. The cowboy's affections could not be enticed with giant wooden horses. The secretary expected tales of romance in her modern context; not Old English spouting women of royalty.

      The establishment in its overzealous quest to teach the artistic history of Western Civilization ignored the new civilization emerging all around them. Poetry was still replete with ancient images few felt attachment for. Gargoyles and bonnets and rhyming redundant themes. People began to realize their lives must not matter to poetry anymore. Poetry turned away from them and they in turn found their lives in novels like The Grapes of Wrath. At the start of the 20th century poverty and labor strife were abounding. The people wanted to hear their poets speak on issues relevant to the changing times. But the poets became deaf to their cries. Listened to academic benefactors who assured them that poor people and union organizing are not American subjects to concentrate on. This betrayal paved the road for novelists, folk singers and later movie directors to strike a chord in the common person's heart. Though not without a price, for they were consistently labeled socialists or communists and a host of other profane titles. These labels eventually haunted some of these brave artists during the infamous McCarthy hearings in the 50's. Which by coincidence was around the time poetry began beating new blood into society. The Beat Poets arrived, prepared to rescue not only the message carried by other artistic mediums under attack, but the faith decent people invest in fairness and truth.

      Bright New Blood

      Bursting forth suddenly, a brood of beatnik explorers toured regions once expressly forbidden by self-neutered naysayers. Poetic structure experiments yielded unique patterns and combinations thoroughly complimenting fresh avenues of philosophic thought. The tired sonnet was given its proper burial. Realism, in all its glory and tragedy, made its first indelible mark on the lyrical frontier. Shining knight fantasies had no place in a world capable and willing to destroy itself forever in a blitz of nuclear exchange. Modern awareness once again spoke loudly from poems. Soon audiences flocked to cafes and art shows where poetry flooded listeners with the intimacy of their lives. Poets once again contacted the average person. The wave of cultural intervention proceeded further than anytime past. Subjects like homosexuality were common themes. No more were hard-working American writers going to flee to foreign cities to safely lyrically proclaim their orientation. Their lives were now as important as their readers. Some whom no doubly shared their romantic persuasion? These writers steadfastly refused to live tortured lives like Whitman, unable to vocalize his love for men without drowning it with oceans of symbolism. Their art and life were one. Their logic was as compelling as logic could get: the man who lives a lie in the land of liberty is really a prisoner disguised as a freeman. Intellectually this valid fact was solid. Yet prejudice overrides intellect and feeds directly off undisciplined fear. But this logic was the basis for many of their poetic and social stands, the battles against censorship, racism, poverty, war, etc. The Beat Poet alliance in less than twenty years established a moral foundation for literary pursuit that superseded

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