< this writing we do >

     
 
                                    
   is not owned by    
         
 
  The Bank of America    
          
 
  though it would be          
  if it were valuable          
     (or useful)           
                     
    which is the           
             
          
      beauty            
          
             
       (of)        
        
  this writing we do          
                                
            


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ignore below / just using to store some remarks
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[quote='rayheinrich' pid='121719' dateline='1365002182']


The piece starts out: "Resist Abstractions...".
It then proceeds, contradictatorially, to feed
us contradictatorial abstractions.

Not that I have any problems with abstractions:

Writing, especially poetry, IS an abstraction.
(Words, BTW, are even worser abstractions.)

"Resist Abstractions" should be changed to:
"Resist Bad Abstractions". While the second
is just as useless as the first, at least it's
correcter.

"... some of them already diamonds, most of
them coal waiting to stoke your furnace..."

Put THAT in your elephant graveyard and smoke it.

Better advice: "How to Write" by Gertrude Stein


[/quote]

Milo spake thus:
"The argument is specious as there is no actual contradiciton."
[font=Courier]
Telling us to write powerfully and then telling us to eschew abstractions is
contradiction enough for me. Locomotives, can indeed be powerful;  
but so can democracy.

"Writing poetry btw is a not an abstraction.  In fact, no verb is ever an abstraction."

Look closely, I used the word "writing" as a noun; as in:
"This writing sucks purple donkey dicks."

Poetry IS an abstraction if you define it by its meaning. Of course, if you want to
insist that poetry is the ink on the paper of a book, well , yes, that's not
an abstraction. (But note, please, that the word 'book' is not an actual book:
its an abstraction used for communication.)

My main criticism of the piece stem from the author own often muddied understanding of the differences between "abstract" and "abstraction"

As for comparing a modern 2 page essay on a particular aspect of writing with a 80 year old 200 page book on the general subject of writing?  Seems unproductive at best.

milo
[/quote]

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how2write1:


http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/gifts/friends/mixed/platypus-stuffed-plush-f787.jpg

Tasmanian Platytude


Concise advice:

“In order to write the poem you want to write,
 in the end you have to become the person you
 need to become to write that poem.”
- Junot Díaz