Up or down

Random quote of the day:



"One should never write up or down to people, but out of yourself."

—Christopher Isherwood, quoted in Writers on Writing by Jon Winokur




( Illustrated version. )

From the notebooks: Poetry

I recently came across this while looking for something else. It refers to a message list I used to belong to, CREWT-L, an enormous creative writing list ran out of the (I believe) University of Missouri. I was in digest mode but it was nearly impossible to keep up, and when I read this it reminded me of trying to catch up with the flist when I've taken a few days off of LJ.

Originally posted on CREWT-L.

The Digester

Whose words are these I think I know?
He posted them a week ago;
And what of her words over there—
They’ll wonder why I shun them so.

My in-digestion grows and grows
‘cause I am swamped in mounds of prose
And soon I’ll be a week behind!
How I’ll catch up, Heaven knows.

And so I plunge on, trying hard
To read and think and avoid canards
But now and then one slips right through
And I am hoist on my own petard.

These threads are lovely, dark and deep,
And I would really like some sleep,
But I must read on before I count those sheep,
Eliminating before I count those sheep.

—PJ Thompson
April 21, 1995
(with extreme apologies to Robert Frost)