Feel-it-from-my-heart/gut follows me everywhere. On all levels. I am also a head-strong pragmatic. As a creative, I can usually float both boats. I’ve trained myself to self-edit, axing the extra, making the sentiment ever more concise. Keep only sharp-as-a-knife observations. The reader doesn’t have much time.
Three cheers for the Pull Back Kings and Queens: Anne Sexton, Margaret Atwood, Edith Wharton, Bernard Malamud, Virginia Woolf (Queen Extraordinaire). Dammit, I also love the watery writers: Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Rumi. What even to say about the impossible Harold Brodkey except bow down and pump my [frustrated] fist at the same time? And then there are the writers who hover somewhere else entirely, for instance the Eastern most coast treasure Robert Dash, author of “Notes from Madoo: Making a Garden in the Hamptons.” Mr. Dash crossed my path in the local paper, “The East Hampton Star.” His essays conceal sharp perceptions among facts and preferences on dealing with dirt, living things and seasons. In short, capturing life as it stings and sustains us. His essays are best read whole. Here, try any of these, in particular “Almost Spring.”
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