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Tag Archives: Writing
Names I Almost Recognize: Montreal, Plateau Mont Royal
One of the errors espoused by contemporary Americans includes the idea that age is just a number, as if time were a psychological, even a spiritual, rather than a physical reality. But our bodies do age, and time is in … Continue reading
Posted in Commonplaces & Other Miracles
Tagged Adam Penna, comics, Comix, Creative Writing, Montreal, Moths, Plateau Mont Royale, Poems, Poetry, the writing process, Writing
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On Small Fires, Little Flames
I wrote Small Fires, Little Flames while I was writing Talk of Happiness. In some ways, I see these two books as complementary, so it makes sense that they should come out, more or less, together. Plus, it suits my … Continue reading
Posted in Publications
Tagged Adam Penna, Bernini, books, chapbook, chapbooks, Creative Writing, Finishing Line Press, Little Flames, Little Songs, Lyrics to Genji, nature, Poems, Poetry, prayer, Revision, Saint Thomas, Small Fires, Talk of Happiness, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, The Love of a Sleeper, Writing
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On the Novel: The Continuing Adventures…
I have been meaning to write something on my progress here for a few months, but for some reason I’m having a difficult time formulating what it is exactly I want to say. Not that I usually know what I’m … Continue reading
Posted in On the Novel
Tagged Freud, Harold Bloom, Poems, Poetry, Rilke, Shakespeare, The Novel, the writing process, Wallace Stevens, Writing
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The Newest Difference
This week started out slowly, that is, if I begin my week just after the last blog post. Not the posting of the presentation I gave as part of the Faculty Association professional development panel, but the one called And … Continue reading
Posted in On Fiction, On the Novel, Sabbatical
Tagged 40-something, Adam Penna, Carl Jung, Change, fiction, Joseph Campbell, Jungian, Marc McGurl, men of faith, non-fiction, novel, Novelist, philosophy, Poetry, poets, religion, Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken, Turning 40, Writing
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And And And
This week’s writing has been characterized by the feeling Dante describes in the first canto of the Inferno. I find myself lost in a deep dark wood, fearing it’s a wood of error. Still, I’m old enough and mature enough … Continue reading
Posted in On the Novel
Tagged A Coast of Trees, Adam Penna, AR Ammons, Dante, Homer, James Joyce, John Berryman, Knausgaard, My Struggle, novel, Novels, Poetry, poets, The Dream Songs, The Iliad, The Inferno, the writing process, Ulysses, Writing
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On Sabbatical Number 2 and the Big Genre Change
I haven’t regularly blogged here for many years, despite the posts about publications and other things, but now is as good a time as any to begin again. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say begin again again because I know there’s already … Continue reading
Posted in Sabbatical
Tagged Adam Penna, fiction, gradschool, Marc McGurl, novel, Poetry, workshops, Writing
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An Essay on Risk Taking in the College Classroom and the Creative Writer’s Role in Fucking Shit Up*
An Introduction: Freshman writers have particular trouble with two aspects of writing, for which creative writers have answers. The first is revision. Still many composition professors assess product rather than process, and therefore stress editing rather than revision. Creative writers, … Continue reading
On Faith, Not-Faith, Poetry & Death*
A poet is constantly in a state of reassessment as long as he desires to be a vital presence, whether on the page or in the world. So I have continuously and obsessively turned the object, the diamond of poetry, … Continue reading
Posted in Starting from Poetry
Tagged death, Dickinson, divorce, Emerson, faith, grandparents, grief, Hamlet, hope, Li Po, life, literature, Pascal, philosophy, Poems, Poetry, Rilke, Schopenhauer, Shakespeare, Song of Myself, Tu Fu, Whitman, wisdom, Writing
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On Becoming a Poet
I’ve been meaning for weeks now to write a post here about becoming a poet and never was the urge more strongly felt than after reading a poem by Edward Thomas two weeks ago. The poem, called “Adlestrop,” ends like this: … Continue reading
Posted in Starting from Poetry
Tagged Borges, consciousness, Edward Thomas, literature, Poems, Poetry, poets, religion, Robert Frost, spirituality, Wallace Stevens, William Blake, Writing
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Revising Revision
A few years ago I wrote a long essay called “Why Poetry Doesn’t Matter.” I only remember now the gist of that argument. And the conclusion went something like this. When considering the uses of poetry, we ought not to … Continue reading
Adam Penna 