Comments on: Bad, bad, so very bad…

By: Jaitra Gillespie

Jaitra Gillespie — Fri, 04 May 2007 09:42:28 +0000

Thanks so much for the comments Larry—as you may already have noticed I invented a “Comment of the Week” award just because of you. Incidentally, it sounds like there were more similarities between our youths than I have already admitted to...

By: Larry Keiler

Larry Keiler — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:40:36 +0000

I just remembered something else too. In my first year of university, I wrote a short story with a rather “Book of Revelations” ending involving snow. My professor said it reminded her of the themes raised in Margaret Atwood’s “Survival”, a particularly Canadian book. I’m not sure I still have a copy of that story, but looking back on it now, I remember it as being simply over-wrought.

By: Larry Keiler

Larry Keiler — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:18:11 +0000

I think the main flaw of all of our youthful writings is that it tends towards the purple. The fact that it’s self-absorbed and angst-ridden is just the way it is and probably always will be. It takes a special sort of genius to be a young genius. But it also takes a special sort of genius to even attempt writing (anything) in one’s youth. I wrote similar stuff to yours when I was young. And now I think I’m blessed that I had the courage to do it, and the outlet it provided. (Because I was angst-ridden and hormone-hyped and drug-addled and generally confused…) Many of my friends did not have this. They became 100 yard hurdlers and racewalkers.

We’re all writers, else we wouldn’t be blogging would we? But even now, most often I write ME. Even when I’m thinking through other characters, I’m still writing ME. And in a certain sense, I wouldn’t have it any other way. For a while I wrote Jack Kerouac. Or Kafka. Or any other writer whose name starts with K. Now I get to write Keiler, for better or worse.

By: Jaitra Gillespie

Jaitra Gillespie — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 21:52:53 +0000

Dinesha, you must have too much time on your hands if you’re reading my blog Hope you’ve got your running shoes on though cause I’ve already started training…

Paty, consumed is certainly a good word—some things really are best left in the past it seems! But thanks for the compliment.

By: PatyC

PatyC — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:45:41 +0000

I do love those poems though!

By: PatyC

PatyC — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:45:19 +0000

WOW, I like the way you are able to examine what consumed your thoughts in your youth. Looking back at what we write gives us a clear picture of what’s on our mind at the time . As I’ve been posting some of my high school poems, I too realize that some of them are really sad, grey and angry, which it doesn’t make any sense…As far as I thought those where the best times of my life – according to my memory- but now I am not so sure..who knew?

By: Dinesha

Dinesha — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 15:07:53 +0000

Nice poems blogo it is always a liberating experience to look at the past and realise that we are progressing.Personally I would like to see you repeating some of your experiences of your yesteryear .God willing I will see you on the marathon course in August.
Dinesha

By: Jaitra Gillespie

Jaitra Gillespie — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 23:39:33 +0000

Thanks Alf and Rhian. If only I had been teenager at the time it would all be a little more excusable! But yes, we all have to start somewhere, and thankfully I was never under any illusions back then as to my grandeur. Well not too many…

Yes, I have kept all of these first attempts precisely because they have their own kind of value, and also because one day I hope to revisit them, and salvage perhaps a few precious gems—of course considerably re-polished.

I perhaps should also reveal a little secret—I choose two of the better ones! I’m not really that brave…

By: rhian

rhian — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 23:32:58 +0000

But you know what J – there’s something powerful and compelling about the raw honesty of youth and that burning need to release it with words. I have stored boxes of horrendous, deplorable poetry and prose buried in a storage unit but i can’t bear to part with them. There’s too much of that younger self alive in those pages. It was part of the journey and i think a precious part, as well as a brutally anguished part. Maybe it has something to do with being artists? grin.

By: alf

alf — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 23:27:46 +0000

I wrote a lot of stuff exactly like your first poem once too, so as a step on the ladder perhaps it just can’t be missed; being a teenager is a universal experience. I have to say though, I feel the cosmic touch in the second poem, particularly the second half.

Good to see a new post from you.