Prague and New York

Prague and New York

I leave the confines of my study soon – the simplicity
and profundity of this mountain wilderness,
the tracks, cliffs and canyons,
the shores of this country
for global escapades.
Prague first for valuable time with my adult sons.
We have roughly a week together in Karlin,
an inner-city base near a loop of river,
from which to rove and explore.

I loved the city last time I visited, so steeped in history,
art around each corner and irreverent sculptures
to remind one of prevailing absurdities and pleasures –
those giant babies, say, climbing the broadcast tower
to present fresh truths for the climate change generation.
Let’s hope that the prevailing powers don’t flick them off.
And that pompous fellow – Wenceslas – riding a dead horse
upside down.

I won’t visit Theresienstadt – once was sufficient.
Will I visit Kafka again? Yes, so as to pass some time
with his sister, unsung Ottla,
who the Nazis murdered at Auschwitz.
She comforted a group of orphans on the transport,
their last taste of humane behaviour before the murderers.
Perhaps the boys and I will hire a car for the day
and visit the countryside. No doubt I’ll be needing a dose
of restorative nature.
Our Airbnb occupies a character-filled apartment block
and has a swimming pool.
Nearby is a funky bouldering gym – for me to maintain my fitness…
doubly so in the presence of my youthful sons.

From Prague I travel via Heathrow to New York
to participate in a much-touted writer’s conference.
This project has been in the pipeline for more than a year
I will be workshopping poetry – mine included –
overlooking mid-town Manhattan, some four hours each day
with Juan Felipe Herrera, 2016 poet laureate of the Unite States.
I will be reading my work in front of audiences at various hotels,
attending genre labs with the likes of Cornelius Eady and Rick Moody,
socialising in the evenings with fellow writers –
fictioneers, non-fictioneers publishers and agents…

This trip will be liberating for me – a creative writer used to working
in isolation, used to receiving funny looks in a rarefied field.
Poetry? No – surely not… I mean if you are going to write
then write bestsellers, have a readership, make some money…
People – the most urbane included – just don’t get the allure
of this pursuit that has transformed my existence from one
of coping to one of transcending.
Here I refer to more than the cliffs I climb
and the clouds I discovered at twilight the other day at Evan’s Lookout.
They were hovering low in the Grose valley like docile blimps.

It’s about engagement of the senses and seeing with freshness
and clarity. Poetry enriches my days and delivers intellectual,
emotional and physical wellbeing. Poetry teaches me
the nuances of living a graceful life, of moving nimbly
between nonchalance and intensity, of asking the right questions
rather than peddling my dogma, of listening rather than
speaking, of growing from the rejections and celebrating
the acceptances, of seeing the world exquisitely slant
and responding in a creative manner.

When I return from overseas to my mountain haven/heaven,
in Blackheath, I plan on starting writing workshops.
I also want to have occasional parties – the Gatsby series,
in the manner of those hosted by Alan Gurganus
as Anne Patchett lovingly describes in her essay,
Writing and a Life Lived Well: Notes on Allan Gurganus,
which I first enjoyed some fifteen years ago in a book called
WHY I WRITE, Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction.
The book houses essays by American writers,
luminaries some of them, including David Foster Wallace,
Thom Jones and Joy Williams.