silence | listening | letting go

(Authors Anne Simpson, Patrick Lane, Daphne Marlatt, and moderator Genni Gunn)

The 2008 Writers Festival is over and, well, I'm a bit wiped. I attended seven of the sixty-nine events, missed only one day of the schedule—but also went to the fundraising gala dinner prior to the Festival opening—and saw twenty-six of the almost one hundred authors. My final blog entry for this year's Festival will be a short one.

All week I've been talking about language so it's probably appropriate that I finish with words from three poets. They may be Poets Turned Novelists, at least for their latest books, but as each of them pointed out Sunday afternoon, such distinctions are not particularly useful, or accurate.

Patrick Lane: "In a fine, fine novel, the novelist is paying attention [to language] in the way a poet does."

Daphne Marlatt, on the tyranny of conventional prose narration: "I'm sick to death of language. . . . poems let you work with silence."

Anne Simpson, on using the strategies of poetry for dealing with the constraints of the novel: "Just let go."

Patrick Lane: "Writing is akin to listening. I try to listen really hard. My best writing is when I'm listening closest."