Gary Larson's two volumes of cartoons are simply tremendous and made me reflect on my own work as follows:
SHAPING
Causing offence, causing confusion, not being understood, not seeing one’s audience as, say, a comedian, a stage actor or a teacher does; not being shaped by your writing in the same way as that same comedian is shaped by his unsuccessful jokes or that teacher is shaped by the blank faces of his pupils; not knowing if a reader liked or did not like your poem, having readers who are as alone when they read your poem as you were when you wrote it; a solitariness, quietness and, at times, an existential angst in your psyche and/or working environment; a favourite chair, familiar tools of the trade and items of memorabilia around your workplace comparison---these comparisons are all part and parcel of being a cartoonist and a poet—at least some poets and some cartoonists.-Ron Price with thanks to Gary Larson.
How did all this come about?
This endless poetising—what
were its embryogenesis, its
developmental phases and
now to what purpose, end?
A grandfather and a mother
both people of words, books,
who were there, always there
in childhood and then in my
teens and twenties; and some
fragrant breezes, fruits, sweet
scented streams and springs,
melodies and meadows of
nearness, some invisible spirit,
some habitation, dwelling-place,
some unmerited grace, infinite
and unseen, mysterious, mine.
Ron Price
22 December 2007
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