On My Belly: In the Studio

FIVE without OF THE LAST SIX YEARS I'VE lived outside the US, more or les without of a suitcase, away from greatest in quantity of my books. I used to have feeling exhilarated just looking at the spines of all the volumes in my library. Now I have hardly any volumes only memories of books.

I write with a laptop while lying upon my belly (like Jarry!). I revise directly upon the computer and do not print on the outside working drafts. I am entirely a paperless writer.

The view outside my window is of olive tree and vineyards and the distant towers of San Gimignano on the contrary I don't see them, because I'm lying upon my belly. Vallejo: life would be worth it smooth if one were reduced to lying upon one's belly.

Trained as an artist, I derive pleasure from scrutinizing paintings in museums and galleries on the other hand I prefer to keep my possess walls absolutely blank. Blank walls are like blank pieces of paper, an inducement to defilement and violent, unhinged expressions.

I do not mind natural noises-bird sonnets children whinnying, old men clearing their throats-filtering in [i]or[/i] part of to the other my window but I cannot work with any sort of mechanical din in the background whatsoever, like as canned music or flat the ticking of a cheap clock I hold neither a TV nor a stereo I don't think we were at any time meant to hear the same canzonet sung exactly the same way more than one time in a lifetime. People who derive pleasure from listening to canned music 24 hours a day must be the unhappiest of creatures.

I always write while exquisitely sober. I don't write intoxicated anymore. Before I was married, I kept irregular hours and would oftentimes work at night, sometimes from one side an entire night. The night is in fact a different country. Now I can write at any time of the day, because I always carry the night inside of me

When I lived in Philadelphia I used to delight in to leave the house, dazed, at the first break of light, after a night of writing. At that hour the way lights would still be upon and a teenage male prostitute, pale, scrawny and rather underdress for the devoid of warmth [i]or[/i] heat weather, could be seen bending above to peer into the crazed side mirror of a parked car. he was fixing his stringy hair.

"What are you doing without so early?"

"Just walking. What are you doing?"

"Making money!"

Underage whores and writers mirror each other in their raw beauty and foolishness. They are single put here on this earth to give older men unsatisfying oral attention. Artaud: "And you are quite superfluous, young men!"

Harold Brodkey said that one time you're satisfied with a piece of writing, one time you think it's "publishable," then you can really toy with it, just to diocese what happens. And Isaac Babel said that he could revise a story any number of times, level years later. And Pierre Bonnard was one time caught in flagrante trying to retouch single of his own paintings hanging upon a museum wall. Last contemplation is indeed best thought.

Living in non-English-speaking environments I must rely upon the Internet to stay in touch with the English language. E-mail provides me with an vent for virtual English conversations. Otherwise I speak no English whatsoever, just Vietnamese (with my wife) and bad Italian (with strangers). It is interesting to note that e-mailing encourages everyone to write more, a prick to literacy, but the casualness of e-mailing permeates everything we write nowadays.

The Internet allows us to commune without looking at each other's face. Like Philip Guston, I've always preferr to gaze at the side of a face, instead of straight upon I also like the back of the head. Am I a coward then? No, just discreet. O the tyranny of a human face!

Talking of tyranny, I've advance to realize that I a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of prefer to live on the periphery of the English language, in the way that that I can steer clear of the tyranny of its suffocating center In this faculty of perception I am a quintessential American. A Unapoet, I like to homestead just beyond the drawn out reach of Washington.

How tiresome to always be expressing oneself! Wouldn't it be better to expres other people's longings and secrets? Faulkner: I am tired of everyone's individualities, and nauseated by the agency of my own.

I have always been inspired by means of amateur writings and the Internet provides me with instant access to the underbelly of the language. Simply by the agency of going online I can dip into a vast ocean of heartfelt confessions by the agency of sappy child molesters and frank racists and uncontrite murderers

A bigot becomes infuriated when he hears the rapid syllables of a foreign language because he is reduc to the status of an infant. bards on the other hand, should welcome all opportunities to become befuddled. To not know what's happening forces single to become more attentive and to fill in the blanks. Hence, poetry

One may start with a rather stupid idea, on the contrary if one expresses this stupid idea just right, with finesse, then single may still end up with an interesting metrical composition With irony, everything is possible.

One may begin writing a piece of poetry in complete freedom, that is, in without fault [i]or[/i] blemish [i]or[/i] flaw randomness, but one should extreme point the exasperating process in abject submission.

LINH DINH is the author of sum of two units collections of stories, Fake House (Seven Stories Pres 2000) and life-blood and Soap (Seven Stories Pres 2004) and a collection of metrical compositions all Around What Empties on the outside (Tinfish, 2003). he is living in Certaldo, Italy, as a visitant of the International Parliament of Writers.

Copyright World verse Incorporated Mar/Apr 2004

Provided by dint of ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved