If you want to write, how important it is to read what other people are writing. It’s nothing to do with plagiarism, but an intellectual stimulation that will spark off your own creativity.
I have been looking at the latest edition of The Reader, a bi-monthly publication of the Liverpool- based Reader Organisation under the editorial guidance of Professor Philip Davis, Sarah Coley, Angela Macmillan and Brian Nellist. It includes work by new writers and by such established people as Michael Schmidt, the founding editor of the poetry publishing house, Carcanet.
But the piece that most intrigued me told the story of a reading group run by Reader Project Worker, Megg Hewlett, in a women’s prison in Surrey. Kim is a particularly obstreperous member of the group, sullen and antisocial, disruptive and angry. She slouches and says the books and poems being read are ‘rubbish’ and ‘crap’, only brightening up when there’s talk about sex or the use of expletives. Can the therapy of literary reflection ever work for her? Then, one day, Megg reads a poem by Charles Bukowski entitled, Bluebird.
‘there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you…’
Kim’s response is animated and a bolt out of the blue.
‘It’s all about someone,’ she says, ‘who has this bravado on the outside, but underneath they are not hard – but they won’t show that to anyone. It’s got my belly churning. I can feel it here. It’s the best thing I’ve read. It’s really good. He’s hard faced and doesn’t want people to see he has something special going on. It’s like me really…’
I think the transformative nature of art and literature is like religion. Or perhaps religion is part of that transforming creativity. That’s why I’ve invited Professor Philip Davis to speak at SMV next term on ‘Hidden Religion’ – in literature.