A Writer's Lament
A found poem* by Todd Hogan
Damn! It’s sure hard to write.
I awake after a night of anxious dreams to discover
that I had not yet been transformed into a monstrous, verminous Franz
Kafka. A screaming comes across the bedroom.
Happy writers are all alike; every unhappy writer is
unhappy in his own way.
Call me Melville. Catch-22 was love at first sight.
All Vonnegut happened, more or less.
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in
Torrance — They threw me off the hay truck about NaNo.
This is the saddest story I have ever written. I
have never begun a story with more misgiving.
My soul swooned slowly as I heard the snow falling
faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of
our “the end,” upon all the living and the dead.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks
were flashing thirteen.
But I reckon I got to light out for the Anthologies
ahead of the rest, because some editor she’s going to adopt me and
sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before.
So I beat on, boats against the current, borne back
ceaselessly into the pages.
It is a far, far better thing that I scribble, than
I have ever done; it is a far, far better denouement that I go to than
I have ever known.
“Yes,” I thought. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said
yes I will Yes.
* Found poetry is a type of poetry created by taking words, phrases,
and sometimes whole passages from other sources and reframing them as
poetry (a literary equivalent of a collage) by making changes in
spacing and lines, or by adding or deleting text, thus imparting new
meaning.
Copyright © 2016 Todd Hogan
Todd Hogan practiced making believable stories from pieces of evidence
presented to juries. Later, he investigated multi-million dollar claims
nationally for several insurers, argued before arbitrators and
mediators, and negotiated complex settlements among parties at odds.
He’s been a member of The Writing Journey in Illinois, and Green River
Writers in Kentucky, where he’s attended several writers’ retreats with
New York Times best-selling
authors and editors. He regularly attended the University of Iowa
Writer’s Festival for many summers, meeting writers from across the
country.
Todd has published two articles in Defense Counsel Journal,
“Defending the Transactional Legal Malpractice Case: Trends and
Considerations for Defense Counsel,” and “A Client’s View of Law Firm
Change: Opportunities for Improvement.” Through The Writing Journey,
he’s published “Time Machine Redux” in the anthology, Stories from Other Worlds, and “Five Hostages” and “Demanding Answers” in the anthology, Voices from the Dark.