Call and Response

I write fiction because I am a bad poet. When I was much younger (in my mid twenties—so, young but not terribly young), I stumbled into fiction only after I got lost and wandered for years in the maze of poetry. Which is to say that when I admitted to myself I was no Rilke, no Rumi, no Mark Strand, no Mary Oliver, no e.e. cummings, only then did I notice the clear strands of narrative woven through the bent architecture of my ramshackle poems. I quit thinking of myself as a poet and became a fiction writer. And fiction felt good. It suited me in a way that poetry never had. I knew in short order that fiction was my calling.

Torre del Mangia, Siena

Yet I still turn to poetry when I want to kick myself into fiction writing mode. Perhaps I feel compelled to somehow relive the journey that brought me to fiction. Perhaps I have to blast my ears with poetry before I can properly hear the calling of fiction. More likely, though, I have learned to use the jolt from a good poem to jumpstart the engine of my fiction. (Clearly I need no prodding to start wildly mixing metaphors.) Whatever the reason, this works. When I don’t know how to open a story or get started on another long day of revision, I reach for a poem. I steer clear of fiction. When I read a gripping, unsettling story, I want to write a story just like it. A good story triggers my impulse to imitate. A good poem compels me to write my own gripping, unsettling story in response.

At the risk of echoing the prejudice Charles Baxter reveals in the passage I quoted on Wednesday, I will generalize. Fiction writers take time to lay out the subtle intricacies of their art, and poets—at least the poets I read and love—seem to be more consistently and immediately in touch with the extraordinary, the intense, and the fantastic. No doubt, there are countless exceptions. What matters is only this: Reading poetry works. It works for me. It focuses my thoughts and energizes my intentions. Poetry calls, and I respond with fiction.

For you, this may not work at all. If you want to write—if you have no choice but to write—then listen for the bell that calls to you, and answer it. Find what works, and do it.

Now write.