The post and the poem

This week, a friend of mine tipped me off about a conversation happening here about whether technology is killing the way we communicate.

I posted a comment, and it started me thinking about how everything is now about tweets and updates and txts – basically anything short and sweet that is easy to absorb and doesn't make you think too hard. And while I can appreciate that, I would also like to think that there's still a place in the world for writing that is longer and a little more challenging and creative.

With that in mind, here's something you don't see much these days. A poem.

This one 's by Ted Hughes.

Written in 1957, it's called The Thought-Fox, and it deals with the idea of creativity and the writing process itself. And I hope you enjoy it.

The Thought-Fox

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:

Something else is alive

Beside the clock's loneliness

And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:

Something more near

Though deeper within darkness

Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,

A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;

Two eyes serve a movement, that now

And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow

Between trees, and warily a lame

Shadow lags by stump and in hollow

Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,

A widening deepening greenness,

Brilliantly, concentratedly,

Coming about its own business

Till with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head.

The window is starless still; the clock ticks,

The page is printed.

Why I write

Earlier this week, I read an article in The Australian about how today's teenagers use an average vocabulary of only 800 words each day, preferring instead to use the abbreviated language of text messaging and hip-hop. I've never counted, but from reading the article, it would seem that 800 is not very high – in fact, it appears that "800 words will not get you a job". What's more, "yeah", "no" and "but" all feature in a top 20 that accounts for about one third of the words they use.

All of which I find a little sad. Especially when I think about how much I love words.

Here's a quick 50 from Australian poet Kenneth Slessor:

I looked out my window in the dark

At waves with diamond quills and combs of light

That arched their mackerel-backs and smacked the sand

In the moon's drench, that straight enormous glaze,

And ships far off asleep, and Harbour-buoys

Tossing their fireballs wearily each to each,

And tried to hear your voice, but all I heard

Was a boat's whistle, and the scraping squeal

Of seabirds' voices far away, and bells,

Five bells. Five bells coldly ringing out.

Incredible writing if you ask me, but then Kenneth Slessor was far beyond the reach of teenage angst by the time he penned Five Bells.

Which brings me to another of my favourite writers, George Orwell. I must admit to a touch of hubris in taking the title for this post from an essay he wrote in 1949. That said, there's nothing particularly unique about the title, and it does seem fair given that I'm discussing a similar subject – although maybe not quite with the same degree of finesse.

In his essay, Orwell took the time to outline "four great motives for writing": sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. By his standards, I'm guilty of sheer egoism simply by continuing to write past the age of 30; I'm not the sentimental type, so posterity in the guise of historical impulse holds little appeal for me; and yes, I am political, if you subscribe to Orwell's broadest definition of the term.

But what most strikes a chord in my heart is aesthetic enthusiasm: what Orwell describes as everything from "words and their right arrangement" to typography and even the width of margins.

For me, there's something wide-eyed and beautiful in an elegant turn of phrase. Each word gently pushed along by a mix of alliteration, juxtaposition, onomatopoeia, repetition, rhetoric, tempo, crescendo, cadence, the list goes on.

Which all goes to explain why I love the work we're doing for Griffin Theatre Company – apologies for the shameless plug!

And I was pretty excited when I found this recent Fiction issue of Vice, with every page dedicated to new writing.

However, words don't always comes all that easily for people. It takes time and effort and discipline, as well as creativity and flair and ideas. And that even goes for some of the most prolific writers, as Stephen Fry explained in what will be his last blog post for a little while.

For me, writing isn't always easy, but it is important. In a previous post, I wrote about how they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but a single word can start ten thousand stories. That said, not too many of them start Yeah no but.