The Angsts and Poets of April

"April," 5 x 7 watercolor, 140 lb. Fabriano Artistico cold press paper

How do you paint April?
Clouds or sunshine? Birth or death? Hope or despair? Beauty or beast?
There's the beauty of flowers and rain, and the terror of tornadoes. There was the birth of our Revolution, and the brutality of the OKC bombing. April is no fool
If you look for poets for advice, you find all those opposites, but more negative than positive.
This year, we're relieved to get through March, but face a longer April as the pandemic wreaks and wrecks havoc with every aspect of our lives all over the world.
Somebody suggested we keep journals of this disaster, for both our own mental health but also for future generations. I guess this blog and paintings approach that, though I'm more interested in bringing some color into these dark months, and recording facts. 
But such diaries are important, especially as we have no idea how long or really catastrophic this plague is going to be. 
Consider Samuel Pepys' 1665-1666 diary of the black death pandemic in London--it provides both the human and historical record that killed about 100,000 people in 18 months, a quarter of London's people. 
In our April, where there will be more deaths, more tragedies, back to the poets, who show us not much has changed over the years.
The first who came to my mind was T.S. Eliot, and particularly bleak, in The Waste Land:

   "April is the cruelest month, breeding

    Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

    Memory and desire, stirring

    Dull roots with spring rain."

Offset that with Shakespeare please:

   "April, dressed in all its trim, hath put a spirit of youth in everything."

But then there's Charles Lamb:"Here cometh April again, and as far as I can see the world hath more fools in it than ever—"

Go way back to 1367 to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, first in Middle English:

"Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour;" Translation:  "When in April the sweet showers fall that pierce March's drought to the root and all, And bathed very vein in liquor that has power To generate therein and sire the flower." Edna St. Vincent Millay was somewhat more cynical, in two poems: "April this year, not otherwise Than April of a year ago Is full of whispers, full of sighs,..." "Life in itself Is nothing, An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. It is not enough that yearly, down this hill, April Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.” Though not a poet, George Orwell wrote a line in 1984 that really seems to fit the insanity of our current crisis: "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." The Angst of April indeed. I'll take clouds and colors thank you.

'Watch where you put your words'

Thinking about speeches and writing in higher education, government, military, politics, 24-hour broadcast news and opinion coverage, sports commentators, and preachers--and how their many words show how fake the speakers  are, how witless they are, and their low opinions of their listeners, employees and citizens.

• “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words."--Matt. 6:7, Jesus
• "When elders speak, they need very few words to make their point. Too many words,...are not needed by true elders...If you talk too much or too loud, you are usually not an elder."--Falling Upward, Fr. Richard Rohr
• "Watch where you put your words... .language is a virus..."--American Gods, Neil Gaiman
• "If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out."--Politics and the English Language, George Orwell
• "Brevity is the soul of wit." --Hamlet, Shakespeare

Going for the drama, in writing-- II

"Get to the point," I often irritate friends who get a little long-winded in telling a story.
What I'm really saying is, "Go for the drama."
Here is a version of the first  page of handouts for my workshop session for the Oklahoma City Writers group at Full Circle Bookstore.

Consider these first lines of novels:

• It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.
• Call me Ishmael.
• It was a bright cold day, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
• All children, except one, grow up.
• Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.
• It was inevitable; the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.
• Elmer Gantry was drunk.
• A green hunting camp squeezed on top of a fleshy balloon of a head.
• The last camel collapsed at noon. 

       They all grab your attention, and make you want to keep reading. Quiz--Do you know the authors? Answers at bottom.

In the beginning

“En el Principio, era el Verbo, y el Verbo era con Dios, y el Verbo era Dios.” San Juan 1:1

      “In the beginning was The Verb, and the Verb was with God and The Verb was God”

 “…le mot, c’est le Verb, et le Verb c’est Dios.” Victor Hugo

     “The word is the verb, and the verb is God.”

“No verb, no story, no drama.” Terry Clark

• My students know I am a verb nut. Much of modern writing is guilty of "verbicide." If you want drama, you have to be a verbaholic.  
• The most important words in a sentence are the verbs. Without verbs, nouns and adverbs and adjectives sit like empty boxcars on a siding, going nowhere, without a locomotive. Without them, nothing happens. They are action keys to getting to the point quickly, to grabbing and keeping readers’ attention.
• Theology on John 1:1. The Word (English translation), is really Verb. The Verb is the incarnate Christ, but in the beginning was the force and the power of creation. In sentences and storytelling, the verb is the power and force of creation.

First sentences

The most important sentences you will write in a story?

The first ones.

Why?

What is the purpose of writing? To be read.

If you don’t catch your readers’ attention, you’re wasting your time.

Best test for effective first sentences: “Will I keep reading?”

It’s called, “Going for the drama.”

Examples

from my former students' stories and one I did for Oklahoma Today magazine on weekly newspapers:

• “The sergeant fumbles with one hand to unbutton his fly.”
• “Every Tuesday at one p.m., a silver-haired woman in her eighties centers the Sayre Record and plunks down seventy-five pennies for the latest news.”
• “’I want to study people with the flesh on,’ she says.”
• “The long, thin fingers of a frustrated pianist work the control board switches as her melodic voice interrupts the airwaves.
• “The sergeant fumbles with one hand to unbutton his fly.”

In keeping with brevity, this is the end of this post. The second workshop handout follows.

• Answers to authors--Charles Dickens-A Tale of Two Cities, Herman Melville-Moby Dick, George Orwell-1984, J.M. Barrie-Peter Pan,  VladmirNobokov-Lolita, Gabriel Garcia Marquez--Love in the Time of Cholera, Sinclair Lewis-Elmer Gantry, John Kennedy Toole--A Confederacy of Dunces, Ken Follett--The Key to Rebecca.