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On the Nature of Literary Friendship
A Web Del Sol series
compiled and edited by Robert Sward
Introduction
“How about a short piece--an essay, a story, a couple anecdotes--on writers’
friendships? ” I asked a friend. “Your honest thoughts--no
bullshit! We’re looking for writers’ experiences... what it’s like for one
writer to keep up a friendship with another.”
A respected poet and critic, D. was the first person I asked to submit work for
this Web Del Sol/Perihelion feature.
Shaking her head, she laughed. You can be friends with someone, but you
can also be competitive with them. That can work as a spur. And our
local writers’ group--friends critiquing one another’s work--has been a real
boon. On the other hand, we both know people for whom the phrase
writers’ friendship
would seem an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms, like resident alien or small
crowd. It’s true writers hangout, make love, compete with and steal from
other writers, but is that friendship? We’ve been around long enough to
know the upshot of such
friendships
is not always pretty. All I’m saying is that there are friendships and
there are friendships.”
“Ted Solotaroff claims aggression is a writer’s main source of energy, ” I say,
“ the fuel for all those stories and poems about betrayal and bad luck
relationships, for example, plus anything else a person wants to write
about. John Berryman said something similar: “The artist is extremely
lucky who is presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually
kill him. At that point, he’s in business.” Keeping up a friendship with
aggressive people--or people who’ve been through hell--can be a challenge,
particularly if you and your friend (a) find you disagree about something or
(b) end up competing for some grant or other slice of the writer’s pie.
“By the way, I’m not a cynic,” I go on, “but if you’re looking for the source
of a writer’s aggression, just probe a little, ask about that
person’sexperience with friendship, literary friendship.”
“I wouldn’t necessarily chose Aggression as a muse for writing, ” says
D., but I confess I’ve sometimes been inspired to write, and publish,
poems that had an impure origin, poems that came about, in part, because I
happened to envy or felt competitive with a fellow writer. And I’m
speaking here about writers I feel close to, people I admire, writers I
regarded then, and still regard, as friends,” she says.
“That’sit, ” I say, “ that’s what we’re looking for.”
“But hell, one has to start somewhere, ” she continues. “One may begin
with impure motives, but that doesn’t mean the finished work is going to be a
disaster. It’s possible to begin a poem wanting to tear someone’s head
off and end an hour or two later phoning to thank them--particularly if the
poem or story plays out the way you hope it will.”
“Whatever works,” I say.
“Friendship is all well and good, but I’m especially interested in friendship’s
yeasty underside, ” she says. “I long for writing buddies as much as
anyone else, but I have difficulty trusting and supporting and remaining loyal
to people who, after all, are no less obsessed, neurotic and self-involved than
I am. So, Robert, I’ll contribute to and read your feature because I want
to see how other people are faring. All I know is I write one flawed poem
and imperfect story after another, and I write them in some strange half-light,
knowing that, even as I set words on the page, the odds are against me and time
is running out."
____________________
BIONOTE:
ROBERT SWARD has taught at Cornell University, the Iowa Writers'
Workshop, and UC Santa Cruz. A Guggenheim Fellow, he was
chosen by Lucille Clifton to receive a Villa Montalvo Literary Arts
Award.
His 18 books include: Heavenly Sex; Rosicrucian in the Basement, both
from
Black Moss Press; and Four Incarnations (Coffee House Press). Sward
serves as
contributing editor to the Internet's "Web Del Sol/Perihelion," "Blue
Moon
Review" and other eZines. Robert will be touring with Heavenly Sex this
fall
and winter.
http://www.robertsward.com
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