upending the muse article

8/11/2019 Upending the Muse Article

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U P E N D IN G T H E M U S E

H IS N O N S E N SE A B O U T

F A I Y L IK E W R IT IN G S P IR IT

often wondered if I was doing it right.

W as it romantic, if I did not do it on the

veranda, beneath the rustling branches of

a weeping w illow tree? Was it picturesque, if

I did not do it in a smokingjacket, white suit,

or riding boots? And sho uld I do it at all, so-

ber? The truly great ones, I hear, did it knee-

walkin drunk.

(No, not that. I never thought much about

that. Youjust do that, if you are able. I am talk-

ing about writing; specifically, writing in the

South.)

Here, where the history of writing is so

deep and rich that magic, surely, must be

involved, the craft comes with a dance card

of legend, myth, and pretension. Could mor-

tal men and women tell stories so well? Or,

through an open window did inspiration

come?

The accoutrem ents, the fashion, I can do

without, but I have always been intrigued by

the notion, the whimsy, that some kind of

writing spirit hovers near.

I , myself, have never seen one. But all my

writing life I have heard writers speak of it,

wistfully, as if it were a lover. Oh, punkin, I

had planned to write today, but the m use, you

see, it just wasnt

o n m e .

ts not that I haven t looked for it, for its

inspiration, like a sinner on his knees at the

altar call. But I am as yet unsaved. I fear it is my

own fault, for not being better bred.

The muse, it seems to me, is watered in ju-

leps and fanned with old money.

I was born a blue-collar Southerner and

always will be, in the same way new m oney

can never be Old Charleston. I am fine with

it. Polo shirts wear like sandpaper compared

to a twelve-year-old T-shirt from Orange

Beach. And nothing looks dumber to me than

a fully grown man in a long-sleeved pink but-

ton-down and a pair of pressed khaki shorts. If

someone dressed me like that, I think I might

set myself on fire.

A white suit? I am a m an tall and wide, and

in one, I would resemble the screen at a drive-

in movie. They would be showing

Walking

Tal l II

Popeye cartoons, and dancing hot dogs

across my chest. A smoking jacket? Where I

come from in Alabama, that is what happens

when you r cousin goes to sleep with a Pall

M all in his lips. (Dont even ask me about rid-

ing boots or I will commenc e to twitch and

talk to myself.)

I do not have a veranda, just a big porch

where the copperheads like to warm their

blood, but I have written in some of your nicer

Ham pton Inns and, once, on an upside-down

oil drum. And I do nt write at all, drunk. I can

fight drunk and fish drunk, but I have to be

clearheaded to drive cars, explain myself to my

wife, and move a semicolon.

That muse, though, I would welcome. But

where is mine? D id I not get one because my

great-great grandmother did not run and hide

the silver when she heard the Yankees a

Did the muse pass me by because non

relatives speak like Foghorn L eghorn?

M aybe, like in the case of that pi

his knees, you have to believe, really

to get one?

Or maybe, just maybe, its all an i

by the rich folks--a kind of pink-b

down plot--to keep this writing

themselves.

Think about it . When w as the la

you heard a man writing for wages say,

need to finish them obits, but, well, t

has plumb evaded me ?

But to hear som e writers talk, it i

rious spirit. It is a flitting, unpred

fairylike creature that fails from h

glides twice around the magnolia, an

es lightly down, usually on the

porch. It glows with a kind of elvish

and flings a golden glitter of fairy dus

the keys of their old Underwood--b

only a Philistine would write on a m

that requires a power cord.

It darts like a hummingbird from ea

whispering sentences o f beauty, gra

power; whole paragraphs that will tra

barren pages into poetry, something

than real life. And they type as it talk

faster, till the ends of their fingers are

till drops of blood fly into the stic

because its the damn S outh--and land

parchment, feeding the prose, till th

24 iN OXFORD A~I|IRICAN . I~sue 86

Young Wom an wi th a Cupid (2009) by Fatima Ronqui l lo , Wal ly Workman Gal lery, Au


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page grows warm under their hands and they

have to rip i t out and fl ing i t , smo king now ,

across the room.

They snatch another sheet and roll it in as

fast as they can, but the muse--that hussy--has

fled, and all they see is a speck of light, a glim-

mer of an idea, as it vanishes into the dark.

But thats okay, because they don t do it

for the m oney, the contract, the deadline, the

rent. They do it for art.

So w hat if it is just a page? It is all the muse

will spare. The trust fund will keep the lights

on, till it comes again.

But I dont think the muse looks l ike that ,

or maybe it s just that the muse is different

things to different people.

I think the muse is not a fairy at all but a

sharp, prodding thing, like worry, or need.

It is always amo ng u s

You w rite because you have to and you do

not whine abo ut it, because as hard as writing

is it is not real work, like roofing, or toting

cement blocks, or wiping tables at a Waffle

Ho use. But you treat it like real work. You can-

not do it, this work, on an antique; you would

beat an antique to scrap. You need electricity

to write this way, the same w ay a guitar man

in a busted-up juke joint needs juice running

to his strings, to be heard.

So, wired, you write; write until you cre-

ate some space between your peace of mind

and some sharp thing in your head, write un-

til you fulfill the contract you have signed or

the deadline you are given or unti l you have

m ined just one more ton of coal, t i l l you be-

lieve you wont be too far behind the nex t day,

when you go back down into that hole.

Because you know that some days it doesnt

come at all, the words, and you write anyway,

gaining just inches instead of yards, write

until you cant feel your legs and your fam ily

thinks that you might be dead.

If it had a form, this muse, it would be a

hairy, goatlike beast, something you pin down

with a boot on its neck, just so you wont be so

goddam n lonely during this hateful process.

And at night, when you believe you are done

with it, it bumps and grow ls from underneath

your bed.

All in all, I guess, I d rather have the rich

folks muse.

I wonder . Do they make a sm oking jacket

i~ a fifty-two long? ~

26

THE OXFORD AMERICAN "k ~ssue 66

Nevada

Barr

M oira L Crone Wally Lam b

Lois Ruby

Dan Bau m

D aniel M ark Epstein

Louis M aistros

Warw ick ~abi

Alex Beard

Ernest J. Gaines

M ichael Malone

M arc Smimo

John Besh

Tim Gautreaux

Pearl Amelia M cHaney

Ned Sublette

Ro y Blount Jr.

Lorraine Gendron

Paula M orris Jennie

T h o m p

D arrell Bourque

Robert Hicks

Ed Nelson

Emily Toth

Rick

Bragg

Suzanne Hudson

Peter Neofotis Robin Wells

S o n n y B r e w er

Alan Huffman

Kathy Patrick

Neff White

Ethan Brown

Barb Johnson

Faye Phillips

Kevin W ilson

Toni McGee Causey

Fred Kaplan

John Pipkin

Charles Reagan W

William Caverlee

Blair Kflpatrick

Kathy P ories

Reggie Youn

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upending the muse article

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