INFORMATION

Exercise Your InkTank
INFORMATION Glut

The trouble with INFORMATION is that its transmission often raises issues of credibility, believability, and trust. INFORMATION is heavy, angular, and conspicuous. It can be very difficult to manage as INFORMATION. Here’s what can happen when INFORMATION does not rise out the story organically:

“What’s going on here Susan? It seems like there are millions of Americans here on the shores of Lake Michigan,” said Mike. He folded his blue hat in his hands.
“It’s the World’s Fair, silly, an incredibly popular and immensely influential social and cultural event,” said Susan. She straightened her old-looking dress at the waist.
“We’re lucky to be here,” he said. He touched her arm—a little forward for the times.
“We sure are. The year of 1893 is turning out to be a good one.”

Here are some concerns I’ve often heard from group members, students, teachers, mentors, and colleagues alike:

I want to deliver the kind of INFORMATION that convinces my readers of my credibility as a writer and/or convinces my readers of my character’s credibility without seeming like that’s what I’m doing; there’s nothing less convincing than a writer who’s obviously trying to convince you.

I want to get technical INFORMATION into my story without turning away readers who may not be familiar with the terminology or seeming opaque.

I want to get INFORMATION about technology, geography, politics, history, into my story that my readers will need to understand in order to follow my story, but I don’t want that INFORMATION to bog down my storytelling.

I want to get INFORMATION into my story in order to entertain and hold the interest of my readers.

I want to get INFORMATION into my story seamlessly—I don’t want it to seem like INFORMATION.

Behind these concerns are very particular larger issues—issues we should talk about as writers. Right now. But the problem with INFORMATION is that it isn’t STORYTELLING. It’s INFORMATION. Working INFORMATION into a story is always going to be a challenge for that reason.

Here goes:
I’m going to distribute little piles of INFORMATION around the room. Choose any pile you like and investigate it. Next, write a segment (of a poem, a story, an essay, a scene or something in-between) that engages some of the ideas present in your pile. If your experiment is successful, your readers should not be able to sense the presence of the INFORMATION in your segment—they’ll be engaged in your storytelling, engaged in the continuous dream that is the world of your story. Even if INFORMATION isn’t a problem for you, this exercise will give you a chance to come into your writing at a different angle.

Political Poems Now

FORSYTHIA WINTER
by Melissa Tuckey

First snap and daffodils nod off
they always look
so surprised

while here in D.C.
everything wants to bloom
at once a profusion
of highway exits
and war

I want off this crazy
interchange forward and back
illegal turns and still
the land refuses

Go ahead open your hand
what emptiness
will you offer

that wild impulse the rain



THE GENESIS OF TORTURE
by E. Ethelbert Miller

In the beginning
we will all wear black hoods

Our faces will be hidden from history and
someone will tie a cruel footnote to our genitals

It might be a neighbor disguised as God



TAR
by C. K. Williams

The first morning of Three Mile Island: those first disquieting, uncertain, mystifying hours.
All morning a crew of workmen have been tearing the old decrepit roof off our building,
and all morning, trying to distract myself, I've been wandering out to watch them
as they hack away the leaden layers of asbestos paper and disassemble the disintegrating drains.
After half a night of listening to the news, wondering how to know a hundred miles downwind
if and when to make a run for it and where, then a coming bolt awake at seven
when the roofers we've been waiting for since winter sent their ladders shrieking up our wall,
we still know less than nothing: the utility company continues making little of the accident,
the slick federal spokesmen still have their evasions in some semblance of order.
Surely we suspect now we're being lied to, but in the meantime, there are the roofers,
setting winch-frames, sledging rounds of tar apart, and there I am, on the curb across, gawking.
I never realized what brutal work it is, how matter-of-factly and harrowingly dangerous.
The ladders flex and quiver, things skid from the edge, the materials are bulky and recalcitrant.
When the rusty, antique nails are levered out, their heads pull off; the underroofing crumbles.
Even the battered little furnace, roaring along as patient as a donkey, chokes and clogs,
a dense, malignant smoke shoots up, and someone has to fiddle with a cock, then hammer it,
before the gush and stench will deintensify, the dark, Dantean broth wearily subside.
In its crucible, the stuff looks bland, like licorice, spill it, though, on your boots or coveralls,
it sears, and everything is permeated with it, the furnace gunked with burst and half-burst bubbles,
the men themselves so completely slashed and mucked they seem almost from another realm, like trolls.
When they take their break, they leave their brooms standing at attention in the asphalt pails,
work gloves clinging like Br'er Rabbit to the bitten shafts, and they slouch along the precipitous lip,
the enormous sky behind them, the heavy noontime air alive with shimmers and mirages.
Sometime in the afternoon I had to go inside: the advent of our vigil was upon us.
However much we didn't want to, however little we would do about it, we'd understood:
we were going to perish of all this, if not now, then soon, if not soon, then someday.
Someday, some final generation, hysterically aswarm beneath an atmosphere as unrelenting as rock,
would rue us all, anathematize our earthly comforts, curse our surfeits and submissions.
I think I know, though I might rather not, why my roofers stay so clear to me and why the rest,
the terror of that time, the reflexive disbelief and distancing, all we should hold on to, dims so.
I remember the president in his absurd protective booties, looking absolutely unafraid, the fool.
I remember a woman on the front page glaring across the misty Susquehanna at those looming stacks.
But, more vividly, the men, silvered with glitter from the shingles, clinging like starlings beneath the eaves.
Even the leftover carats of tar in the gutter, so black they seemed to suck the light out of the air.
By nightfall kids had come across them: every sidewalk on the block was scribbled with obscenities and hearts.

It's Politic

"The Colonel" by Carolyn Forche

What you have heard is true. I was in his house.
His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. His
daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the
night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol
on the cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on
its black cord over the house. On the television
was a cop show. It was in English. Broken bottles
were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man's legs or cut his
hands to lace. On the windows there were gratings
like those in liquor stores. We had dinner, rack of
lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes,
salt, a type of bread. I was asked how I enjoyed
the country. There was a brief commercial in
Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk of how difficult it had become to govern.
The parrot said hello on the terrace. The colonel
told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the
table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to
bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on
the table. They were like dried peach halves. There
is no other way to say this. He took one of them in
his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a
water glass. It came alive there. I am tired of
fooling around he said. As for the rights of anyone,
tell your people they can go f--- themselves. He
swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held
the last of his wine in the air. Something for your
poetry, no? he said. Some of the ears on the floor
caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the ears on
the floor were pressed to the ground.

False Start Re-Starts by Salon Members

The Writing Group Speaks
by Dick Mashburn

What follows is original but not spontaneous or unprovoked. It’s a
response to one of the interventions of our moderator/chief instigator.
The idea for this game is that she gave us a bunch of scraps of writing
she found on or in the vicinity of her desk. There’s no telling if it
was part of a significant work or just words that somehow came to rest
on that shred of paper.

What’s not in doubt, however, is that being dutiful writing groupers,
we vied for the privilege of putting these would-be gems into a
context, that like a jewelers finest setting can unlock the complete
and true beauty that now lies passively as in a humble …

The President, for Christ sake, is up there in a helicopter, surveying.
“Our worst fears,” he says, “are heading South.”

“It was those bastard Democrats,” he continued (alteration from
original). “They roiled around making such a stink that that jerk
Señior Fox got the Mexican legislature to create a whole package of
benefits for Mexican workers. Now, instead of flooding into this
country to take jobs nobody else wants, and behave like angels because
they know that if they FU, we’ll send ‘em home in a heartbeat, they
shoot down the tubes back to good old Mexico.

“Of course somebody’s got to pay for this, and that bastard Fox got the
legislators to put huge taxes, it’s like Nucular War on all American
companies. By the time Ford adjusts for the new taxes, they have to
jack the price of a “nicely equipped” Focus to $32,000. That puts their
workers in this country out of work and they go scurrying off to North
Carolina to work in the textile mills. Raleigh-Durham is beginning to
look a third world country, and those S.O.B.s over there in Tsunami
Land don’t even appreciate us sending them shirts. Said they need
machines to make shirts, like they used to, not shirts, or worse yet,
us exporting shirts all over the world.

“Thanks a lot World. Thanks for the gratitude.”


Cicadas On Us
by Kalman Kivkovich

2004 was the most recent emerging time of Cincinnati-17-year cicadas. I was here, waiting in anticipation. I remember my father talking to me about those fascinating insects, more than fifty years ago. I recall him claiming to have captured fifty cicadas in some glass jars, just to free them later unharmed. "I can't kill anything," he had said.
Since my early childhood, those goldish-looking bugs had visited at least three times. But in 2004, they came in-force, never seen before. My heavenly-kingdom grounds were not spared. They came a little late, but they came-trillions and trillions of them. And their symphonic non-stop opus, MAN! They say it is exclusively-male stuff. They must know their stuff! The intense, high-pitched humming can harm your eardrums; it can be as loud as a 747 Delta Jet flying over Clifton; it surely fends off birds, sometimes.
I was brave, my wife wouldn't dare to come within a foot and even then I had to hold her hand. I collected a few specimens, housing them in an empty glass pickle jar. Yes, I did pierce the tin cover for breathing air---like my dad, I didn't want to kill them. I waited for them to sing, but they were not in the mood, I guess. All they did was crawl on top of each other. After a few days, there were fewer that still crawled . . . and then came the stench . . . and then came the second empty glass jar---this time it was from mayonnaise, just in case the new cicadas liked it better.
I observed my prisoners closely; my nose was touching the glass. I didn't bother to feed them; they say that cicadas don't eat anything, and that they have already stuffed themselves of tree sap underground. So I just looked at them carefully, I looked at their huge red eyes, one on each side of the head and at the other three little shiny eyes on top of their head. With their wings, they resembled common giant houseflies. The wings were fascinating---glassy and transparent wax-paper-like held by an elaborate vein structure---reflecting sunlight in shimmering rays. My eye traveled to their legs, And legs they have---three pairs of them.
After a two-day clinic, I decided to let my jailbirds go free. Only two were still moving, the rest were stock-still; a few sparkly wings littered the bottom of the jar. I had read that cicadas don't bite; they didn't harm me thus far, although they were everywhere: covering my trees, shrubs, grass, walls and even the windshield of my car. In most cases they simply took off and flew when approached.
I stepped out to the porch. "Okay, little fellows," I said, "your days are numbered anyway. Go find yourself a mate, have fun and die." I took the lid off and shook the jar. No takers. I tapped on the glass. "Go, go you . . ."
And off they went. I wouldn't know if it was a hop or a natural take off. The two creatures flew straight into my thick curly hair. I was startled; I jumped backward, my hands reached up, searching to grab the unforeseen attackers. "Sons of bitches!" I yelled, "Get off me, you bastards!" I ran back into the house and jigged my way to the dinning room.
Locks of hair dropped to the floor. The cicadas kept clinging to my scalp, burying their claws in my now rapidly disappearing hair. The place looked a lot like a barbershop, not a dining room. My screaming and jumping were in vain. By the time I managed to rid myself of those Devils, I was petrified to glance at a mirror; the floor spoke volumes. The two cicadas were still alive, still clenching to some strands of my past glory. In my anger I raised my foot to crush them . . . and then again I remembered my father. "Damn it, I can't!" I scooped the mess into a paper beg and emptied its contents in the woods behind my deck. When I returned, I barely gathered the nerve to peek at my image in the bathroom mirror. "My God, what will Sandi say?" I said to myself. I looked so much different. Heartbroken, I left the bathroom. I took off my sandals and headed to the bedroom. My right foot hit the doorjamb. "Fuck! Oh God . . ." In an instant, all my grief of loosing my hair had vanished---I was dancing, kicking my legs up and high. . . .

It has been a couple of years since my encounter with those terrestrial flying vermin. I still have some hair left, but not much to brag about. The important thing is that my wife likes it as it is, so she says. And one more thing: I have been told by many that my Jive has improved. . . .


CICADAS AND OTHER FANTASIES KEPT IN GLASS JARS
by Sandi Kivkovich

My father claims to have captured fifty cicadas in glass jars.
He also claims to have freed them.
"I can't kill anything," he said.
My father claims he can tell when it is going to rain.
His sisters tell how as a child he pretended to be the wind and the storm cloud.
"I can't hide my feelings," he said.
My father claims he can tell a story about anything.
He captivated my youth and beyond.
"Life is a story," he said.
My father claims that he understands feelings.
All are important.
"A child's problems seem as large to them as those of adults," he said.
My father claims he is fine.
He slaps his knee and laughs and sings songs in gibberish to me.
"What's your name little girl?" he said.

New Wheels

Exercise Your InkTank

The story goes that false starts can be useful failures—at least you’re writing, right?—but as useful as they are, they can also be demoralizing, frustrating, intimidating, exasperating, and annoying. Over time you may develop a sense for what has wheels and what doesn’t, but even the most experienced of writers have false starts. I know several novelists who have written several (one of them five) novels, before they’ve found the story they wanted to tell. They regard their novels-never-to-be in this way: it’s precious trash. Some writers cannibalize old failed projects, pulling a few lines, an image, or even a chapter into their current work. Some simply take what they’ve learned and translate it. But what do you do with those pages-that-go-nowhere sitting on your hard drive after you’ve scrapped them for the metal?

Here’s one idea: you give them away. My gift to you this evening is a collection of little fits and starts, all of Salon-workable length, all culled from my fail-files. See what you can do with them. Pick any one or two you like and revise it in any way you please. It’s yours now. I won’t need it back when you’re done.

1. Again it happens that I am terrible. It isn’t often that every face looks petulant. Even the ones I don’t know. And the meaning the world has to offer is ground down, a smart kick, or there’s merely the birds in their sheer numbers winding the cycle of the rooftops and me. You can look and there they are. And then that’s all there is.

2. I rent a cottage on a two-mile spread with another rental set up ten feet across a gravel drive from mine. The other place is a three bedroom house. Probably a hundred years old. I live in its converted shed. Probably once the site of an outhouse. It’s nice though, remodeled. The stove almost works, carpet’s stained, but you can work around these things, or over. The neighbors are boys, maybe eighteen, maybe still in high school. I did not know that this would happen when I moved in.

3. My father claims to have captured fifty cicadas in glass jars.
He claims also to have freed them. “I can’t kill anything,” he said.

4. I never wanted a good explanation for heat lightening.

5. I was little when my mother first told me not to get my hopes up. She said it would hurt more in the end if you went in thinking positive. And, if you went in expecting failure, think how good you’d feel about it if you had luck. I was an awkward girl and it struck me she was probably right. I went into womanhood expecting it would turn out poorly. My hopes were so low, good weather excited me. When I hit high school, I couldn’t get a date. Then it came out I was easy because who’d date a girl with a sack of bricks for an ass? I played that game and I wasn’t stupid about it. I knew about taking what you can get and what it can get you. I kept my eye off the prize. Once I’d had it done to me every way by most everybody, I figured life would get measly and lonely again. I figured at best I’d marry somebody cheaper than me and bury his complaints in my thighs. But then Walter showed up with his hands stroking my back like I was a little bird. Walter showed up and it was love, love, love.

6. The last thing the widow says to her keeper is, do not try to know how to say love. Many times we fail disbelieving. Is it you? Is it you? Are you the one? I don’t want you to tell me. It’s something we’ve already done. And so we must sleep. We must decide now that our living here is enough.

7. There is only as much tension in the finest disguises.
Otherwise, we would always be thieves.

8. All kids believe in God and sugar.

9. The President, for Christ sake,
is up there in a helicopter, surveying.
Our worst fears, he says,
are heading South.

As Promised: Three Prose Poems by Russell Edson

Grass

The living room is overgrown with grass. It has
come up around the furniture. It stretches through
the dining room, past the swinging door into the
kitchen. It extends for miles and miles into the
walls . . .

There's treasure in grass, things dropped or put
there; a stick of rust that was once a penknife, a
grave marker. . . All hidden in the grass at the
scalp of the window . . .

In a cellar under the grass an old man sits in a
rocking chair, rocking to and fro. In his arms he
holds an infant, the infant body of himself. And
he rocks to and fro under the grass in the
dark . . .



Accidents

The barber has accidentally taken off an ear. It lies like
something newborn on the floor in a nest of hair.
Oops, says the barber, but it musn't've been a very good
ear, it came off with very little complaint.
It wasn't, says the customer, it was always overly waxed.
I tried putting a wick in it to burn out the wax, thus to find my
way to music. But lighting it I put my whole head on fire. It
even spread to my groin and underarms and to a nearby
forest. I felt like a saint. Someone thought I was a genius.
That's comforting, says the barber, still, I can't send you
home with only one ear. I'll have to remove the other one. But
don't worry, it'll be an accident.
Symmetry demands it. But make sure it's an accident, I
don't want you cutting me up on purpose.
Maybe I'll just slit your throat.



Antimatter

On the other side of a mirror there's an inverse world,
where the insane go sane; where bones climb out of the
earth and recede to the first slime of love.

And in the evening the sun is just rising.

Lovers cry because they are a day younger, and soon
childhood robs them of their pleasure.

In such a world there is much sadness which, of course,
is joy.
But it has to be an accident . . .