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September 6, 2010
The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people
forget that certain other sets of people are human.”
—Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
If the question is, are the Israeli government and its supporters serious about addressing the issues that cause them their biggest public relations problems, the answer is no. Instead of changing its behavior, Israel’s response to criticism is a simple one: Deny wrongdoing, play the role of victim, punish those who resist, and attack and destroy the credibility of those who criticize it.
Earlier this year The Reut Institute (http://www.reut-institute.org/en/Default.aspx), an Israeli think tank founded in 2004 by Gidi Grinstein and others, published a 93-page report titled: “Building a Political Firewall against Israel’s Delegitimization”. A primer in designing and carrying out a propaganda campaign (called “public relations” in the report), it is a very revealing document. (For a copy, click on http://www.reut-institute.org/data/uploads/PDFVer/20100310%20Delegitimacy%20Eng.pdf.) Continue reading Are The Israelis Serious? That Depends
August 21, 2010
“AP News Oklahoma City, 12/23/75 — Manson-like slaying rocks small-town Christmas festivities.” So begins Kathleen McKenna’s brilliant new novel. It is a gem. Spooky, funny, romantic, sexy, touching, it works at every level. The two protagonists, Leanne and Jessie are a Laverne and Shirley pair, only much younger. I found myself laughing out loud [...]
August 18, 2010
I love a good mystery, and Joanne Ellis has written one. Her new novel, “Spoilt”, is a gem. A serial killer begins killing beautiful young women and, after torturing them, carving the words “SPOILT BITCH” on their chests. Two homicide detectives, Lucas Hudson and Maggie Johnson, are assigned to the case. It becomes obvious [...]
August 14, 2010
Whether or not you’ve ever wanted to be, tried to be, or been hip, cool or “in”, read K. J. Rigby’s “Little Guide to Unhip”. It’s a frolic through all the silliness that “hip”, “cool” and “in” mean in every generation. Have fun with this book. It’ll give you a lot of chuckles and some real belly laughs. Continue reading “Little Guide to Unhip”, by K. J. Rigby
August 10, 2010
The more I read about the history of the Palestinian people, the more I am reminded of the history of America’s indigenous people since Christopher Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola in 1492. In both cases ethnic cleansing with its accompanying genocide were norms, especially when the indigenous peoples fought back. In both cases the indigenous populations were treated with disrespect, contempt and removal. And in both cases, genocide and ethnic cleansing were denied by the conquerors and their friends. In the public discourse, we’re the good guys, they the villains. As Israeli historian Shlomo Sand says “what history does not wish to relate, it omits[1]” as if omitting it wipes the slate of history clean. It does not. Eventually, liked or not, truth emerges and has to be faced. Continue reading “His name was Mohammed, and he was a good man”
August 9, 2010
There is a mystery in Marian Van Eyk McCain’s delightful little tale … or several of them. It’s all so academic, this online forum on physics. Who, exactly is Greeneyes, whose name keeps popping up? What kind of new experiment is she inviting people to participate in? Or is she just asking you? [...]
August 8, 2010
George Fripley’s How to Polish a Turd (subtitle: “A Civil Servant’s Manual”) kept me laughing all the way through. If you’ve ever worked for a bureaucracy, dealt with one or know someone who has done either, you know how maddening the experience can be. And how maddeningly amusing. I found myself nodding my head and coming up with my own examples throughout the book, as I’m sure you will when you read it.
The secret to dealing with and working for a bureaucracy is to learn the system and to learn how to work with it without losing your mind or your soul. The best thing is to not lose either, but that’s more difficult … and perhaps impossible. But if you want to give it a go, George Fripley’s manual is the book for you to read. And carry your much dog-eared and tattered copy with you every day on your way to and from work so you can consult it. Continue reading How to Work For (and live with) a Bureaucracy Without Going Mad
August 2, 2010
Charlotte Castle: Simon’s Choice. Night Publishing, July 2010.
If you enjoy good stories, you will want to read Charlotte Castle’s Simon’s Choice. It is one of the best novels I have read.
One of the most tragic things in life is to have a child diagnosed with a life-threatening illness like cancer. The dreams you’ve had as parents, the life you’ve built as a couple, even the meaning of life itself begin to slide off their foundation and crumble. You are horrified, angry and scared. Everything, it seems, is beyond your control. You begin to look for someone to blame. Frequently that is your spouse.
Such is the story of Simon and Melissa, a British physician and his wife, their beloved seven year old daughter Sarah, their dog Porridge, and Sara’s grandparents. Sarah has a particularly aggressive form of leukemia. All her parents can do is love her, watch, wait and hope. Emotionally it is killing them. Having spent forty-plus years in the counseling profession, Simon and Melissa’s story is a familiar one. Continue reading If you love a good book, Charlotte Castle’s “Simon’s Choice” is one of the best
July 31, 2010
Kenneth Ring, PhD and Ghassan Abdullah, editors: Letters from Palestine: Palestinians Speak Out about Their Lives, Their Country, and the Power of Nonviolence. Paperback, $26.95. Wheatmark, Tucson, Arizona, 2010. Website: www.wheatmark.com.
For Palestinians, 1948 was a catastrophe. When Israel was born, between 700,000 and 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their ancestral homes, farms, villages and towns and became permanent refugees. For them this murderous ethnic cleansing was their Holocaust. Sixty-two years later, it continues. For those who live in what was Palestine, the experience is one of contempt, persecution and eradication.
The following quote from professor and peace activist David Shulman’s book Dark Hope is a description of what it is like on the ground. “What we are fighting in the South Hebron Hills is pure, rarefied, unadulterated, uncontainable human evil. Nothing but malice drives this campaign to uproot” people from their homes. … “They led peaceful, if somewhat impoverished lives, until the settlers came. Since then, there has been no peace. They are tormented, terrified, incredulous, as am I. What black greed, what unwitting hatred, has turned Israeli Jews into the torturers of the innocent?”
The stories in Letters from Palestine are by people who live this reality on a daily basis. Some are refugees who cannot return. Most live in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. In reading their stories, two things are clear: no human being should have to endure what they have endured, on a daily basis, for sixty-two years. It is immoral to allow it to continue. Continue reading A Powerful Testimony to Courage and a Call to Action: a book review
June 23, 2010
One
One morning when grandfather and grandmother were visiting his younger brother on the family farm, grandfather looked out the window and said:
“Look, brother, there is a deer in the yard.”
And grandfather’s younger brother, Yojiro replied; “There are often deer in the yard, brother. Have you been gone so long that you’ve forgotten?”
“No,” said grandfather, “but this deer is different. This deer is leaning against that tree.” Continue reading Grandfather and the Deer
June 23, 2010
1
One bright sunny day, a grandfather sat eating his lunch on a long bench when a group of about twelve young wolves came up, sat down on both sides of him and began talking, laughing and enjoying themselves. Since there was not enough room on the bench for all of them, one young wolf remained standing a short distance away, eyeballing the grand-father.
“Grandfather!” the young wolf said, looking sharply at the old man who sat peacefully eating his lunch.
“Yes, I am a grandfather,” replied the old man. Since the young wolf didn’t say anything back, the grandfather went on enjoying his lunch in the sun and ignored the young wolf, who stared at him from where he stood nearby, shifting from one foot to another. Continue reading Grandfather and the Wolves
June 9, 2010
“Sherlock Holmes in a Flash: New Short Holmes Stories”, Abbott ePublishing, Manchester, New Hampshire, 2010, Stephen Abbott, Editor.
If you enjoy detective fiction, you will like this collection of 14 stories about the great detective. All of the stories but one are set in the Holmes era. The one that isn’t is a surprise [...]
May 26, 2010
To paraphrase something Thich Nhat Hanh once said, “Everything inter-is.”
Everything in nature is interconnected, including humans. We are a part of nature, not separate from it, set apart from and above it to do with it what we will. Like every other species, we are deeply embedded in nature and dependent on it [...]
April 19, 2010
Stella Evelyne Tesha: “A Journey Into Life”, Author House (UK), 2010.
In “A Journey Into Life”, Stella Tesha takes us on a journey of life from Europe to the villages of Africa and back again. Nothing hidden here; these are straightforward poems written from the heart.
A young woman asks her lover “Would [...]
March 16, 2010
The story came from a dream I had in December 2006 about a big Hokkaido snow monkey. I woke up wondering where the monkey came from and what he was doing in my dream. I’d never paid Hokkaido’s monkeys much attention before & had only seen them one time, and that was at the [...]
January 13, 2010
“My poems are written by a spirit on a stone.” So begins the first poem in this exquisite little book. If you’re not familiar with Freya Manfred’s poetry, this book is an excellent place to begin. If you are familiar with her poetry, add this to your collection. Reading it is a deep [...]
January 7, 2010
I’m back after a sabbatical from writing that I took because my creative well ran dry. It’s now filling up again. Aside from a couple of posts at “Tostada Speaks”, and a short article I co-wrote with a writer friend (Derek Chamberlain), this is the first writing I’ve done since early December.
It’s often called “writer’s block” — you know, when you’re sitting there in front of a blank screen or sheet of paper and your mind is blank … for days. I call it “when the well runs dry,. because that’s the way it feels. I’ve used too much of the “water” in it, it’s dry, and I have to wait until the spring replenishes it before I can write again. It’s a wake up call for me to sit back, relax, and let the well replenish, which it always does.
This happens to all writers. I use it to relax, visit with friends, wander around the city and my neighborhood, read — novels, history, commentary, newspapers from around the world (easy to do online), poetry, politics — whatever I get my hands on. All of it works to replenish my well. Gradually I sit down and do a blog post or two, do a book review. Then stories begin to emerge. Continue reading When the Well Runs Dry
December 1, 2009
1
Joseph Fernandez had just turned twenty five. On his birthday, he and his mother went to the church. At five o’clock in the morning, the old woman came into his room and shook him by the shoulder. “Joseph,” she said; “get up!” Then she shuffled out, leaving him to rub his eyes at the sun, which was just beginning to show itself through his window. Dressed, the two of them walked down the long street to the church. Joseph favored his game leg, the left one, the one crushed in the accident. His mother walked ahead of him, slowing every now and then and glancing over her right shoulder, as if to make sure that her son was still following after her. One never knew about that young man. Slowly, they climbed the long steps into the church, stopping briefly at the basin to dip their fingers and cross themselves, then moving silently into the body of the church. Genuflecting and crossing themselves again, they took their places in a pew, way down in front, where his mother liked to be. Joseph recalled having let his eyes run to the altar, which stood in awesome and overpowering silence behind the rail where he would soon receive that bit of Christ’s body that was his. He saw Christ hanging on His Cross, and to one side, the beautiful figure of Mary, His Mother, dressed in blue and white. It seemed to him as if She were smiling down at him. He crossed himself rapidly several times, shivering slightly, recalling the first time he had stood in the field and the Virgin had come to him in a vision. She had been smiling at him. He looked quickly sideways at his mother. Her head was bent and her lips were moving rapidly with her prayers. Wisps of grey hair had straggled loose from the bun at the back of her neck and hung by the side of her face. He wanted to reach out and touch her, but didn’t. Instead he looked back at the Virgin and became lost in Her beauty, almost feeling as though She were holding him, one of her lost ones, in Her arms. Continue reading Fernandez’ Tale
November 12, 2009
Mexico City Dream Trip
I wish
there was some way
to get
you & Mexico City together.
You’d enjoy it.
Your sharp blue eyes would
pick out everything
there is to see,
& you’d walk around
saying nothing
while your mind took everything in
& stored it.
What excitement
you would find there!
What material for dreams! Continue reading Mexico City Dream Trip
November 8, 2009
He met him on the third day of the second week after he opened his psychology practice on Rio Mississippi Street in mid-January, 1973 when his receptionist, Luisa Mercedes Rodriguez opened his office door, came in, closed it and said:
“Doctor Manning, he is here!”
“Who is ‘he,’ Luisa?” glancing down at his appointment book and seeing nothing written there for that hour; “A walk-in client?”
“No, doctor; he, that cop; you know, the one I told you about? ¿Sì?”
“Oh, you mean the one that collects protection money from people?”
“Yes, that one! He wants to see you. And he won’t wait.”
And then, as if to prove the truth of what she said, the door opened and there he stood, Sergeant Pedro Alfredo Gomez of the Mexico City Police Department, all five foot five lean muscular feet of him, dressed in khaki slacks, an open-neck light blue sport shirt, black shoes spit-shined like mirrors, hair and mustache neatly trimmed and brushed, staring at the psychologist with the flat, predatory eyes of a snake. Continue reading George Polley: “The Disappearance of Pedro Gomez”
November 7, 2009
Review of “Habibi”, by Naomi Shihab Nye. Mass Market Paperback. Simon Pulse, 1997.
Naomi Shihab Nye brings her poet’s voice to this touching story about 14 year old Liyana Abboud and her family as they move from St. Louis, Missouri to Palestine, where her father, a physician, was born and raised. The move isn’t an easy one, for more reasons than one. The family arrives to find conditions more tense than they had expected, with growing violence and a growing Israeli military presence in the West Bank. The story is also filled with some memorable characters, one of the most memorable being Sitti, Liyana’s 81 year old grandmother, who is the “glue” that holds her large family together, a veritable font of energy and wisdom. Continue reading A wonderful novel for young adults of any age
November 7, 2009
Review of “The Blue Food Revolution” by Tim Roux. Night Publishing, soft cover, 2009. ISBN 978-1-4415-4291-5.
Grandparents are known for the stories they tell. I remember listening to my grandfather Gerard as he told about his days as a boy in Deadwood, South Dakota, which were peopled with old Indians, gypsies, Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock. I’ve listened to other grandparent tales, too, and written a few myself. But none quite like the tales Tim Roux heard from his grandparents. The stories he heard are the stuff of fairytales, legends and myths, full of strange happenings and strange people. They make my grandpa Gerard’s stories seem, well, rather boring, though Deadwood with its denizens was definitely more interesting than Tacoma and West Seattle, Washington were when I was a boy so long ago.
“This book is exclusively an account of my grandfather’s adventures which started …. when one day he mounted the train to London Waterloo from Reading. It was a journey he repeated every weekday at the same time, travelling into the capital to work at the Westminster Bank as it was in those days. However, today would be different.” And from that day, all the days were different. Very different. Continue reading Some rollicking good grandparent tales, by Tim Roux
November 6, 2009
Posted by georgepolley in: Books, Creative Writing, Fiction, General Topics, Habit Change, Humor, Personal Experiences, Poetry, Sex, Short Stories, Social Issues, Technology, The Writer's Corner
 “At last!” Isn’t that what everyone says when they have their first sexual experience? “At last!” “it” happened. I recall as a young teenager praying (never out loud): “Please, God, don’t let me die until I’ve had sex!” And by that, I didn’t (and most people don’t) mean masturbation. That goes on without saying [...]
November 4, 2009
A group of students take their teacher, Eric Lindahl, out on the town in Mexico City’s Plaza Garibaldi during the Christmas season. They are in for some big surprises when a local tough shows up and harasses their teacher, and an even bigger one when their teacher turns into a donkey, and a new corrido is born. [...]
October 21, 2009
“If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ~Toni Morrison
October 15, 2009
I came to writing poetry mostly by accident, when a key flew off my typewriter in the midst of a writing project. For most writing, I am typing-dependent, which meant that I pushed the project I was working on aside and wrote the following poem after coming in from a walk in my Minneapolis neighborhood.
A Song
to be sung softly in the morning or before going
to bed, to the accompaniment of a flute and an
ancient stringed instrument.
Night-coming song
moon rising
Morning-coming song
an eagle soars Continue reading The Art of Writing Poetry
October 14, 2009
Ex-pat Joseph Manning falls asleep waiting for his friends Mel and Wanda Blackstone in the apartment they’ve rented in an old mansion. Wanda insists the apartment is haunted. Dr. Manning learns she may just be right. [...]
October 11, 2009
 Mercedes Sosa in concert, Quito, Ecuador, 26 October 2008 Following is a post I wrote this morning for my Tostada Speaks blog. I also want to share it here with our readers.
~ ~ ~
My wife showed me an article yesterday about her passing, and it feels like I’ve lost a much-loved member of my family. A year younger than me, I think of her as a sister.
I first encountered Mercedes Sosa in 1977 when my Spanish instructor at the University of Minnesota showed me one of her albums, “Cantata Sudamericana”, which I still have. From the minute I heard her voice, I was hooked. It is full, rich, captivating. Her voice, her personality and her music captivated millions across South America and around the world.
Born in Tucumán, Argentina, she began her singing career at age 15, when she won a contest on a radio station. She was still singing 59 years later when she took sick and entered a hospital a few weeks ago.
Her music was always about the people: the poor and disenfranchised, the sick, the old and the persecuted victims of the military dictatorships that hated and persecuted her. Continue reading Mercedes Sosa, July 9, 1935, October 4, 2009
September 26, 2009
A Noisy Neighborhood Meeting
“I see it’s time for our Neighborhood Association meeting again,” said grandmother as she walked through the door carrying the day’s mail. “They’ve scheduled it for this coming Wednesday afternoon, at two.”
“Mmmm,” grandfather said, his nose in the afternoon newspaper; “What’s the main topic this time?”
“The usual: cleanup, dues, upcoming festivals.”
“I see.”
“And choosing a new Association President. Takayuki Inaba isn’t going to run again.”
“Oh? I’m not surprised. He has a devil of a time getting people to pay attention to him. I would have resigned years ago.”
“You’re impatient, dear,” she said, continuing to scan the Association’s newsletter.
“Well,” he said, looking over the tops of his glasses at his wife, “who wouldn’t be in his position? Nobody pays him the least attention when he tries to start the meeting. They just keep talking…”
“Because they’re catching up on…”
“Gossip,” grandfather replied, finishing the sentence. Continue reading A Quick Way to Call a Meeting to Order
September 16, 2009
This is Eric Lindahl’s story, and I’ll let him tell it like he told it to me a few days before he left for Des Moines, Iowa. I didn’t experience the storm, because Lisa and I were in Cuernevaca visiting her family, but I heard about it in the news, and read about it in Excelsior, el Universal and The Herald, so I knew a lot about it before we returned to Mexico City about two weeks after it hit. The storm was unexpected, and did tremendous damage in a wide swath across the city. It even surprised the weather forecasters, who didn’t see it coming. Some people said it was the old Aztec god Tlaloc, and that he was cranky about something. Just what it could have been is anyone’s guess, and I haven’t seen my old friend Gerardo Pulido to ask him. I’m not sure he was in Mexico City anyway, as Lisa was sure she’d seen him in Cuernevaca down by the Cortez Palace, but didn’t get a good look at him, because when he saw her looking toward him, he ducked behind a tree.
Eric told me this version of what happened when we got together for coffee at Sanborn’s on the Paseo, which was badly damaged, but was cleaned up pretty well by the time Lisa and I returned from Cuernevaca. What follows is just as Eric told it because I recorded it…with his permission, of course. Continue reading “The Storm”
August 28, 2009
In a time where politics is fraught with name-calling, paranoia and insult, Senator Kennedy was a man of graciousness and a passionate advocate for the causes and people he believed in. His accomplishments were legion:
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- The Freedom of Information Act.
- The Occupational Safety and Health Act.
- The Americans with Disabilities Act.
- The Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009.
- Fought a four-decade crusade for universal health coverage.
- Helped Soviet dissidents.
August 27, 2009
Listening to stories is something we learn as children. To a writer, listening is vital, because stories are are everywhere, free for the taking when we take the time to listen for and to them.
It’s amazing to me what I’ve learned over the years by listening, asking clarifying questions when appropriate, and allowing the person to tell his or her story as I sit and listen. Some years ago I wrote and published “Requiem for Blue”, a story about an ex-convict who had spent 30 years in prison for murdering his girlfriend’s lover when he came home unexpectedly and found them in bed. The story was as he told it, sitting over coffee in the Chicago halfway house where he lived, with his name and other identifying details changed. When you learn to listen with both ears fully open, you will never run out of stories to tell.
Learning to write stories is also a matter of listening to other writers by reading them and, when the opportunity presents itself, listening to them in person. Minnesota novelist Frederick Manfred became a friend during the years we were neighbors in southwest Minnesota; he encouraged me, and introduced me to John Milton, editor of The South Dakota Review, who published one of my stories (Jonah’s Birth) and two early articles, one about Henry Miller and the other about a writer’s sense of place. A few years later I met poets Stephen Dunn and Kelly Cherry, with whom I taught at Southwest Minnesota State University for a few short years. (I was an Instructor in sociology). They both gave me valuable suggestions, and encouraged me to continue writing. I met novelist Rudolfo Anaya (“Bless Me, Ultima”), too, and sat and listened to him talk about writing. Never turn down an opportunity to do that. Continue reading Learning to Listen
August 26, 2009
By any human measure, Natalya Estemirova is a hero. Long a human rights activist, she spoke out against government corruption, the harassment and mistreatment of the powerless and dissident, and sought legal representation for those whose relatives were “disappeared”. The single mother of a teenage daughter, she knew she was taking risks. But [...]
August 21, 2009
Saburo Toyoda was born in Japan in 1908. He has been a painter since childhood. Graduating from high school, he went from his small village to the big city to follow an art career, but no one liked his paintings, so he became a junior high school teacher and continued his painting on the side, marrying and raising four children along the way. At age 68 his wife became ill, and he spent the next four and a half years caring for her. And then be became a full-time painter of pictures. A portrait of his wife hangs on a wall of his home. At nearly 101, he lives alone, paints and teaches painting to his neighbors in his small rural town. All of his landscape paintings, of the mountains and trees among which he lives, are done outside. Several times a week he slings a big canvas over his shoulder and, with his cane, paints and brushes, heads out into the countryside. It is hard for an old man nearly 101, but it is his life calling, and he keeps at it.
The evening before last, Japan’s public television network, NHK, ran a special on him on one of their education channels. Saburo Toyoda is my kind of hero because of his love for the land and its trees, his connection to its spirit and his ancestors, and his lifelong pursuit of his calling as a painter. Once a month, he puts on his best suit and heads off to teach his class. Every day he follows his routine: exercise to stay limber and maintain his strength, prepare his meals, eat, tidy up his house, then head off into the countryside to commune with the trees and work on a painting. Continue reading Saburo Toyoda, artist; my kind of hero
August 18, 2009
Bela Kiraly, 1912 – 2009
Long considered a folk hero in Hungary, Bela Kiraly is the kind of man I admire. A general in the Hungarian army, he was sentenced to death four different times for sedition, spending 4 years on death row. Paroled in 1956, he led Hungarian freedom fighters against the Soviet invasion, escaping into exile with some of his forces when they were overwhelmed.
Aside from all of his accomplishments, which include earning a Ph.D. in history from Columbia University, here is what I like about the man, and what makes him a hero to me.
He was a man of honor who stood for the honorable treatment of people. During World War II his unit was assigned several hundred Jewish slave laborers. With the Nazis in power, rather than hand them over for transportation, he put them in uniform and made them part of his troops, saving them from certain death in the camps. He was later honored by Israel for it. Arrested by the Soviets at the war’s end and sent to Siberia with his men, he and a number of them escaped the train and hiked back into Hungary.
During Hungary’s attempted break-away from the Soviet bloc in 1956, he was made commanding general of the rebels while still in the hospital recovering from 5 years of prison for “sedition”.
In 2006, learning that one of the Russian generals who led the 1956 invasion was still alive, he invited him to Budapest to join the 50th anniversary celebrations. When the general declined the invitation, fearing that he might be arrested, 94 year old Kiraly flew to Moscow and spent a weekend reminiscing with his former enemy. Continue reading Bela Kiraly, My Kind of Hero
August 14, 2009
Bernard Loeffke, Major General USA (retired), Physician’s Assistant, visionary, warrior. My kind of hero. [...]
August 11, 2009
Asha Hagi, Amy Goodman, Krishnammal Jagannathan and Monika Hauser
I admire these four women, people who through sacrifice and risk do good for others. I think they deserve to be recognized as heroes. All too often people like them are pushed aside, given little-to-no attention in the media and dismissed as do-gooders and busy-bodies. To me these four women, and the others I will be writing about, are the real heroes. To have the kind of world where all of us can live together, they and others like them are the kind of heroes that will help us create it. You’ll meet a lot of them in this column over the next number of weeks.
How did I discover them? They were winners of the 2008 “Right Livelihood Award”, thought of as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”. They’re my kind of hero.
With her husband, Krishnammal Jagannathan founded an organization called “Land for the Tillers Freedom” that has redistributed land to some 13,000 Dalit women. Known as “India’s soul”, at age 82, she is still active. Her husband, Sankaralingam who is co-founder of Land for the Tillers Freedom was co-recipient, but was at age 95,unable to attend the awards ceremony in Stockholm. Continue reading Four Heroes
July 30, 2009
A simple answer is that I find them everywhere: birds, monkeys, people I meet, communities and even huge cities which, at first glance, seems impossible but in my experience, isn’t. To me, “character” has first to do with meeting, then seeing the whole. One definition of character is: “The inherent complex of attributes that determine a person’s moral and ethical actions and reactions” (source: WordWeb thesaurus/dictionary), which is what happens when you really get to know someone, when you see beyond the details to the larger picture of what the person or the city is “like”. I use the word in its larger sense because that’s what happens as I get to know someone or something (like a neighborhood or a city), moving from the details to see the big picture. This is what happened as I wrote the stories that make up my novel about Mexico City. As the stories grew in number something magical happened: the city itself began to appear, resulting in the title “The City Has Many Faces”, which pulled each of the stories together within the context of the huge entity that is Mexico City. I had intended to write a collection of stories set in Mexico City during the time that I lived there, but the city demanded more. Sometimes that’s the way things happen. I’ve had the opposite happen, too: tried to write a novel from a story, and have it refuse to move beyond a story. (That’s happened twice, in “Jonah’s Birth”, a story published in The South Dakota Review back in the 1970s, and in Verhoeven, a story about a murder in Seattle and a 6′ 11” Minnesota detective named Magnus Willem Verhoeven. It worked wonderfully as a short story and refused to budge beyond that. So it sometimes goes. Continue reading Where I find my characters…and how that plays out in my writing
June 20, 2009
One of, if not the most disgusting, despicable behaviors on this planet is kidnapping women and children, moving them from country to country and state to state and selling them as sex slaves. According to a report by attorney Bradley A. Blakeman, “hundreds of thousands of young children and women are being abducted and treated as repeat commodities for activities such as forced prostitution, rape, child pornography, ritual torture, slave soldiers, child labor, and organ trafficking.” Out of an estimated 230 million slaves worldwide, 16 million are child prostitutes, and 200,000 are trafficked across international borders. If this isn’t reprehensible and disgusting, please send me your definition of what is.
Why is human trafficking so prevalent? Notonly is dthere a market for it, the street value of slaves is estimated to be over $34 billion dollars. As Blakeman says, “Human trafficking is a global problem that is in dire need of attention.” With that kind of street value, it is not going away by itself.
I’ve been following this subject for years, and it is not a pretty one, especially if you have any women or children in your family, and I have both. So do you. If this kind of horror has happened to you or someone you know, then you know from personal experience what I am talking about. Continue reading Human Trafficking
May 8, 2009
This morning I received the following quotation in an email from Don Hill, an acquaintance in the UK. Here it is, by British storyteller Anthony Nason.
“The storyteller who wants to make a difference faces the challenge to make their own journey of transformation. Through travelling the otherworld of stories, experiencing other cultures, places, creatures, and seeking sources of wisdom beyond their own ego, they may serve, in some ways like a shaman, as a bridge for their audiences between the familiar world and other worlds, between civilization and the wild.”
—Anthony Nanson: Storytelling and Ecology: “Reconnecting People and Nature through Oral Narrative.” Pontypridd: University of Glamorgan Press, 2005.
To me, that is exactly how stories, and storytellers function in society. I see myself as a kind of shaman, as a bridge-maker between the everyday world of what we call “reality”, and a deeper world in which everything in life is interconnected. That’s what attracted me to Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “magic realism”, to Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, to childrens stories, and to folktales and mythology. Continue reading Storytelling and Storytellers
May 1, 2009
Early in March, two new books of mine — “The Old Man and The Monkey” and “Grandfather Stories” were published by Abbott ePublishing (www.abbottepub.com). What follows is a review of them by Canadian poet Wendy Jean MacLean (“Rough Angel” and “Spirit Song in Ancient Boughs”). Her review ends with a review of my poetry collection (“Seeing: Collected Poetry, 1973-1999). I think her review is an excellent piece of writing, (aside from being very positive about the books). Hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I did.
You stand on the hill by
your grandparents’ house
and your mind unbends
the river running past”
These words, in a poem by George Polley written for his son, Jonathon, “Who At Eight Is A Poet”, give a hint of the joy of the relationship of parent, grandparent and child, which fills his Grandfather Stories and poems. The “unbending” of the imagination is also apparent in his story “The Old Man and the Monkey”. Continue reading “Grandfather Stories” and “The Old Man and The Monkey”
April 12, 2009
“Words are a writer’s power tools,” says Welsh novelist Mari Strachan, “and it’s crucial to be able to use them effectively.” I couldn’t possibly agree more. When I read I pay attention to words – to their sound, the way they are strung together in lines, phrases and sentences, their emotion and the images and emotions they arouse. Here is an example, from Sherman Alexie’s fine novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian: “My dad was trying to comfort me. But it’s not too comforting to learn that your sister was too freaking drunk to feel any pain when she burned to death!” The words grab and hold your attention. Another example comes from mystery writer Ellis Peters’ novel, A Rare Benedictine: “He was a querulous, argumentative man, who, if you said white to him would inevitably say black, and bring documentary evidence to back up his contention.” (I think I’ve met him, at least once.) And this from Swami Sacchidananda: “The last thing you get when you’re angry is information,” which, in my experience, is absolutely true. Each of these quotes, from my personal collection on quotations, is a good example of using words effectively. Continue reading Words are a writer’s power tools
April 4, 2009
Poetry is a way of seeing clearly and deeply into the life of the self, the soul and the world in which we live. Poetry gets at the heart of something and reveals it. Poetry involves clarity of vision; it means of expression is the music and rhythm of language, where words are the notes and flow is movement and melody. [...]
April 1, 2009
Not everyone will agree with my opinion, but it’s a basic element in my writing.
Why compassion? It boils down to this: Without compassion writing, like all human communication, devolves into dismissiveness, attack and put-down, all of which are disconnecting, and ultimately dehumanizing. I do not like writing that treats human beings and the world they live in, as things to be manipulated, played with and destroyed. Psychologically speaking, a person who does that is called a sociopath, a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. I’ve worked for a few of them, and during my career as a mental health professional, I’ve treated a few of them, and I do not like them. So in my writing, I aim for a compassionate treatment of all of my characters, even the sociopaths. Continue reading Compassion, a basic element in good writing
March 26, 2009
George Polley is a new contributor to the SWI site and he lives in Japan. He was recently interviewed by Aneeta Sundararaj who lives in Malaysia. We felt our viewers might be interested in reading George’s interview in the link below:
http://www.howtotellagreatstory.com/byot/byot124.html
March 18, 2009
I recently ran across a quote that perfectly describes my experience with writing short stories and working on a novel, both of which I am doing. The quote is from novelist and short story writer Haruki Murakami, and is in the Introduction to the English edition of his short story collection “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”. Continue reading Writing a short story versus writing a novel
March 12, 2009
When a friend asked me the other day what role humility plays in creating art, I responded that I think it plays an important role. But when I looked the word up in several dictionaries, I found the definitions less than satisfying: “The defining characteristic of an unpretentious and modest person, someone who does not think that he or she is better or more important than others.” Others are: “Modesty, lacking pretense, not believing that you are superior to others,” and “Shifting the focus away from one’s own abilities and position onto others”, which is closer to what I think of when I think of humility. Its synonyms are lowliness, meekness and submissiveness.
For Bruna Martinuzzi, the Founder and President of Clarion Enterprises Ltd, and expert on leadership, emotional intelligence, humility is the most beautiful word in the English language, and this is why: Continue reading Humility in the creative process
March 6, 2009
The cry
There is a sound, and it is heartbreaking. It is the sound of a mother wailing the loss of a child. It doesn’t matter how her child was lost; what matters is that her child is dead.
Do you hear it? It is there, rising and falling in ululating rhythms like a [...]
March 4, 2009
The simplest answer is to begin and never stop, because it’s in writing that we develop our skills. The problem with many “wannabees” is quitting the minute discouragement arrives, and just like the next hour and the next day, it will arrive.
What’s the best way to guard against being defeated by discouragement? Read [...]
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Books by SWI Contributors
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Grandfather and the Raven
Introduction
Earlier this year, I published the following two stories in a book published by Abbott ePublishing, of Manchester, N.H.. The book’s title is “Grandfather Stories.” Recently I wrote a new book, Grandfather and the Raven, a collection of 21 stories that includes the following two stories from the first collection. In the next day or so, I will also post one of the new stories. This new collection will be available from Abbott ePublishing in late October or early November. Here are the stories:
Grandfather and the Raven
One morning while grandfather was out walking, a big raven flew down and lit in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. “Kaaaaaa!” the raven said. Then, raising his long black beak, he looked up at grandfather and repeated himself with another loud, raucous “Kaaaaaa!”.
“Well,” replied grandfather, “what do you want with me?” Mystified as to why this large raven had flown down and blocked his path, grandfather stopped, looked down at the big bird, and scratched his chin. When the raven repeated himself, grandfather said: “Well, I don’t understand raven talk, but you do have my attention. Can you be any clearer?” Continue reading Grandfather and the Raven