Upon Reading Janet Frame

Does one follow a certain perspective in order to see what most other people are seeing? That the straight line is so obviously straight and the circle is always the same perfect shape, whether large or small, since time began, and in those places of security the circle and the straight line have always belonged right where they are!

A stone can’t be said to have perspective, yet stones are great creators and should be classifed as the artists they are, falling from the heavens independently or erupting suddenly from the heart of a volcano, so often creating something completely unexpected and often beautiful, remaining beautiful as long as they are alive.

Terrible things often happen to triangles though, and even to half-circles; each is prone to suffering from a distorted perspective no matter how well they’re rendered.

Writers come out of nowhere, as do clouds and earthquakes. It’s possible to admire a writer of science-fiction, though it’s impossible to include the depictions of extraterrestrials in the writing of science-fiction writing, while otherwise admiring the science-fiction writing that’s completely without such otherworldly allusions.

To my way thinking there’s no such thing as a writer of earthbound poems and down to earth prose; there are only poets who also write prose.

What’s most wonderful about poems is their regard for the real sound of things. A stone fell a thousand years ago, a big grin on its face as it fell, happy to fall. I suspect the stone was happy falling on the way down or on the way up, ala meteors and our unstable volcanos, not actually knowing what was happening, but falling or rising and then falling once again. And what’s most wonderful about prose is that’s it’s sometimes written by a poet who is also a novelist.

Now I know exactly how falling down and rising up to meet a crisis feels to me now, now that I have some perspective.

Walking around Stow Lake in the evening, San Francisco, a kind of fire above the water in the trees, January 3, 2024. And thank you Janet Frame. Photo by author.