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
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Pearl Amelia M cHaney
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Ro y Blount Jr.
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Robert Hicks
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Peter Neofotis Robin Wells
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Barb Johnson
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Toni McGee Causey
Fred Kaplan
John Pipkin
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