THE LIFE OF A KULTURE VULTURE

It is weird that some of us devote our whole lives to art. In my case, it's writing -- poetry and fiction and dramatic forms.

But I don't know why.

In my case, I think I saw the respect that teachers gave it in school. You know, Faulkner, Hemingway, Shakespeare. Whole classes were devoted to these dudes.

I started writing, and I thought I could do it, and my teachers encouraged me, and I sent stuff out, and it got published.

At one point, I thought I was writing for future generations. I imagined I would be studied in English literature classes in a hundred years.

"Well, now we come to this amazing 20th century writer, Roger Angle." I could hear it in my head.

I actually thought I could knock James Joyce out of the ring. I wrote a 98-page novella called "Kissing The Mermaids Goodnight," which had no story and no characters, just a voice, like a prose-poem. I thought, hell, James Joyce never did that.

Lord, the things we do when we are young. Well, I was awfully literary and awful full of my own talent. Or so I thought.

I still recall some of the lines: "He ran, I saw that he ran." I think I was writing about myself, watching myself running away from something, perhaps it was life itself.

I know the writers of the past had their own troubles making a living. And I know that some of the greats died broke. Aye, there's the rub.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle