[stylist] So Long, Mr. Stevens?

[William L Houts]

HI Bridgit,

I get what you're saying about the old fairy tales, although in my case 
I still love them.
  But if I really examined them, I'd probably find that all sorts of 
styles have fallen by my wayside as I've aged.  And as far as Wallace 
Stevens goes, I'm probably a little sadder than I indicated, as he's 
been so much a part of my aesthetics for so long.  There's still work 
there that I love, but the whole idea of Stevens and what he was trying 
to do with language doesn't work for me anymore.  ON the other hand, I'm 
glad to announce that I'm still a fanboy for Edward Arlington Robinson 
and his poems:  even now, some 25 years after I read it, I still love 
"Miniver Cheevy", "How Ananias Went Out" and other works.




--Bill









On 4/17/2014 8:55 PM, Bridgit Pollpeter wrote:
> As a child, I loved fairytales and classics like Oliver Twist and Little
> Women. I'm not as into romanticism anymore, and when I pick up Little
> Women now, I'm not sure why I was so enthralled as a kid. Traditional
> fairytales have lost a lot of their magic, but fractured fairytales,
> new, creative twists, can't get enough of them.
>
> And I must admit, I prefer more realistic endings nowadays than the
> romantic endings I loved as a child and teen. In my teens, I started
> writing a lot of dark stuff, but I was also dealing with a lot of dark
> stuff in my life.
>
> I enjoy novels that make you think, that evoke something inside you. For
> me, the darker stuff, existentialism, is what makes me think.
>
> I also never read nonfiction much except history books. Now, I gobble up
> nonfiction, especially new nonfiction, or creative nonfiction.
>
> As with anything else, I think our reading nature grows and evolves as
> we get older.
>
> Bridgit
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of William L
> Houts
> Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2014 3:33 PM
> To: stylist at nfbnet.org
> Subject: Re: [stylist] So Long, Mr. Stevens?
>
>
> HI Chris,
>
> I take your general message here --don't feel too bad about your current
>
> choices because they're different from your former choices.  But in
> truth, I don't feel very sad about it at all. Wallace Stevens did work
> for me back in my twenties which he can't do for the middle aged man I
> am now.  I'm fine with all of that, just a little surprised.  I simply
> found myself reading a Stevens collection and thinking, "What the hell
> is this man talking about?  Why all of the obscure, ten dollar words?"
> Like my friends here,I've got an IQ of about seven bazillion, but
> Stevens just isn't doing the work for me that he used to do. I plan to
> look up Robert Frost and see if I like his work any better now than I
> did twenty years ago.  It would be kind of hilarious if Wallace Stevens
> and Robert Frost have switched places in my personal pantheon.
>
>
>
> --Bill
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 4/17/2014 5:37 AM, Chris Kuell wrote:
>> Bill,
>>
>> We grow, we change, we age. It's all part of the journey. As kids, we
>> loved cotton candy. As adults, you couldn't pay us to eat it. When I
>> was a boy, I loved the Hardy Boy mysteries. When my son was around 10,
>> we read one, and it was awful. Offensive in fact, since they always
>> made fun of the fat kid. In my twenties, I loved Jack Kerouac, and
>> even smoked a joint by his grave. But I'd never want to read him
>> today, because I feel certain the magic would be gone. He's frozen in
>> time, and I'm a different man. And like it or not, that's just the way
>> it is.
>>
>> My advice? Embrace the journey, and all that has made you who you are
>> today.
>>
>> chris
>>
>>
>>
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>


-- 
"Let's drink a toast now to who we really are."

           --Jane Siberry