This blog post is not about how I became a first-time father a week ago. It’s about our next meeting, which will take place a week from today. Becoming a father has caused me to think about a number of things (you don’t say!). One of the things I keep thinking about and keep thinking about, though, is silence. And not just because babies cry.
Our next meeting will take place next
Tuesday
08 September 2020
19:00
on Jitsi
There was a lot happening in the delivery room when my child was born. There were at least seven people in there. And then there were eight. Despite all of that activity and all of that noise, my daughter’s birth was attended by a tremendous silence. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life trying to understand that silence, and/or trying to understand silence in general.
It’s not just that, though. I’ve also been reading Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson. So I’ve also been thinking about silence in those terms as well.
And then and then and then, I’ve also also been reading Pierre Joris’ translation of Paul Celan’s book Breathturn, and Celan’s poems contain so very much silence, and not just the silence you automatically think of when you think of Celan.
The vast majority of reading and writing occurs in silence, and yet neither is exactly a silent act. Do you think about the silences within your writing? Do you need silence to write? When you write, do you tap into a kind of inner silence that isn’t?
Let’s get together online and first spend some time writing together in silence. Then let’s break our silence to talk about silence.
Digital get-togethers happen on Jitsi. In order to join, please send a request for an invitation to freiburgwritersgroup@gmail.com before 17:00 on 08 September 2020. I will also post the link to join in our Telegram group! Remember that Jitsi works best on Google Chrome and that there are desktop versions of Telegram!
I look forward to seeing you and listening to you in a week!
