brautiganism

“Moonlight on a Cemetery”

Moonlight drifts from over
A hundred thousand miles
To fall upon a cemetery.

It reads a hundred epitaphs
And then smiles at a nest of
Baby owls.

One of his first published poems, the above was written in 1953 by Richard Brautigan. The Oregonian newspaper included it in The Northwest’s Own Magazine as part of a series recognizing new poets.

If I haven’t said so already, I’m influenced lately by this author’s works and life, especially in relation to his friendship with my dad.

On a page at the Brautigan Bibliography and Archive, where you can find tons of Brautiganisms and practically his whole history, this quote by Richard caught my attention:


I love writing poetry but it’s taken time, like a difficult courtship that leads to a good marriage, for us to get to know each other. I wrote poetry for seven years to learn how to write a sentence because I really wanted to write novels and I figured that I couldn’t write a novel until I could write a sentence. I used poetry as a lover but I never made her my old lady. . . . I tried to write poetry that would get at some of the hard things in my life that needed talking about but those things you can only tell your old lady.

— Richard Brautigan. “Old Lady.” The San Francisco Poets. Ed. David Meltzer. New York: Ballantine Books, 1971. 293-294.

Keep learning to write a sentence, I tell myself. Because it’s pretty cool when, along the way, you discover a moonlit nest of baby owls.

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3 Responses to brautiganism

  1. fresca says:

    This is WONDERFUL!
    (I’ve decided that it’s OK to use all-caps, despite netiquette…)
    Yes, yes, yes–learning to write a sentence. I am still working on it. So wonderful to have these confirmations.
    I just read Murakami’s “What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” and he said that as an amateur marathoner, once he interviewed and Olympic runner and asked him if he ever felt like NOT running. The Olympic guy gave him a look like, what a stupid question, and said, “All the time.”
    Murakami said he basically knew it was a stupid question, but he wanted to hear someone at the highest level say they felt just like he did.
    Me too!
    (Not about running, you know, but writing.)
    Have your read M.’s book? As a running writer, you might really love it.
    I enjoyed it a lot.

  2. Deanna says:

    I noticed you wrote about Murakami and his book, Fresca. I plan to find it sometime. The parallels, for me, between running and writing are myriad. It’s always a journey and a story in both cases. Walking’s harder than running (which in my case is really jogging), because when walking you have to engage with people. Sometimes I’m up for that; sometimes not. Now I can walk on my treadmill, but I still prefer the slow trot. Anyway, thanks so much for connecting.

  3. jodi says:

    I’m not really a runner (or jogger), more like a long slow saunter-er. I like to stop and watch the birds. And my kids say I’m a “birder” in such a nasty way, like it’s a bad-thing.

    Brautigan’s got a very clean aesthetic. I enjoyed speaking it out loud. :)

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