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.