Althouse: "I probably wouldn't have been a poet if I hadn't lost my left eye when I was a boy."

July 30, 2014

"I probably wouldn't have been a poet if I hadn't lost my left eye when I was a boy."

"A neighbor girl shoved a broken bottle in my face during a quarrel. Afterward, I retreated to the natural world and never really came back, you know."

From a list of "What I've learned," by Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall (which he wrote in 9 days, "like taking dictation," but only after he'd been thinking "about the story for 5 years").

11 comments:

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: I've read pretty much all of Jim Harrison's novels. Really great stuff. Unforgettable characters.

Then there's a bit of trivia. Patrick Swayze's character is shown reading a Jim Harrison novel, in guilty pleasure cult movie Road House. Ha.; 7/30/14, 8:27 AM
The Thomas said...: Jim is a real piece of work. I remember eating in the cafeteria near him when he was an artist in residence when I was in college ... 30+ years ago.

Jim is the "other writer" from northern Michigan although he now lives elsewhere.; 7/30/14, 9:45 AM
rhhardin said...: Thurber lost an eye as a child and as a result of difficulty seeing specialized in shorter pieces.; 7/30/14, 9:53 AM
rhhardin said...: If more people lost eyes, we'd have more poets and the world would be a better place.; 7/30/14, 9:58 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: E. O. Wilson says that his focus on insects developed as a result of being blinded in one eye.; 7/30/14, 11:54 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: "A neighbor girl shoved a broken bottle in my face during a quarrel."

Yep, I can see why feminism is SOOOOOOO necessary,...; 7/30/14, 12:33 PM
Guildofcannonballs said...: "Ten Strikes You're Out"

Flip them burgers man

Strike one, I saw you winking at my friends
I'll poke your damn eye so you'll never wink again
You'll never wink again

This is a link to links to Ten Strikes You're Out.; 7/30/14, 1:00 PM
As my whimsy leads me.. said...: My high school French I teacher, Mrs. Barbour, was Robert Penn Warren's sister. (She taught us French with a heavy Western Kentucky accent.) The major league pitcher Kent Greenfield was his best friend as a boy, and RPW had baseball aspirations, too, according to Mrs. Barbour. I thought she said that he lost an eye playing baseball, but an online biography says that his younger brother threw a rock at him, blinding him in one eye. Robert Penn Warren became the first US Poet Laureate, and won three Pulitzer Prizes--two in poetry and one for his novel, "All the King's Men." He was also a US Poet Laureate.

Toy; 7/30/14, 1:16 PM
n.n said...: Evolution is a chaotic process, with a diverse set of semi-stable outcomes.; 7/30/14, 4:24 PM
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...: Wow, post has been up all day and only 8 comments?

No love for Harrison and literature, I guess.

Maybe if you had put 'Kardashian' in the title?; 7/30/14, 5:13 PM
Ann Althouse said...: I wonder what Harrison would have become if he lost his right eye when he was a boy.; 7/30/14, 6:24 PM