Paul Spencer
"I do not have that famous fear of the blank white page. More fearsome is the blackened page. I fear the motion of text: I am apprehensive of where it will lead me. A writer is a kidnapper and I do not know what their intentions are... A loosened grip on art produces so much more unalloyed material. The street opening up for experience. Reporting back to headquarters on what I have found: a bag of rice, a branch in water, pavement buckles and heaving sighs, strange fruit, lean trees, a bug on his way home, a natural catastrophe in the wings, the opening to a car port, a blade of grass -- several blades of grass -- adulterated by weeds, a monumental blunder. As you try to reason these things into being, you, too, realize that reality is so wanting. What does it want? What does it want from you? It wants your justification. Don’t give in. Don’t get weary, Joe. Be a miser with your own compunction. Do them a favor. Make them wait. Stop in your tracks. Stomp them a new one... Without warning, and also suddenly, I discover my fate. Lifted up accordingly, I ride this wave of despair until surrendering myself to luck, which, I know, she has always told me, has a way of resolving things. But, finding the bandwagon full, I stride the sidewalk that runs away, perused by nothing more than an insufferable need to be seen. I cannot imagine now a time when it was ever different. If these thoughts disturb you, rearrange them into something soothing. Just, please, refer all questions to my literary agent."
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