ASHLEIGH YOUNG
The rest is easy
I like a lot of talk in a book
and I don’t like to have nobody tell me
what the guy that’s talking looks like
I want to figure out what he looks like
from the way he talks.
Never say ‘suddenly’ or ‘all hell broke loose’.
The reader will just leaf ahead
looking for people.
When an idea comes, spend silent time with it.
Good ideas are often murdered
by better ones. Afterwards
it won’t matter to you that the kitchen’s a mess.
The rest is easy.
Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge
from a few brief keystrokes.
On the page they flare
into desire. A lot of men still think that women
lack imagination of the fiery kind.
I once noticed Mary McCarthy
ending a line of dialogue with
‘she asseverated’
and I had to stop reading.
If it was bad when it went in the drawer
it will be worse when it comes out.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch
then spent the afternoon answering fan mail.
No amount of black pullovers or being
publicly obnoxious
will ever add up to your being a writer.
Your own life will never have
atmosphere.
Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House
before he started writing it.
But if you’re writing a novel with a contemporary setting
there need to be long passages where nothing happens
save for TV watching.
Don’t write in public places.
Don’t make telephone calls or go to a party.
No going to London.
No going anywhere else either.
The first twelve years are the worst.
If nobody will put your play on
put it on yourself. No one cares.
Don’t write letters
to the editor. No one cares.
Read Keats’s letters.
In my 30s I used to go to the gym
even though I hated it. Was I performing a haka,
or just shuffling my feet?
But it is the gestation time
which counts. Writers
write. On you go.
and I don’t like to have nobody tell me
what the guy that’s talking looks like
I want to figure out what he looks like
from the way he talks.
Never say ‘suddenly’ or ‘all hell broke loose’.
The reader will just leaf ahead
looking for people.
When an idea comes, spend silent time with it.
Good ideas are often murdered
by better ones. Afterwards
it won’t matter to you that the kitchen’s a mess.
The rest is easy.
Perfectly formed and spelt words emerge
from a few brief keystrokes.
On the page they flare
into desire. A lot of men still think that women
lack imagination of the fiery kind.
I once noticed Mary McCarthy
ending a line of dialogue with
‘she asseverated’
and I had to stop reading.
If it was bad when it went in the drawer
it will be worse when it comes out.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch
then spent the afternoon answering fan mail.
No amount of black pullovers or being
publicly obnoxious
will ever add up to your being a writer.
Your own life will never have
atmosphere.
Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House
before he started writing it.
But if you’re writing a novel with a contemporary setting
there need to be long passages where nothing happens
save for TV watching.
Don’t write in public places.
Don’t make telephone calls or go to a party.
No going to London.
No going anywhere else either.
The first twelve years are the worst.
If nobody will put your play on
put it on yourself. No one cares.
Don’t write letters
to the editor. No one cares.
Read Keats’s letters.
In my 30s I used to go to the gym
even though I hated it. Was I performing a haka,
or just shuffling my feet?
But it is the gestation time
which counts. Writers
write. On you go.
Giamatti
In an interview on the eve of his film release,
Paul Giamatti described what people’s souls would look like
if everyone could see them. For example
Willie Nelson’s soul would be an ear of roasted corn.
Giamatti liked the idea, personally, of having a country singer’s soul,
but not Merle Haggard’s, which would be kind of rusty
with lots of buildup.
The guitarist Slash’s soul was ‘a blood orange
left out on a windowsill,
all dried out and leathery’.
Freud’s soul was a piece of Babylonian statuary,
with the fulsome beard, the half-a-lion, the wings.
Jessica Simpson’s soul was hard to pin down, but in the end
was maybe a tape measure.
Donald Trump’s was a nice set of whitewall tyres.
Kim Jong II’s, ‘a crazy box of crabs’,
and Henry Kissinger’s, ‘a doorknob’.
Paul Giamatti described what people’s souls would look like
if everyone could see them. For example
Willie Nelson’s soul would be an ear of roasted corn.
Giamatti liked the idea, personally, of having a country singer’s soul,
but not Merle Haggard’s, which would be kind of rusty
with lots of buildup.
The guitarist Slash’s soul was ‘a blood orange
left out on a windowsill,
all dried out and leathery’.
Freud’s soul was a piece of Babylonian statuary,
with the fulsome beard, the half-a-lion, the wings.
Jessica Simpson’s soul was hard to pin down, but in the end
was maybe a tape measure.
Donald Trump’s was a nice set of whitewall tyres.
Kim Jong II’s, ‘a crazy box of crabs’,
and Henry Kissinger’s, ‘a doorknob’.
Giamatti thought his own soul, truthfully, might be
a hand-painted ceramic toad. Something decorative
yet inconspicuous, to go in the yard, something that visitors
would refer to (in hushed wonder) as a ‘thing’: ‘You know,
I kind of
like that thing.’
a hand-painted ceramic toad. Something decorative
yet inconspicuous, to go in the yard, something that visitors
would refer to (in hushed wonder) as a ‘thing’: ‘You know,
I kind of
like that thing.’
Giamatti was very good at bestowing souls.
I bet it was a game he liked to play
as he walked round Brooklyn, glowering at the homeless,
the autograph hunters, the blood-sucking poets
the misspellers of his name.
His approach was poetic: you could look at his souls
in a number of ways; they crossed a number of windows, to and fro.
I bet it was a game he liked to play
as he walked round Brooklyn, glowering at the homeless,
the autograph hunters, the blood-sucking poets
the misspellers of his name.
His approach was poetic: you could look at his souls
in a number of ways; they crossed a number of windows, to and fro.
The problem is, though: if the soul was (for example) a peahen
then what about the peahen’s soul? Where does it reside?
We will never know the inner life of the peahen
nor that of the ear of roasted corn
that the peahen has eaten.
My mother’s soul might resemble a moon
but that only seems so because I am far away.
then what about the peahen’s soul? Where does it reside?
We will never know the inner life of the peahen
nor that of the ear of roasted corn
that the peahen has eaten.
My mother’s soul might resemble a moon
but that only seems so because I am far away.
In the Giamatti film the soul is burdensome.
His character is weighed down
by all the nameless anxieties inside.
But as it turns out, Paul Giamatti’s character’s soul
is nothing more
than a single, heat-treated chickpea.
As he peers into the plastic cylinder
where his extracted soul rolls about
he looks so lonely for himself
it breaks my heart.
His character is weighed down
by all the nameless anxieties inside.
But as it turns out, Paul Giamatti’s character’s soul
is nothing more
than a single, heat-treated chickpea.
As he peers into the plastic cylinder
where his extracted soul rolls about
he looks so lonely for himself
it breaks my heart.
Is that my soul, I used to wonder
when I woke up sad? It was as if in my sleep
my soul had mistakenly risen to the surface, forgetting
that its adaptations were meant for the deep.
Or was that not my soul at all – just the undertow
of a dream? And was my soul like nothing, or nothing more
than passing through light and shadow, with eyes closed; or nothing more
than a forgotten driftnet, growing things on its ropes?
when I woke up sad? It was as if in my sleep
my soul had mistakenly risen to the surface, forgetting
that its adaptations were meant for the deep.
Or was that not my soul at all – just the undertow
of a dream? And was my soul like nothing, or nothing more
than passing through light and shadow, with eyes closed; or nothing more
than a forgotten driftnet, growing things on its ropes?
From a Garden with Teachers
I had never seen Mrs. Smart’s bare arms
but there they were, chalky white/grey
like clay
yet to be made into something
til then I had managed to get around the fact that
teachers had skin
had whole bodies underneath their clothes.
Because she was a big lady
some kids called her names
she would lose her temper in class
and her face shook terribly.
In the garden, her face folding into a smile
she asked about my future.
but there they were, chalky white/grey
like clay
yet to be made into something
til then I had managed to get around the fact that
teachers had skin
had whole bodies underneath their clothes.
Because she was a big lady
some kids called her names
she would lose her temper in class
and her face shook terribly.
In the garden, her face folding into a smile
she asked about my future.
Mrs. Wards had a laugh
that belonged in the air, in the trees.
She put her full weight behind it:
it was incredible how far she could make it go.
Then it would do an about-turn
and billow down to the garden.
I don’t remember the joke
but Mrs. Wards clutched my arm
and gave me a look
like she knew me through
and through, because I was thirteen
and a girl.
that belonged in the air, in the trees.
She put her full weight behind it:
it was incredible how far she could make it go.
Then it would do an about-turn
and billow down to the garden.
I don’t remember the joke
but Mrs. Wards clutched my arm
and gave me a look
like she knew me through
and through, because I was thirteen
and a girl.
I was afraid of and in love with Mr. Frame
who was forever consumed by a fury:
he threw chairs
at the blackboard, at us; he threw himself
at the wall; his blue eyes burned.
My mother had taught him fourth-form French
he had been a beautiful boy.
He stood alone in our garden, smoking
he looked different
knocking the ash out of his cigarette
and I liked to pretend
we had never met.
who was forever consumed by a fury:
he threw chairs
at the blackboard, at us; he threw himself
at the wall; his blue eyes burned.
My mother had taught him fourth-form French
he had been a beautiful boy.
He stood alone in our garden, smoking
he looked different
knocking the ash out of his cigarette
and I liked to pretend
we had never met.
Sad Mr. Muir, whose name always
made me think
of the moa,
mooching along in the fading terrain
overturning fronds and skeletons.
Mr. Muir’s first name was Ian, and that immediately
seemed to me
the sound a moa might have made, calling
for its mate, at night. Ian, Ian, Ian
Muir. There was a rumour
that his wife
had left him.
made me think
of the moa,
mooching along in the fading terrain
overturning fronds and skeletons.
Mr. Muir’s first name was Ian, and that immediately
seemed to me
the sound a moa might have made, calling
for its mate, at night. Ian, Ian, Ian
Muir. There was a rumour
that his wife
had left him.
Next year I was leaving town
but the teachers would go on
every December, standing in one another’s gardens.
Mr. McVinnie would go on peering over his glasses
sweat patches would go on growing under his arms
as he went on flicking the baton to the military marches
that would march on sure as time. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’
he’d said when asking me to play
in the stage band
I would’ve done anything for him.
but the teachers would go on
every December, standing in one another’s gardens.
Mr. McVinnie would go on peering over his glasses
sweat patches would go on growing under his arms
as he went on flicking the baton to the military marches
that would march on sure as time. ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’
he’d said when asking me to play
in the stage band
I would’ve done anything for him.
How long they could stand,
holding the same pose
and the same glass, the wine knowing
when to refill itself, their smiles
when to brighten
their voices blurring
the way the tennis nets do
in late afternoon, when the dark
is beginning to bloom around them
and their colours are beginning to run
outside their lines
like paint
with too much water.
holding the same pose
and the same glass, the wine knowing
when to refill itself, their smiles
when to brighten
their voices blurring
the way the tennis nets do
in late afternoon, when the dark
is beginning to bloom around them
and their colours are beginning to run
outside their lines
like paint
with too much water.
My hairdresser and my heart
My hairdresser, he’s not a beautiful man
or not in the way you were, blatantly
but he’s very nearly symmetrical, which
is this year’s definition of beauty
and he has quick hands the colour of matches
a shirt of flame-whiteness
and a bitchin’ military-styled
apron. Is he in love,
is he hetero or gay; is he green, does he
give cyclists room? It’s impossible to know
what he’s like when he doesn’t know
where to stand in relation to you or
what to do with his hands.
He moves about my head with grace
and urgency, as if deactivating
a bomb
like Kip at the end of The English Patient
the greatest love story of all time.
All women deserve to be carried out of a desert cave
by a crying man, to be billowed all around by a sheet.
Well I hate my head at the hairdresser: big and blotted
knoll on a hill, knot in a curtain.
A head that belongs on a pillow only
besides which you used to tell me softly
I wasn’t that ugly.
My fringe is snowing slowly
but I feel I’m catching fire.
The way we let them touch us, it’s not right is it?
I don’t unplug myself the way you told me to
so when my hairdresser presses down
on my shoulders, my heart jumpstarts
and when I leave the salon
I almost go out looking for you.
or not in the way you were, blatantly
but he’s very nearly symmetrical, which
is this year’s definition of beauty
and he has quick hands the colour of matches
a shirt of flame-whiteness
and a bitchin’ military-styled
apron. Is he in love,
is he hetero or gay; is he green, does he
give cyclists room? It’s impossible to know
what he’s like when he doesn’t know
where to stand in relation to you or
what to do with his hands.
He moves about my head with grace
and urgency, as if deactivating
a bomb
like Kip at the end of The English Patient
the greatest love story of all time.
All women deserve to be carried out of a desert cave
by a crying man, to be billowed all around by a sheet.
Well I hate my head at the hairdresser: big and blotted
knoll on a hill, knot in a curtain.
A head that belongs on a pillow only
besides which you used to tell me softly
I wasn’t that ugly.
My fringe is snowing slowly
but I feel I’m catching fire.
The way we let them touch us, it’s not right is it?
I don’t unplug myself the way you told me to
so when my hairdresser presses down
on my shoulders, my heart jumpstarts
and when I leave the salon
I almost go out looking for you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ashleigh Young currently lives in London where she works as an editor and blogs sporadically. She thought about making this a “cute” biographical note but has decided to stick to the cold hard facts.