face or manner or being so that people would draw back a little on confronting the bearer of the greatness. Then one wants to know if being a writer is like being Sisyphus or perhaps
Prometheus. One wants to know if writers are a little band of
gods created in each generation, cursed or blessed with the
task of finding themselves - finding that they are writers. One
wants to know if one wil write something important enough
to die for; or if fascists wil kil one for what one writes; or if
one can write prose or poetry so strong that nothing can break
its back. One wonders if one will be able to stand up to or
against dictators or police power. One wonders if one has the
illusion of a vocation or if one has the vocation. One wonders
about how to be what one wants to be - that genius of a
writer who takes literature to a new level or that genius of a
writer who brings humanity forward or that genius of a writer
who tel s a simple, gorgeous story or that genius of a writer
who holds hands with Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy or that genius
of a writer who lets the mute speak, especially the last, letting
the mute speak. Can one make a sound that the deaf can hear?
Can one write a narrative visually accessible to the blind? Can
one write for the dispossessed, the marginalized, the tortured?
Is there a kind of genius that can make a story as real as a tree
or an idea as inevitable as taking the next breath? Is there a
genius who can create morning out of words and can one be
that genius? The questions are hubristic, but they go to the
core of the writing project: how to be a god who can create a
world in which people actually live - some of the people being
characters, some of the people being readers.
The Freighter
I learned how to listen from my father and from being on the
freighter. My father could listen to anyone: sit quietly, follow
what they had to say even if he abhorred it - for instance, the
racism in some of my family members - and later use it for
teaching, for pedagogy. Through watching him - his calm, his
stillness, the sometimes deep disapproval buried under the
weight of his cheeks, his mouth in a slight but barely perceptible frown - I saw the posture of one strong enough to hear without being overcome with anger or desperation or fear.
I saw a vital man with a conscience pick his fights, and they
were always policy fights, in his school as a teacher, as a guidance counselor, in the post of ice where he worked unloading trucks. For instance, in the post of ice where he was relatively
powerless, he’d work on Christian holidays so that his fellow
laborers could have those days with their families. I saw
someone with principles who had no need to cal at ention to
