Sheldon Lee Compton : part five

When you require renewal, is there a particular poem or book that you return to? A particular author?

Here is where I return to Ondaatje. His novel Coming Through Slaughter was given to me while I was busy feeling inadequate in graduate school. I wasn’t reading much at all during that time so I was slow to start the book. But then I opened it and saw those three sonographs of dolphin sounds and my reading and writing life was completely changed. There are paragraphs and sentences and phrases in that book I can return to in any mood and become instantly recharged. Ondaatje is in a tower all his own.

And recharge is what I want to do when I get inside my own head or let somebody else work their way in. Anything that distracts from my writing. The writing is what matters; it matters more than publishing, more than praise, more than awards, it even matters more than respect. If you write, don’t let anything come before it other than family. It’s the only way to make sure you express what’s in your heart. And expressing what’s in your heart is the only reason to do anything, ever.