Be a Member of the City of Ideas

Nancy FlynnApostrophe Blog Archive, Arts & Culture, Book Report, Writing

The Apostrophe Blog

Musings on Writing and Life.

To have come this far is no small achievement:
what you have done already is a glorious thing.                                              
—C.P. Cavafy 

The city of ideas remains alive and well and living between the covers of many a book. I seek out volumes that teach me things, that remind me of the necessity of history and creativity and having an open and curious mind. I like to read stories of lives that are fraught and complex as well as lives seemingly charmed and well-lived. I like writers who aren’t afraid to utter their opinions. To dive deeply into the subject at hand. To risk unpopularity to speak truth to power. To show humility and vulnerability and grace. I like quotes. I like pithy, inspirational sayings. And I like texts that remind me we are all in this together and have all faced the blank page in exactly the same way.

Below are words of wisdom from Brenda Ueland, C.P. Cavafy, and Mary Oliver for any and every writer—

Everybody is talented, original and has something to say.   

—Brenda Ueland

The First Step
The young poet Evmenis
complained one day to Theocritos:
“I have been writing for two years now
and I have composed just one idyll.
It’s my only completed work.
I see, sadly, that the ladder of Poetry
is tall, extremely tall;
and from this first step I now stand on
I will never climb any higher.”
Theocritos replied: “Words like that
are improper, blasphemous.
Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have come this far is no small achievement:
what you have done is a glorious thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it is a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.
To have come this far is no small achievement:
what you have done already is a glorious thing.”                                                 

—C.P. Cavafy  (translated by Keeley & Sherrard)  

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
                —Mary Oliver
 
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