DIKKON EBERHART
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five things 1 learned from my poet dad

11/24/2018

12 Comments

 
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​Dikkon Eberhart




[A cousin who is a poet and novelist requested a short writerly reminiscence of life with my father.  It was to be part of a presentation she was making on the west coast, in honor of what would have been Dad’s 113th birthday—which he did not attend, having died 12 years before.  I posted it last year, but many writers are new subscribers to my blog, so I present it again, slightly modified.]  

 
     Dad was prominent as a poet.  When I was young, I longed not to be a poet. 

      I’d be anything—a quarterback, an FBI agent, a ship captain.  But in my soul, I knew I would end up as a chip off Dad’s block.  Alas, I was a word-smith, too. 

        So I watched Dad, to learn how. 

         
                                   One
                             Read, read, read.

 
     Read any style, content, genre, author, date—it doesn’t matter.

       “We pour our souls into these words, Dikkon. You need to learn to identify writing that’s worth that effort and writing that’s not.”

      Once, after Dad breezed through an erotic novel I showed him, drily he responded, “Chaucer did it better.”
                                     
  

                                    Two
                                  Just Start
 
      
 "I can’t write it,” I moaned, regarding my short story assignment in high school. “It’s too hard!”

       Dad caught Mom’s urging eye, put down his pipe, and asked me, “What’s your story about?”

       “When they’re choosing up teams, the boy wants to be picked first but maybe he won’t be.”

        “And?”

     “I don’t know!  Maybe he isn’t picked first, but maybe he hits the home run.”  And then I blurted, “It’s due tomorrow!”

        “Try making the story about his thoughts.”

        “About his thoughts?”

      “Yes.  Try starting with the word ‘maybe.’”  Dad grinned.  “Maybe the story is about maybe.”

       So I wrote the story and submitted it on time.  Its first sentence was “Maybe I’ll be picked first but maybe not.”  
 
 

                                    Three
                              Bring the reader in.
 

        “Do you like it?” Dad asked. 

        “It’s assigned.” 

        “Not what I asked.”

         “Then, no.  It’s boring.” 

       “Do you think maybe the author’s just writing for himself and maybe for his closest friends?”

       I hadn’t thought of that as a possibility.  The author was a major name in modernist English fiction—the focus of my college class. 
        
         Dad pressed on, “Don’t you think it’s important that you be drawn in?”

         “Who?  Me?”

         “You’re his reader, aren’t you?”

        I laughed.  “I wouldn’t be his reader, not if I could help it.”

       “So…that’s my point.  Yes, the reader must come to the writer, but the reader will come to the writer only when he’s drawn in, not forced in.”

         “That’s not happening here.”

         “So when you’re a writer….”

          I nodded.  “Bring ‘em in.”

          “Atta boy.”
 


       
                                    Four
       Don’t go to sleep until you know what happens next.  

 
       “No,” Dad said.  “I don’t believe in writer’s block.”

       “It’s my first novel, Dad.  I can’t get past the point where I am.  You’re a poet, not a novelist.  How could you know?”

        “What’s the last scene you wrote?”

         I told him.

        “Go back and write it again.”

        “What’s wrong with it?”

      “Doesn’t matter.  Probably nothing.  But write it again--create it over again.  Your juices will begin to flow again, and you’ll speed on.”

        Turns out he was right—I sped on.
 


                                   Five
                                Don’t let it fester.  

 
      I called Dad.  

    Two days before, I had finished my second novel, doing its last sixty pages in an eighteen-hour burst of ecstatic—almost holy—writing.  “It’s done, Dad.”

       “Congratulations!”

       “I’m exhausted.”

       “Of course. Get a rest.”

       “Tell Mom.”

       “Of course. So…what’s next?”

     “I read it over.  I think it’s good.  Gotta do some tweaks.”

       “Do that.  But then—get it off your desk.”
    
       “What do you mean?”

      “Don’t let it fester.  Get it out into the world.  If you tweak it too much, you could kill it.  Now let an editor tell you what to do. ”
 
 
 
        HERE’S A BONUS—one more thing—BECAUSE YOU KEPT ON READING! 
 

                         A Sixth Thing I Learned, but not from Dad
                                       Keep trying. 
 

      Sitting in our garden one day, Robert Frost turned to me and remarked, “Dikkon, the work of the poet is to write at least one single poem that they can’t get rid of.  They’ll try.  But don’t let ‘em.”
 
                                           
    
                                      ***

 
                           If You are Not a Writer,        
                 God has blessed you with a different burden.
 
                          But your rules are just the same.
 
One
Steep yourself in all available wisdom.

Two
Begin, even when you are afraid to begin.

Three
Engage with those outside of yourself by understanding what they desire.

Four
When stuck, allow your spirit to be refreshed by starting over.

Five
When finished, bring the others in.
 
 
                           
​                                   And a Bonus!
 
    Keep working.  Work hard.  But take The Longer View. 

                               You may win.

                              You may not win.

                                But you tried.
 


12 Comments
Hazel Moon link
11/24/2018 03:44:04 pm

Your Dad gave you good advise and it is always good to have a teachable spirit and to be willing to learn.

Reply
Dikkon
11/24/2018 09:28:30 pm

It WAS good advice, thanks for thinking of it that way, Hazel. As for a teachable spirit, I think God will need to be the judge of that...and my wife!

Reply
Betsy Rowland
11/25/2018 10:30:49 am

Dikkon
As usual you drew me in and lifted my writer’s spirit. Reading you as I sit facing a desk of words, written words, read words, unfinished words and once again am inspired.

Betsy

Reply
Dikkon
11/25/2018 03:49:47 pm

Dear friend Betsy,

Oh, you too? You too have a desk of "words, written words, read words, unfinished words?" I thought I was the only one (not really). I know you are my Christian sister, and you are my writer sister, but to learn that your desk is a mess from it all is what makes me know, now, that you and I are actually the same! Thank the Lord for His beneficence!

Bless you!

Dikkon

Reply
Mart Martin
11/25/2018 07:02:02 pm

Really enjoyed this post, Dikkon. Relevant in so many ways. And I would have liked to have met your dad!

Reply
Dikkon
11/25/2018 09:11:56 pm

Hi Mart--

Thank you. I'm sure he would have enjoyed knowing you and LeAnne. Both he and Mom enjoyed all who are sensitive to the arts and who, at the same time, are not engaged in war with others in their own medium. I am sure that characterizes you two!



Reply
Betty Draper link
11/29/2018 06:51:06 pm

I am about four chapters into your book, "The Time Mom Met Hitler", when I came upon these words that struck me in the heart with a punch because of the truth in them.

---the overshadowing of the reality by the created story-

I lived in a family dominated by a force larger than itself-

sometimes we believe we can make the world adjust to our story and not the other way around
_____________________________________________

I lived in others created stories because my reality was too real. That's where my love of reading came from.

The force that dominated our family was a father who was a drunk and cruel. I ran from that world by getting married at 17 thinking things would different. How badly I wanted another life. It was only after accepting Jesus as my Savior I had a place to run that was safe and where unconditional love lived.


There is nothing like gleaming from someone elses life story and learning the same old problems I face they face. All the old flesh issue reside in everyone no matter their history, their DNA. Only God can take our broken pieces and makes something beautiful out of them.

Ok, I just had to stop and write this to you as a thank you for the words your honest words about your world. I am not or ever have wanted to be a poet but am so thankful for those that are and for people such as you who write in such a way to stir heart. Back to the book.

P.S. Would have loved to met your practical mother.

Reply
Dikkon
11/30/2018 09:01:10 am

Dear Betty--

What a pleasure to hear from you and to understand your thoughts increasingly fully! I've always liked your responses, but this one brings us so much closer--your background, your attempt to change your life at age 17, your recognition that only God redeems our lives and often in ways we didn't anticipate. Thank you, sister. And I'm glad that what I said in the book rings a bell with you.

I expect Mom would like to have known you, too--she married into a life in the arts deliberately, not really knowing what that might mean in a living-life sense and over the long term, and she needed to be the more practical of my parents since Dad's attention was frequently on the poetically exciting...but impractical!

Thank again, for reaching out--mid-read!

Reply
floyd samons link
11/30/2018 07:13:24 pm

I remember this one, but enjoyed it once again!

That's the thing about good advice, it never wears out...

You most certainly did follow that good advice. And thanks for passing it on.

Reply
Dikkon
11/30/2018 08:40:34 pm

Good talking to you, Floyd--blog correspondents of one another as we are! Next, we should figure a way to bridge the distance between us and to sit down for a glass of wine and a steak, really to hash everything out.

Blessings, my brother!

Reply
Peter Cutler link
12/1/2018 12:27:15 pm

That is a valuable list and one that I will keep for future reference. One of these days I hope to find more time for writing but for now I will continue to herd cats as the main part of my administrative and supervisory duties for the Grand Lodge of Masons in Maine ........ come to think of it, some of those great points relating to writing can be transferrable to personnel development and motivational issues as well. Thank you for the insight.

Reply
Dikkon
12/1/2018 02:03:15 pm

Thanks, Pete...yes, I think the ideas Dad talked about have application in a lot of areas of life, not just in writing, although they came to me, from him, from his expertise.

With my best wishes to you for success in your cat-herding responsibility!

Enjoy Maine for me.

Dikkon

Reply



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