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About Me — Sheldon Clay
Sometimes I think each of us is a soul surrounded by a dense and indifferent forest. Writers are the ones who’ve learned to use storytelling to create a pathway in.
That’s the reverse of the more typical view writing — something inside, aching to be let out.
But for me being a writer is all about inviting the outside world in. Giving it a glimpse of what’s buried in all the layers of me. Hoping the world will find something worth attending to. Maybe even taking to heart.
When I was a kid my parents gave me a book of John Berryman’s poetry. It influenced my writing more than anything I’ve read since. Berryman was a prime example of my theory of writing as an invitation to stop in and spend some time with the things rattling round my psyche.
For Berryman personally, the process was tragically self-destructive. In Dream Song 1 he wrote of his alter-ego Henry:
“I don’t see how Henry, pried
open for all the world to see, survived.”
Maybe I was lucky to have an early infatuation with John Berryman’s poetry. It served as cautionary tale as well as inspiration. I’ve managed to keep a lid on the self-destructive side that can come with being a writer. More than that, I try to inject a note of hope into the things I write, even the sad ones.
