The Intuitive Writer: Listening to Your Own Voice

by Sher, Gail

• ISBN13: 9780142196045
• ISBN10: 0142196045
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-04-01
• Publisher: Penguin Group USA

Summary

Gail Sher's first guidebook, One Continuous Mistake, showed writers how to develop awareness and deal with distraction through the Four Noble Truths (for writers). Drawing from Sher's thirty years of experience as a Zen Buddhist, psychotherapist, poet, and teacher, The Intuitive Writeris her second enlightening guide for the writer (now seated at her desk) that explains how to shape and sharpen her perceptions, both of her own voice and that of the world around her. An invaluable tool for writers of every level, The Intuitive Writerexplores the wisdom, spirituality, and ultimate uniqueness embedded in the language of one's daily life.

Author Biography

Gail Sher is the author of eight books of poetry and one book on breadmaking, in addition to her books on writing. She has been awarded Teacher of the Year by the combined educational faculties of the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University, and San Francisco State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction
The Stone Woman Giving Birth	3	(2)
Our Way Is to Praise and Accept Everything	5	(4)
LISTENING TO ONESELF
``He Taught You How To Live. With Peter, You Simply Learned to Dance.''	9	(2)
Twelve Marks of the Imagining Ear	11	(2)
Dharma Art	13	(2)
Listening Slowly (I)	15	(2)
Listening Slowly (II)	17	(2)
Listening Slowly (III)	19	(1)
Nineteen Little Piglets	20	(1)
Form Bred in the Bone	21	(2)
Child's Pose	23	(4)
I'm a Writer. Writers Write. In a Loyal
Consciousness the Imagining Ear Flourishes	25	(2)
Bit Players	27	(2)
Being Completely Who We Are, We Enter the World of Fertility	29	(2)
Astro- Boody- Nomical	31	(5)
My White and Your White Aren't Necessarily the Same	36	(2)
The Book of Tea Redux	38	(2)
The Ear Is Worth Ten Eyes	40	(1)
Shem'a	41	(2)
``One Will Become an Artist when One Knows What Is Needed to Make Art''	43	(2)
I'd Rather Hear Snow	45	(2)
Flower Kirtan	47	(1)
The Situation urifies the Situation	48	(2)
Hearing with Taste	50	(2)
Concentrated Instances	52	(2)
The Invisible Plentitude of the World	54	(2)
``The Redwood Floor Returned a Different Rhythm for Each of Our Footfalls''	56	(2)
Immaculate, Immense, and Luxuriously Sparse	58	(3)
``...Like a Beached Whale, Slowly Drying Up''	61	(1)
A Cockleshell Approach	62	(2)
Doodle with Your Ear	64	(5)
LISTENING TO THE WORLD
Reality as a Source of Reflection	69	(2)
``I Have to Learn to Think about Boudin As If I Were a Cow!''	71	(1)
The Yoga of Positive Listening	72	(2)
``Primrose Burn Their Yellow Fires Where Grass and Roadway Meet''	74	(2)
Painting Cold, Painting Spring	76	(2)
Absolute Liberty	78	(2)
Painting Heaven	80	(3)
A Cezanne Is a Moment	83	(2)
Twice-Torn	85	(1)
Shadow and Structure	86	(2)
``The Mongols, I Liked to Think, Had Retreated to the Outback with Their Essential Nomadic Wildness Intact''	88	(2)
Alien Concerns	90	(2)
Words Say Us	92	(2)
God's Ears	94	(9)
``I Call Them Belcher-Squelchers
They Go Slug-Toot, Slug-Toot, Slug-Toot.''	96	(7)
LISTENING TO WORDS
The Yah Aspect	103	(2)
Dedication Is Listening	105	(2)
Color Must Be Thought	107	(1)
Shukkling	108	(2)
Om mani padme hum	110	(2)
Tear It Down	112	(2)
``Poets Are Never Mad---Everybody Else Is''	114	(2)
The Daily Life of Proper Language	116	(1)
The ``Thought of Hearing'' Kills Hearing. The Only Hearing There Is Has Never Not Existed	117	(1)
The Sound of Sense	118	(2)
Linguistic Astrology	120	(2)
``The Americans Were Able to Put a Man on the Moon Because They Knew English. The Sinhalese and Tamils Whose Knowledge of English Was Poor, Thought That the Earth Was Flat.''	122	(2)
One Falling Leaf Is Not Just One Leaf; It Means the Whole Autumn	124	(2)
Yin Listening, Yang Listening	126	(2)
``Read It Again, Mommy!''	128	(1)
Ugly Is Beautiful	129	(1)
``...as the sap in the twigs''	130	(1)
Word ``Candy''	131	(1)
Empty Words, Real Words	132	(3)
PROCESS
Basic Irrelevance	135	(2)
``You Can Whip Our Cream But You Can't Beat Our Milk''	137	(2)
``I Am a Monk. Practice Is My Life.''	139	(3)
Oryoki Mind	142	(2)
``Before the Beginning of a Poem''/``After the End of a Poem''	144	(3)
``...when I listened carefully I could hear the open flesh of that fruit sing''	147	(2)
Murder of the Impossible	149	(2)
The Imagining Ear Hears Sounds' ``Soul''	151	(2)
``The Requirements of our Life Is the Form of our Art''	153	(2)
It Listens Good in Type	155	(2)
Artist-First	157	(2)
Bona Fide Root-Stock	159	(3)
Double Rainbows	162	(2)
A Fellow Mage	164	(1)
A Magic Palimpsest	165	(1)
Glassine Envelopes	166	(1)
Wild Goose	167	(3)
Multidimensionality as Style	170	(2)
Hearing the Unhearable	172	(2)
Burst Silence with Silence	174	(5)
LISTENING IS FOREVER; AN APOTHEOSIS
Buji Listening	179	(3)
Notes	182	(6)
Bibliography	188