Taran Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander

This is one of my favorites of the series. (The other is The Black Cauldron.) I like the concept a lot, and it’s very well-executed. The structure, which seems to be episodic but isn’t quite, is marvelously done, and many of the individual episodes work as perfect little short stories.

Two episodes, the one with Craddoc and Taran’s first encounter with Dorath, are emotionally brutal in a way that’s a bit different from anything else in the series: Taran fails, and knows he failed, and there are real consequences. They’re necessary for the story, but not exactly fun to read. Dorath is so much more convincing as a villain than Arawn, but then again, few of us meet Dark Lords, while we’ve probably all been scarred by encounters with sociopaths. As for Craddoc, those chapters make me cringe in an entirely different way - truly Taran’s dark night of the soul.

Sadly, I do not like Llonio. He reminds me of various hippies I have known. This is no doubt my problem and not Alexander’s. God knows the book needed something light after Craddoc.

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National Poetry Month

Here's my very favorite poem about the creative process, Frank O'Hara's "Why I am not a Painter."

Why I Am Not a Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

(1971)

National Poetry Month

Here's my very favorite poem about the creative process, Frank O'Hara's "Why I am not a Painter."

Why I Am Not a Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

(1971)