Read anything by Richard Brautigan? If the answer is no, then maybe you should do something about it!
"Trout-Fishing in America" - Richard Brautigan.
Brautigan's world-famous novella, "Trout-Fishing in America" is truly a work of art. Brautigan entwines prose with abstract poetry to create a delicious poetry-prose cocktail for all of us poets to sip up, gulp down and drown in! His wacky and wonderful chapter titles range from "The Kool-Aid Wino" to "Sea, Sea Rider" to "The Salt Creek Coyotes", and each- despite not seeming to have any relation to one another- carefully and skillfully relate to one another, as Brautigan's technique of repeating the line "trout fishing in America" not only reminds you of the title (which can be somewhat annoying at times) but also the subject matter...the issue at hand...the one thing he seems to be terribly passionate about. It's honestly worth a read...even if you manage only a few pages you will immediately recognise Brautigan's style, and maybe if you're feeling brave- you could write your own adaptation of his piece.Free-writing or carefully crafted word-work!?
"You're supposed to make only two quarts of Kool-Aid from a package, but he always made a gallon, so his Kool-Aid was a mere shadow of it's desired potency."
"...and this is a very small cookbook for Trout Fishing in America as if Trout Fishing in America were a rich gourmet and Trout Fishing in America had Maria Callas for a girlfriend."
It's safe to say one could easily perceive Brautigan's piece to be a running commentary of his many odd thoughts...others would say that his work is tactfully written- that this employs a clever technique of repetitive verbal diarrhoea which engages readers and spurs them on to continue reading...either way, I'm hooked.Make your own mind up about Brautigan- I'm not going to dictate to you his life story or discuss his other pieces of work- if you're interested, take a look yourself. In the meantime, here's my adaptation of the text. I urge you to write your own- it's a lot of fun and if nothing else, it'll teach you a new style of writing that most haven't considered before- including myself!
My turn at Brautigan style...
all around me are clocks
with faces
of white and black and steely grey
like the boot of a CEO for a multi-million
dollar company in the heart of the deep south of america,
where everyone has glued on smiles and
rotting teeth and skin of midnight shade.
TICK TICK TICK
sky scrapers and high rise flats and
expensive duplexs sitting pretty next
to the smelly, brown canal,
which is full of decaying faeces and diapers
and newspapers sodding wet;
but still showing
wrinkles along the corners
like in the faces of
grand mammas and grand pappas.
GUTTERS
there is a homeless man cradling
a half-empty-
or is it half-full?
bottle of liquor which dribbles from the corner
of his mouth and has formed a
small, boozy puddle under his many
unshaven chins,
and it tangles in his wild chest hair
making a sticky, matted mane which
trails to his belly button.
FACELESS FACES
this mess-hall where I am gathered with
a large group of people
with faces like plumped up
christmas turkeys.
knives in people’s eyes stabbing me
and you
with faces of pure bitterness.
Have they stuffed their huge mouths with the
sourest lemons Italy can produce in a hot summer
before looking in my direction?!
MELT IN THE MIDDLE, OOH
two fat hill-billy men with empty pockets and bellies
are diving into shop-bought chocolate puddings-
the walmart variety-
with faces of glee and ecstasy and happiness,
while a little girl squeals with sheer delight when
hot, dripping pig fat dribbles from her chunky pork
sandwich and down the silver slope of her fork,
before shovelling it into her mouth in the same way
a gritter would plunge his spade into the salt before scattering
early on a January morning.
AFTERMATH OF THE ORANGE
I wanted to go on an adventure through the
heart of this state.
I am leaning against a metal pole-
a bollard of some sort-
near a grungy parking lot in south texas.
I catch the sun between my index finger
and my thumb,
and people are staring at me
with faces of confusion-
has he gone mad? he surely cannot catch the sun?
but if you can catch rays like the youths say,
why can’t i catch the sun?
with faces of disbelief and
with minds simply swimming with questions
they gawped as I plucked the sun from the dreamy
blue azure sky that hung above us like a
silk cloak on this scorching afternoon,
and placed it neatly in my pocket for
the rainy days which were due to come.