Oh, man! It's been National Poetry Month ALL MONTH and I haven't done anything to commemorate it.
...Wait, it's still April? Okay, good, then I've got time to do some poetry appreciation.
So I'ma review a comic book, mmmkay?
Drew Weing's Set to Sea is a book I've encountered before. Earlier this month, I found the book in a catalogue and decided to pick it up again. And... well... it's really good.
No, like, REALLY good.
Set to Sea is the story of a poet who has fallen on hard financial times... probably because he's a poet. He's got no money, he's got no credit, and he's... well, kind of a bum. He's busy working on his next poetry a book full of nautical themed poems, but the writing's not getting him anywhere. Then he gets pressganged.
The central theme of the book seems to be about how important it is for a poet/writer to experience life. Ironically, the poet is only successful at writing poetry when he no longer NEEDS the income from poetry. On the surface, the theme seems an obvious one: OF COURSE the poet can't write a good poem about the sea until he actually goes out on the ocean. That just makes sense!
The truth is, though, that's the type of message that most writers/artists need to hear. Writing, even when it becomes an occupation, can't be the central aspect of a person's life. If it does, then what else will they write about?
Set to Sea may very well be on my list of best comics of all time now. It's a quick read - about ten or fifteen minutes - and it's beautifully illustrated. Also, Set to Sea is a thought provoking and surprisingly serene book (except for one pretty violent sequence in the middle when our poet's ship gets attacked by pirates). Well worth the read.
2 comments:
I think that that is a good message for any subject of study. Life experience lends itself to understanding we can't acquire otherwise.
Sometimes when I want to take a serious crack at writing, I think that my life is too boring to lend itself to good writing. But, then, focusing too much on life experience and "writing what you know" devalues imagination to a great degree, I think.
You had time to read something for leisure this month? No fair.
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