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Having eyes I see not, having eyes I hear not, having an heart I understand not what the flatness of my prose lends to the complexity of sound this morning: dove song, military plane, my husband's fingers on his keyboard. The simplicity of these sentences doesn't—perhaps—pose difficulty enough for a reader-cum-thinker. What lure is there to enter into this Newport News of the paragraph, straight flat road after straight flat road, as you go to see Driving Miss Daisy in the late 80s? Difficulty is invitation, after all, hardly the bouncer you've taken it to be, standing outside the club door in Raleigh to turn away a man with Semitic features. We rent only to Christians, his friend was told. We're not from these parts, our sentences all but declare, and our disdain for local forms mandates rejection. I hate this paragraph, one says, for lacking grace notes. Nell hated “Amazing Grace” for its “wretch like me.” But you can sneak that in, if the song's pretty enough.

--12 June 2015