Here, Now

I wonder if there exist, anywhere, any writers who feel that they are full-throatedly a part of their time and place.

I remember, when I was much younger, meeting Michael Ondaatje at a party. At the time, he was absolutely my literary hero—this was just before the film of The English Patient came out—and I asked him what I should read to become a better writer. He did not give me the name of the latest hot writer from Brooklyn or London, or one of his old friends like bpNichol. He told me to read George Herbert, the brilliant, 17th-century calligrammatic poet.

Most writers, I think, live most of their lives with the George Herberts of the world, the weird dead people. That’s not ghoulish or Romantic. It is a basic material fact of writing. As is the delay inherent in publishing, the other basic fact of the writer’s life that breaks us from our time. It is both a truism and a writerly affectation to say, “By the time you read anything I have...