The writer Giovanni and the poet Dom Giovanni first appeared sometime in the late twentieth century, disappeared for awhile, mysteriously reappeared, then vanished again, each time reborn in the same body with a new mind and new eyes for seeing.
If I were to compare poets to anthologies the resulting list would be exhaustive. Rittenhouse, writing long ago observed that the pageant of poetry (and I am reversing this to read poets) have "been so often presented that no necessity exists for another exhaustive review" of the species. That our poet became a poet is enough.
For any writer a deeper explanation of him or herself is often necessary. Not because there may be more to the inner workings of writers than of poets, but that contemporary writers are still a dime a dozen and poets are not. Writers feel that they must explain themselves or be explained fully and unconditionally. Perhaps to justify their consciences for the bald act of becoming writers. Poets have no fear or a need to be so fully explained.
Observing that the world's din mysteriously waxes and wanes between episodes of pure brilliance and unexplained imbecility, the writer Giovanni thought that he, too, would add his words to the prolonged, loud and distracting noises of the phenomenal worlds in which he found himself. A challenge to be sure, because he did not desire to grow up to become a great writer or a fire chief but an unadorned poet.
Upon further reflection, and finding in himself a need to change occasionally, from poet to writer, Giovanni knew that it would be an ambitious undertaking to throw himself as a writer against the waning and the waxing of the world's follies and successes. Yet throw himself he did, beginning with two good and wise decisions. He bought a second-hand dictionary and a notebook. The writer was born!
Our new writer never pictured himself as an outside observer. Writers are usually inside observers, but of what phenomena I cannot tell. Our writer, this writer, he, always pictured himself standing and looking around in the middle of an enormous room full of people. Whether he could be seen in return he did not know, unless he acted thoughtlessly, which he very often did. This led him to become a writer. Write these people he told himself.
The task was daunting at first and not a little scary for such a large undertaking, that is, adding more words to the overburdened world. Thinking, at first, that it would be better for him to melt away than add his indiscretions to the indiscretions of so many who do not seem to care a whit about what they do or say, the writer appeared and disappeared like a hesitating apparition. It is easier to be an indiscreet writer than be an indiscreet poet. Which explains why there are not many great poets but numerous idiot writers.
And thinking that he would add his name to those illustrious, remembered for eternity, such as Herodotus, Suetonius, Caesar, Boethius, Xun Zi, Macaulay, Stowe, Spyri, Fitzgerald - - the list of names winds on with somebody else adding one here, two there ad infinitum. He flattered himself and stiffened his will for the challenge.
On these pages are found words of the writer Giovanni, not the poet Dom Giovanni. It is important that the reader not mistake the poet for the writer or the writer for the poet. The two may occupy the same body but not the same frame of mind simultaneously.
Also herein, the writer Giovanni, it is assumed, wishes to enlighten and greatly entertain his admirers, if any such admirers exist. Furthermore the writer undoubtedly lives with the hope that he can warm the frozen souls of those universal fanatics of which he finds himself completely surrounded. The pageant of writing (blogging) goes on with "loud, vague, tumultuous wonder" and is often presented so mindlessly by so many that a necessity may exist for an exhaustive review of the genre.
This is not a formal anthology of letters and writings, but a pastiche taken from various sources, sometimes abridged, pasteurized, revalued and rewritten to make them more comprehensible and palatable to the general reader. The letters are representative not exhaustive, and in certain instances, names have been changed to protect the innocent (or the guilty) from embarrassments in which they may not wish themselves to be found.
Who is Giovanni the writer? You tell me.
The reviewer
Notes:
Jessie B. Rittenhouse
"loud, vague, tulmultuous wonder" Caryle
