Constance L. Lieber

Books: what I read, what I write; musings on politics; and memories of Silesia.

Credo

The best writing, I think, is like a palimpsest. It acknowledges what has come before and that what has come before cannot be totally obliterated. What I write today effaces what I wrote yesterday; what you wrote yesterday and what you write today has the power to efface what I write today. However diligently I try to write cleanly, in a manner untouched, traces of earlier writing will remain.

I acknowledge who and what has influenced me. Rumer Godden is my style-teacher. Dagmar Nick writes what I wish I could. I want to represent truth in my writing, which differs from the attempt to gather facts, because facts are too often scrambled, misrepresented, morphing into something they are not and end up standing as signposts for something that never was.

I do not want to forget that I am not the first to be somewhere or to experience something. I will try my best to honor all the layers of the palimpsest.

I have the freedom to say what I think, describe what I feel, search for what I wish, although with consideration. My freedom must not destroy or undermine yours.

My example is Władysław Kuchta, a farmer who wrote the poetry of his life (as he said) “with my plow.” I want to learn to identify my plow, so it can become my instrument and my inspiration. I have experimented with many “plows” and expect to go on experimenting but receiving no final and no definitive answer. For that would mark the end of learning.