The Orange In The Orange

Walked into The Toadstool Bookshop in Peterborough for the first time one glorious 60 plus degree day last week, knowing intuitively that I would love it.

I did. I do.

It will not take the place of The Book Depot in Henniker, a church I have worshipped in many times but have callously abandoned in recent years for the affordability of Amazon used. My soul is ashamed. I will right that wrong soon.

Toadstool will feed my soul on the road; it has the ambiance I need. Picked up a book in the mark down bin - $3.98. With a fattened bank account I can afford more, but old habits die hard and frugality will free me. I am determined.

I was not familiar with the author but I did recognize the publisher - Black Sparrow Press. That was good enough for me. Black Sparrow press was initially set up in 1966 specifically to publish the work of Charles Bukowski. They went on from there to publish the work of many "alternative" writers and still exist today as Black Sparrow Books. Thank God.

The book is titled The Orange In The Orange, A Novella & Two Stories, by Fielding Dawson. Started it this morning. The novella is about a poet/writer who teaches creative writing in prisons.

I was knocked back emotionally by the description of the prisoners in these classes; their hopefulness and willingness to participate. The vibe connected with my opinion that what makes prisons sad places is that many of the inmates are people who could just not figure life out; they are not inherently evil. They make bad choices because life is arbitrarily unfair; the rules of life are not designed to be fair, they are designed to protect the status quo. Money and power exploiting humanity and vulnerability.

I cannot figure life out. I live in a self-made prison.

The teacher's approach is that by expressing yourself creatively, you can allow truth to surface and make changes that could dramatically alter your future. He makes the case that creativity is better served in the hands of the public than in the hands of the elite. I think the privileged tend to take the magic out of art and transform it into a closed community of snobbery.

Art is the expression of pure emotion and truth, which the un-privileged face daily and feel in their souls because they are not removed from life by entitlement; they are immersed in life.

I read up on Fielding Dawson. He was born in 1930 and was an important figure in the avant-garde movement that took hold post-war. "........a time when bohemianism still signified a dissenting community of men and women pursuing new values through creativity, as opposed to pierced nipples and commercial theatrics."

Perfect.

In 1984 he began his first creative writing class for prisoners in maximum security prisons, hence the main character in the novella and an honest understanding of the people he's writing about.

"This revolutionised his life and he threw himself pell-mell into helping brutalised and ruined humans confront themselves through the creative act."

Many of you consider this an exercise in futility. I am not interested in your opinion. I consider it to be a raw and honest attempt to get at personal truth without the use of pills and sedatives or incarceration and violence.

Fielding Dawson continued to teach at prisons such as Sing-Sing and Attica, and women's shelters, for the rest of his life. He also became a passionate advocate for prison reform. He died on January 5, 2002.

I cannot adequately express the emotion this book is stirring in me, nor the respect I have for people like Dawson who see creativity as more than indulgence. People who see it as an expression of human essence.