Learning to Write VIII
Mario, the postman in the film Il Postino, in an effort to win the heart of Beatrice Russo, steals some poems from Pablo Neruda. Later he justifies his action by telling the poet:
Poems don’t belong to those who write them. They belong to those who need them.
This begs the question of the text with a life of its own, which has vexed writers, readers and critics for as long as words have been written down. The question of whether the writer writes the words or the words continually erase and re-write the writer.
Most writers will recognise this scenario, the realization that the act of writing, simply putting one word after another, brings about a kind of active memory in the writer. It allows the writer to ‘remember’ phenomena that he didn’t know before he sat down to write.
Ultimately there is only one question to be asked about any piece of writing. Is it alive or is it dead? That is the question that each reader asks, consciously or unconsciously. Can I interact with this work no matter how far away it is in time and space from its writer?
Neruda realizes that Mario’s stealing of his poems is in fact a compliment. It means that they are alive, that the texts are still growing and changing, quivering with life.