PenFall

The name, PenFall (since you asked) comes from a Walt Whitman poem title (I’ll get to that later), Pensive and Faltering. The poem is pretty morbid, and one big metaphor — one interpretation is that he is writing the words of the dead and sees himself as “the apparition…the spectre.” The living are the dead, and perhaps vice versa. There is little difference between the two. But I think it could be about writing. There are a few reasons why I think that, and mostly it’s because of the role he plays in the poem — he is a writer. “The words, the dead, I write.” And immediately after that moment things become apparent. I don’t think he is necessarily writing the words of the dead, he is quite literally writing down the two words: “the dead.” Also, note: things have not changed after this moment. They are not different. They are just apparent. I’ll leave the rest to interpretation.

Here’s the “later” I was talking about –
I didn’t choose the name PenFall because of the actual poem. I have not read every single poem in Leaves of Grass. As a writer, inspiration often comes from what you read, and that means everything you read. So when I needed a name for my blog I immediately turned to my bookshelf. I flipped through titles, epigraphs, dedications; I read short stories, flipped through some poems and came across “Pensive and Faltering” in the table of contents in Leaves of Grass. I sat there thinking what a great title that is for a poem. It really is, too. I thought, “pensive and faltering…pensive and faltering…penfall!”

That’s the story.