genius is

a fierce originality?

If so,
it would have to be recognized canonically
as a coming-to-terms with one's precursors.
But it is something more than this.
Something that grows out of
"what is best and oldest in each of us".
In that place where one begins.
From somewhere within one's deepest awareness.

An ability to exceed the awareness of others.
To surpass their (highest) consciousness.
So capacious that its rival cannot be found in anyone else,
but instead, rests at the end of the mind
as an outcome of art.
Something that activates
what is best and oldest
in others.

For a writer,
genius is a facility for language.
A facility that becomes a feast.
As if one could count
the number of new words used in a lifetime.
Shakespeare made use of 21 thousand different words,
inventing one out of twelve new ones.
"Eighteen hundred coinages" according to Bloom.
A mere technicality that reveals craftsmanship
but does not necessarily prove genius.

Universality is what resonates.
The way Will populates his plays with characters
that reveal believable complexities
filled with psychological resonance.

"O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell,
and count myself a king of infinite space -
were it not that I have bad dreams."
(William Shakespeare)

And so,
the wheel rolls full circle.
For Hamlet. For Shakespeare.
And for my own dark void.

No new words today.

.