That title phrase popped into my mind as I went to bed. It rattled around all night and was still there when I opened my eyes. For a time in academia, people wrangled about intentionality. Could we trust a writer to mean what she said or to say what she meant, or is language hopelessly out of our control, like a nest of snakes with their own writhing intention and no regard for the hand that makes the mark? I don't know from onions if that argument still pertains, but I did a lot of thinking about meaning and intention this morning, and I don't think I'm done thinking. Here's one big question: does chance trump intention? Digging around in daily life, I think the original idea that snuck into mind has weight. My coffee is in the blue paisley mug. No, I didn't give much thought to which mug I took from the cupboard, but some tiny spark of a plan led my hand to that item, not the yellow one next to it. It means something about my mood, my wish for a certain aesthetic, something!
On the other hand, a little bit of chance can tip the balance in writing. I intend to write about a cook, but see that I've typed the word crook. Aha! A crook in the kitchen is much more interesting than a cook. But here it comes, my intention to write about the more unusual becomes a factor. I cannot deny or avoid my own choices. Selection of detail is, perhaps, sparked by chance variation, but almost immediately the czar of language says, go this way, say that word, make it work. Who the heck is in charge here? Sadly, it's me. I have to take responsibility for the choices I make. I have to consider the arc/ark of communication, which is the goal of art. Even an avant garde throwing paint at the wall sends a message, "Look how I disregard the figurative. I'm being independent." I don't think we can deny intention and meaning anymore than we can willfully stop breathing.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Must Reads
Let me tell you, I just fell in love with two books, one about a Grandmother in Siberia and one about kayaking in the ocean off the coast of that cold and poverty stricken land. Jon Turk, trained originally as a PHD chemist, tossed all the academic temptations of an easy life and struck out for high places, wet places, cold places. He's been adventuring and writing about such places since he ditched CU.
First, I heard him speak in Denver, a speech which he opened by balancing on an exercise ball, holding a sign in each hand; one said Logic, the other Magic. When he finished, I was willing to believe in both. He showed us slides of Moolynaut, the Grandmother Shaman of Siberia, a 100-year-old reindeer herder, until the reindeer herds dwindled and all but disappeared, leaving the Koryak people at the mercy of perestroika--no dependable food supply, erratic power, virtually no communication with the outside world, too much vodka, too little respect for a life that had sustained them for thousands of years.Then I read his books.
In The Raven's Gift, Turk recounts his healing under Moolynaut's guidance from serious, chronic pain following a smashed pelvis suffered in an avalanche years earlier. As Turk said, he was not taught to believe in shamanism, but under the circumstances of reinjuring himself in Siberia, he had little choice but to try. And the healing invoked there has lasted. He again indulges in extreme skiing, open water kayaking, and mountain biking. Turk met Moolynaut during a layover to wait out a storm when he and a partner were paddling from the northern tip of Japan, up the coast of Siberia, and slightly southeast again to Alaska. Why? Because he could, and because he thought he might travel In the Wake of the Jomon, the title of the other book. Turk figured he loved adventure and might share such an attitude with the ancient ancestors of the Ainu people of Japan, who left an apparently adequate setting to challenge the perilous Atlantic in canoes.
What grabbed me was the immediacy of Turk's writing, his willingness to be on the page, admitting his own fears and feelings, whether waking up in a tent pitched on a grizzly bear path or facing another horrific avalanche. I found scenes lurking in my head while I was doing other things than reading. I don't want to kayak in frigid water, eat fatty, ethnic foods that I suspect would not pass our supposedly stringent food inspections. I don't want to ski anything, let alone the highest, most dangerous mountains a human being can access. But I'm very glad that Turk does these things and reports back.
First, I heard him speak in Denver, a speech which he opened by balancing on an exercise ball, holding a sign in each hand; one said Logic, the other Magic. When he finished, I was willing to believe in both. He showed us slides of Moolynaut, the Grandmother Shaman of Siberia, a 100-year-old reindeer herder, until the reindeer herds dwindled and all but disappeared, leaving the Koryak people at the mercy of perestroika--no dependable food supply, erratic power, virtually no communication with the outside world, too much vodka, too little respect for a life that had sustained them for thousands of years.Then I read his books.
In The Raven's Gift, Turk recounts his healing under Moolynaut's guidance from serious, chronic pain following a smashed pelvis suffered in an avalanche years earlier. As Turk said, he was not taught to believe in shamanism, but under the circumstances of reinjuring himself in Siberia, he had little choice but to try. And the healing invoked there has lasted. He again indulges in extreme skiing, open water kayaking, and mountain biking. Turk met Moolynaut during a layover to wait out a storm when he and a partner were paddling from the northern tip of Japan, up the coast of Siberia, and slightly southeast again to Alaska. Why? Because he could, and because he thought he might travel In the Wake of the Jomon, the title of the other book. Turk figured he loved adventure and might share such an attitude with the ancient ancestors of the Ainu people of Japan, who left an apparently adequate setting to challenge the perilous Atlantic in canoes.
What grabbed me was the immediacy of Turk's writing, his willingness to be on the page, admitting his own fears and feelings, whether waking up in a tent pitched on a grizzly bear path or facing another horrific avalanche. I found scenes lurking in my head while I was doing other things than reading. I don't want to kayak in frigid water, eat fatty, ethnic foods that I suspect would not pass our supposedly stringent food inspections. I don't want to ski anything, let alone the highest, most dangerous mountains a human being can access. But I'm very glad that Turk does these things and reports back.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Sister Blog
Sometimes I am such a slow learner! As I have just explained on my new alternate blog, (look to your left) I wanted to write a book about being a good citizen, about practicing democracy at the local level. So, this morning I'm in my writing chair, mulling over that idea again, and at least two brain cells fired and I said, Hey, how about a blog dedicated to such things? A couple more neurons piped up and said, Yeah, good idea. Just go do it, now, before you chicken out. So I did. You can visit that blog: Begin At Home: The ABC's of Living Local, also on Blogspot. Now, since I spent a lot of time on it, I expect you to spend a little time on it. Let me hear from you. I know you lurk around and get shy, but geez, it doesn't cost a thing and you can use a pen name if you can think of one that isn't obscene or boring.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Reading as a Writer
As you know, I read a lot. And I read a lot of different kinds of stuff. Supine with the sniffles this week, I read, in one day, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Smiling Bears, and part of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities. Why only part? Because I did not like his characters. That's not to say I did not like his writing. The style was dense, detailed, well paced. The main character, a wealthy, self-centered, elite New York bond trader, bored me with his needy, whining, his ME-ME-ME attitude toward his job, his child, his wife, his mistress. I skipped to the end of the 659 pages and got the story encapsulated in an epilogue, without suffering through the intervening 600 pages. It is interesting that this particular copy, which I found on a thrift-store shelf, may well be a first edition and worth more than the pocket change I paid for it, so the time was not all wasted. Nor was I totally denied insight into the human mind, my own, to be specific.
See, I loved the Guernsey book, co-authored by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It began like so many of the English cosies I have long loved and fled to for solace, like a comfy sofa, no hard lumps or numbing postures. However, the tea and toast atmosphere very gradually darkened to reveal a necessary lesson in how the islanders survived the Nazi occupation, and how some of them did not. The love interest between the protagonist and a quiet island man provided a parallel arc, one I could predict but savored anyway. And watching my own reaction to these two books highlighted my concentration on character as the motivation to write fiction or to read it. I liked the islanders who displayed, if not social polish, courage, community, and a sense of humility. They did not act, always, out of selfishness, did not want, like Wolfe's bond trader, to be "Masters of the Universe" by manipulating others, lying to their loved ones, spending time admiring their own reflections in society, tormenting a pet dog--the Master of the Universe in question forces his reluctant dog to walk in the rain in order to provide said master with an excuse to visit his mistress.
As for the Smiling Bears, well, no fiction, but beautiful language and grand characters, albeit ursine for the most part. Else Poulson knows and evokes each bear by name and by personality. Like human beings, each of them has an agenda, but none of them trades bonds on Wall Street.
See, I loved the Guernsey book, co-authored by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It began like so many of the English cosies I have long loved and fled to for solace, like a comfy sofa, no hard lumps or numbing postures. However, the tea and toast atmosphere very gradually darkened to reveal a necessary lesson in how the islanders survived the Nazi occupation, and how some of them did not. The love interest between the protagonist and a quiet island man provided a parallel arc, one I could predict but savored anyway. And watching my own reaction to these two books highlighted my concentration on character as the motivation to write fiction or to read it. I liked the islanders who displayed, if not social polish, courage, community, and a sense of humility. They did not act, always, out of selfishness, did not want, like Wolfe's bond trader, to be "Masters of the Universe" by manipulating others, lying to their loved ones, spending time admiring their own reflections in society, tormenting a pet dog--the Master of the Universe in question forces his reluctant dog to walk in the rain in order to provide said master with an excuse to visit his mistress.
As for the Smiling Bears, well, no fiction, but beautiful language and grand characters, albeit ursine for the most part. Else Poulson knows and evokes each bear by name and by personality. Like human beings, each of them has an agenda, but none of them trades bonds on Wall Street.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Ethereal Gremlins
It's one sort of annoyance when friends cannot receive an email about where to meet for lunch. It's quite another when editors' comments, rejections, and acceptances land in the spam box; or the submission lands in a spam box. All of these have happened over the past few weeks. It may be a conspiracy by those who believe that poets and poems have no business clogging up the ether, but I doubt we draw that much attention from the sort of geeks and techies who know how to put a hex on us. Now I just check that spam thing every day.
The weirdest result of all this on-line kerfuffle was this: recently by mail--snail version--I received a copy of a publication to which I had not too long ago submitted poems. I hadn't heard back, but given the leaky vessel of my computer, I wasn't surprised. I was pleased because one only gets free copies by having work appear in the lit mag. Sure enough, there I was, listed among the contributors. However, I could not find my poem, despite squinting until my eyelids hurt, running my finger repeatedly down the contents page, and finally paging through the whole issue. Nope, nothing, nada, squat. So I emailed the editor. Well, he had sent an acceptance--long lost by this time--but somehow the poem got chewed by a dog, stolen by aliens, was written in slowly disappearing ink, or just melted in the rain. The good news is that he does intend publishing the piece, once he finds it, in his next issue. However, since I've already been in the contributor's column, I will be invisible in the subseqent one. I think he's joking, but it's hard to hear tone of voice from the bottom of a digital well.
The weirdest result of all this on-line kerfuffle was this: recently by mail--snail version--I received a copy of a publication to which I had not too long ago submitted poems. I hadn't heard back, but given the leaky vessel of my computer, I wasn't surprised. I was pleased because one only gets free copies by having work appear in the lit mag. Sure enough, there I was, listed among the contributors. However, I could not find my poem, despite squinting until my eyelids hurt, running my finger repeatedly down the contents page, and finally paging through the whole issue. Nope, nothing, nada, squat. So I emailed the editor. Well, he had sent an acceptance--long lost by this time--but somehow the poem got chewed by a dog, stolen by aliens, was written in slowly disappearing ink, or just melted in the rain. The good news is that he does intend publishing the piece, once he finds it, in his next issue. However, since I've already been in the contributor's column, I will be invisible in the subseqent one. I think he's joking, but it's hard to hear tone of voice from the bottom of a digital well.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Slow Poems or Fast
Those of you not interested much in the craft of making poems might want to go out for a bagel at this point. It's apt to get technical in here. But if you like lurking over the shoulder of a writer at work, pull up a chair and pour another cup of coffee. Here's my issue: in a writing group last week, I heard two equally intelligent poets make opposing statements about the effect of line length on the speed with which they read the poem. One said that the long lines in Poem A slowed it down; the other said that short lines in Poem B slowed it down. Can we have it both ways? Making a poem is not like ordering a chili dog where you get to choose from six different garnishes. Well, bad analogy--I like poems with lots of spice and chili dogs with just sharp cheese and mild chili so I can still taste the dog, and while there are not infinite ways of using the language, there is a bewildering variety of effect. (I think I'm giving myself a headache.)
Since that evening, I've tried tuning in to statements about the length of lines and their effect on the pace of the poem. The most interesting idea came from The Poet's Companion by Laux and Addonizio. These two admit, "We read somewhere that short lines speed up the pace of a poem, but we feel the opposite; we experience a poem in short lines as a more gradual movement" (112). I want to suggest that the pace is more susceptible to the length of the syllables, the presence or absence of enjambment, the rhythm within the line, whether or not the line ends as stressed or unstressed, and the white space around the poem. If the line walks along in primarily iambs, those most familiar feet by which we make progress through the piece, and the words are fairly short, the line either end stopped or at least finished with a noun, I see the pace as moderate. If the rhythm is in triple feet (dactyls or anapests) or in the thudding of spondee boots, it runs ahead like a pup off leash. The eye takes more time to cross the blank desert of a stanza break or open field design, thus letting the line linger a micro-second longer in the reader's brain.
Then there's the question of rhyme, not a matter I have any legitimate business talking about, but that's never stopped me before. My writing partner, Larry, is fond of rhyme and we often tangle about the ways it draws attention to itself and impedes the progress of the poem (my position, his differs). But here's the cute thing that popped up Saturday morning, when we ended up agreeing on an idea about rhyme. Rhyme both retards and rushes the line, we decided. Once the rhyme scheme is established, we rush forward to find the next rhyme, but at the same time we are pushed back to recall the previous rhyme. No wonder I freeze in the company of heavy, exact rhymes. It's like riding a Push-me Pull-you from Dr. Doolittle. So I suppose it's a bit of a wash in its effect on the speed of any given line, but the influence is there for us to care about. I welcome help on this question. Once one of you has negotiated peace in the Middle East, cured cancer, and fed the whole hungry world, let me know what to think here.
Since that evening, I've tried tuning in to statements about the length of lines and their effect on the pace of the poem. The most interesting idea came from The Poet's Companion by Laux and Addonizio. These two admit, "We read somewhere that short lines speed up the pace of a poem, but we feel the opposite; we experience a poem in short lines as a more gradual movement" (112). I want to suggest that the pace is more susceptible to the length of the syllables, the presence or absence of enjambment, the rhythm within the line, whether or not the line ends as stressed or unstressed, and the white space around the poem. If the line walks along in primarily iambs, those most familiar feet by which we make progress through the piece, and the words are fairly short, the line either end stopped or at least finished with a noun, I see the pace as moderate. If the rhythm is in triple feet (dactyls or anapests) or in the thudding of spondee boots, it runs ahead like a pup off leash. The eye takes more time to cross the blank desert of a stanza break or open field design, thus letting the line linger a micro-second longer in the reader's brain.
Then there's the question of rhyme, not a matter I have any legitimate business talking about, but that's never stopped me before. My writing partner, Larry, is fond of rhyme and we often tangle about the ways it draws attention to itself and impedes the progress of the poem (my position, his differs). But here's the cute thing that popped up Saturday morning, when we ended up agreeing on an idea about rhyme. Rhyme both retards and rushes the line, we decided. Once the rhyme scheme is established, we rush forward to find the next rhyme, but at the same time we are pushed back to recall the previous rhyme. No wonder I freeze in the company of heavy, exact rhymes. It's like riding a Push-me Pull-you from Dr. Doolittle. So I suppose it's a bit of a wash in its effect on the speed of any given line, but the influence is there for us to care about. I welcome help on this question. Once one of you has negotiated peace in the Middle East, cured cancer, and fed the whole hungry world, let me know what to think here.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Life Gets Ahead of Me
OMG! Has it really been that long since I wrote here? Blogspot doesn't lie. Sorry, kids, no good excuse, but that stack of Sue Grafton mysteries a friend loaned me is partly to blame. Because each book links to the previous one, it's like reading one long novel I cannot put down. And, unlike the Harry Potters, the next volume has already come out. They just sit there, lined up on my desk, whispering, "Oh, just one or two chapters more, then you can go out and play." Ha! But I cannot blame Grafton for all my procrastinations. We've had a family member, elderly, ill. She died last evening, and while we will miss her, she's no longer confused and in pain, and the air feels lighter without her suffering. It has taken all the adults in our extended family to support her and each other. That's a legitimate commitment to life outside the book.
Then there were writing assignments: a friend and I have worked on a script for a coffeehouse performance coming up this spring; another friend and I have been inventing a workshop on creativity; poems have piled up and now require compilation into a new collection. I'm plugging away at that, and my first readers have signed on, but I must get a generous selection to them so we can weed out the weaker pieces. Then the actual manuscript must coalesce. (Hmm, that's a big word for come together.) This whole mess, then, is the writing life. Stephen King says in his admirable book On Writing, to put the desk in the corner and remember that's where it belongs, not center stage. My desk sits in a specially built writing nook, in front of a big window, and from the living room it's invisible. But I always know that it's there, waiting for me to pay some attention. Just not all my attention. My desk is patient; it knows I'll be back. Now, I have a meeting to prepare for. Talk soon.
Then there were writing assignments: a friend and I have worked on a script for a coffeehouse performance coming up this spring; another friend and I have been inventing a workshop on creativity; poems have piled up and now require compilation into a new collection. I'm plugging away at that, and my first readers have signed on, but I must get a generous selection to them so we can weed out the weaker pieces. Then the actual manuscript must coalesce. (Hmm, that's a big word for come together.) This whole mess, then, is the writing life. Stephen King says in his admirable book On Writing, to put the desk in the corner and remember that's where it belongs, not center stage. My desk sits in a specially built writing nook, in front of a big window, and from the living room it's invisible. But I always know that it's there, waiting for me to pay some attention. Just not all my attention. My desk is patient; it knows I'll be back. Now, I have a meeting to prepare for. Talk soon.
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