you can't do that
Recently, although this time around my approach is slightly different, I've started writing poems in a way I first tried in 1996. Crudely this was collaging overheard speech and everyday 'found' text into a poem. Back then they tended to be rambling and narrative, following a route around the city. Now they are much more compressed, and frequently have abstract ideas as their core.
When I first developed this technique I had never read any Apollinaire or heard of his 'Lundi rue Christine', which is composed of overheard speech. It wasn't until several months after I'd started writing in that way that a young woman from Eastern Europe told me about the similarity in technique between what I was doing, and what French writers had done around 100 years previously. I bought myself a book of French Poetry 1820-1950 in translation, which remains one of my firm favourites.
This is all really by way of introduction. One of the things that I'd forgotten, and which must have been very apparent to Apollinaire, is how important the role of the artist remains in collaged poetry. Even if you set yourself broad limits as to what you will put in your poem, and in what form, you have already made several editorial decisions. However much you try to eliminate the writer you can't do so altogether, even if all the words have come from other people. The writer's skill (and perhaps experience) in arranging sound, rhythm, ideas etc will all be required. For instance I never attempted to transcribe everything I encountered, only those things that appealed to me. And once I had those elements I was happy to cut some of them out, and to change the order about until I was happy.
Before anyone objects, I don't want to claim that the writer has a unique ability to make these unlikely elements beautiful or interesting. The whole point of collaging for me is to draw attention to the fact that everything has the potential for beauty, and that there are ways in which we can draw attention to that.
By way of a brief aside and explanation, when I say that everything has the potential for beauty I do not mean that everything is beautiful. For instance, a dead body may be physically beautiful because of the colours we perceive, but that doesn't mean that the idea of death is beautiful, it doesn't mean that killing is beautiful. What it does mean is that aesthetic appreciation can be entirely external. But that doesn't mean that we should ignore an inherent ugliness, injustice or immorality of a situation merely to celebrate its beauty, some situations are beyond that kind of appreciation.
To return to the concept of collaging as I practise it, the implication is that anyone can do it, in which case why should the writer, the artist bother? What is unique about them that can be brought to bear on the form? I don't know the answer, and my inclination from experience and conviction would be to say that there is nothing special. By way of groping for an answer I would say that the difference between an artist and a non-artist practicing this technique is simply that of skill and experience. The writer may be better able to conceive the idea, and to control the effects they get. The better writers may even be able to get closer more often to producing something really brilliant, though on the whole they're more likely to hover around the very skilled, but not-quite heart-stopping region. The unskilled individual will fail as much, if not more than the more skilled writer, but they are perhaps as likely to hit those truly amazing notes that stop you dead in your tracks.
This is still very much in progress, if you have any thoughts on my ideas please let me know. In order to make this a little less abstract I'll be posting some of my newer poems in the next week or two, so keep an eye out.
When I first developed this technique I had never read any Apollinaire or heard of his 'Lundi rue Christine', which is composed of overheard speech. It wasn't until several months after I'd started writing in that way that a young woman from Eastern Europe told me about the similarity in technique between what I was doing, and what French writers had done around 100 years previously. I bought myself a book of French Poetry 1820-1950 in translation, which remains one of my firm favourites.
This is all really by way of introduction. One of the things that I'd forgotten, and which must have been very apparent to Apollinaire, is how important the role of the artist remains in collaged poetry. Even if you set yourself broad limits as to what you will put in your poem, and in what form, you have already made several editorial decisions. However much you try to eliminate the writer you can't do so altogether, even if all the words have come from other people. The writer's skill (and perhaps experience) in arranging sound, rhythm, ideas etc will all be required. For instance I never attempted to transcribe everything I encountered, only those things that appealed to me. And once I had those elements I was happy to cut some of them out, and to change the order about until I was happy.
Before anyone objects, I don't want to claim that the writer has a unique ability to make these unlikely elements beautiful or interesting. The whole point of collaging for me is to draw attention to the fact that everything has the potential for beauty, and that there are ways in which we can draw attention to that.
By way of a brief aside and explanation, when I say that everything has the potential for beauty I do not mean that everything is beautiful. For instance, a dead body may be physically beautiful because of the colours we perceive, but that doesn't mean that the idea of death is beautiful, it doesn't mean that killing is beautiful. What it does mean is that aesthetic appreciation can be entirely external. But that doesn't mean that we should ignore an inherent ugliness, injustice or immorality of a situation merely to celebrate its beauty, some situations are beyond that kind of appreciation.
To return to the concept of collaging as I practise it, the implication is that anyone can do it, in which case why should the writer, the artist bother? What is unique about them that can be brought to bear on the form? I don't know the answer, and my inclination from experience and conviction would be to say that there is nothing special. By way of groping for an answer I would say that the difference between an artist and a non-artist practicing this technique is simply that of skill and experience. The writer may be better able to conceive the idea, and to control the effects they get. The better writers may even be able to get closer more often to producing something really brilliant, though on the whole they're more likely to hover around the very skilled, but not-quite heart-stopping region. The unskilled individual will fail as much, if not more than the more skilled writer, but they are perhaps as likely to hit those truly amazing notes that stop you dead in your tracks.
This is still very much in progress, if you have any thoughts on my ideas please let me know. In order to make this a little less abstract I'll be posting some of my newer poems in the next week or two, so keep an eye out.
Comments
not entirely convinced. Entering into pure aesthetic comtemplation of an object or event would by definition involve removing any meaning- that's broadly what aethetic means, the filtration of visual elements from the non- visual human context.
I don't think "celebration" (perhaps "understanding" would be nearer) of these elements of an image necessarily detracts from the gravity with which we treat the meaning of that image. On the whole, I think people respond most immediately to these elements, and as they look, the layers of meaning become apparent to them, and a more complex emotional response evolves. This takes such a minute amount of time that your first emotional flux when presented with the image will not be remembered.
Sometimes what art does is to preserve that first response by recontextualising such an image. i'm thinking of a photo of a gunshot wound to the head. If I saw it on the news, I would have processed it as semantic information and my response to it would have been far different to the instictive joy I actually felt as a result of the rhythm of colour and form.
which was, of course, the artist's point exactly.
In normal day to day life we don't- we can't- naturally separate things out in this way, (if we do, we are seen as highly unusual), so I don't find it immoral or irresponsible for artists to show us the things our well- integrated minds ignore. It's their job, innit?
thoughts?
motormouth.
Personal aesthetics is the reactions we all have as individuals to sights, sounds etc that we encounter all the time. Although the interpretation we put on our reactions is almost entirely conditioned by our culture and upbringing, the aesthetic response itself is not. It is in a way, the unconcious reaction to something.
Public aesthetics is what it is acceptable for the artist to portray, and in what way. This is the concious reaction to something.
It may be that the personal aesthetics of every single person in the world would find something (a lighting effect, a stray sound) in any piece of work, however obscene and immoral, to appreciate. However, the public aesthetics of most of us would crush that down pretty quickly. My point (admittedly thrown-away) was that there are certain places where aesthetics might go, where most people's conscious minds wouldn't.
I hope that's clear, I was thinking on my feet a little, although the examples are exactly what I had in mind.