fun fun fun
In all the recent posts here one really obvious thing hasn't been mentioned. I'm finding it fun to write again.
Probably everyone goes through periods of learning and consolidation, everyone has difficult patches, a lot of people feel the need to go off and learn some theory [having done it I'd say don't bother - more later], and sometimes you feel like you're repeating yourself. But I was trying to remember when writing was last consistently fun. 1996 thru 97 was good. And I kind of had brief periods of play in 2000 and 04. Then there was the hiatus from poetry that generated a lot of work, but mostly not writing, in 06/07. So at best it hasn't been fun to write, and certainly not to write poetry since 04.
Minimalisms, conceptualisms. constrained writings, visual poetics and especially sound poetry are all making it exciting and fun to write. Does it matter if it's publishable or even any good? Does it hell. It's one of those things you kind of loathe yourself for saying, but the process is what's important.
Example: yesterday there were a few things I could have spent the morning doing, but I figured I'd start by trying to put together a piece of mail art for one of the current call-outs. I started drawing my Beckoning Cat, without any expectation of it being any good, and spent around 90 minutes completely absorbed. Writing also has gotten more like that, with no worry about satisfying some concept of 'good writing'. As an aside I'm pretty happy with the resulting mail art - watch this space for further news.
Anyway, that question of theory. I'll probably change my mind again later but right at the moment having done a semester of poetic forms I'd say don't bother. It wasn't the first time, large parts of the mid-90s were wasted in a similar endeavour. My position has always been that poetic form is only ever a retrospective description of what's gone before, and that using rules that worked for Shakespeare is fine if you want to write like Shakespeare. Now before you start whining: Yes, form is more flexible than that, I'm exaggerating. And yes, Shakespeare is a fine writer, but he was writing in the 16th/17th centuries about the 16th/17th centuries. Using the same language and techniques about today would be downright eccentric.
The point being, unless you're happy to do just what the other person's doing, form doesn't have much value. You're smart enough to make up your own rules, someone else can codify them and teach them to schoolkids later on. And forget the blah blah about 'technical grounding' etc. There's a lot of very dull, though technically very sound writers out there. Without wishing to carpet-bomb anyone, and without wishing to burn any bridges, almost the entire contemporary poetry lists of Faber, Bloodaxe and Carcanet (the big UK names) consist of unreadable drudge. Often very well written, but unreadable drudge nonetheless.
Probably everyone goes through periods of learning and consolidation, everyone has difficult patches, a lot of people feel the need to go off and learn some theory [having done it I'd say don't bother - more later], and sometimes you feel like you're repeating yourself. But I was trying to remember when writing was last consistently fun. 1996 thru 97 was good. And I kind of had brief periods of play in 2000 and 04. Then there was the hiatus from poetry that generated a lot of work, but mostly not writing, in 06/07. So at best it hasn't been fun to write, and certainly not to write poetry since 04.
Minimalisms, conceptualisms. constrained writings, visual poetics and especially sound poetry are all making it exciting and fun to write. Does it matter if it's publishable or even any good? Does it hell. It's one of those things you kind of loathe yourself for saying, but the process is what's important.
Example: yesterday there were a few things I could have spent the morning doing, but I figured I'd start by trying to put together a piece of mail art for one of the current call-outs. I started drawing my Beckoning Cat, without any expectation of it being any good, and spent around 90 minutes completely absorbed. Writing also has gotten more like that, with no worry about satisfying some concept of 'good writing'. As an aside I'm pretty happy with the resulting mail art - watch this space for further news.
Anyway, that question of theory. I'll probably change my mind again later but right at the moment having done a semester of poetic forms I'd say don't bother. It wasn't the first time, large parts of the mid-90s were wasted in a similar endeavour. My position has always been that poetic form is only ever a retrospective description of what's gone before, and that using rules that worked for Shakespeare is fine if you want to write like Shakespeare. Now before you start whining: Yes, form is more flexible than that, I'm exaggerating. And yes, Shakespeare is a fine writer, but he was writing in the 16th/17th centuries about the 16th/17th centuries. Using the same language and techniques about today would be downright eccentric.
The point being, unless you're happy to do just what the other person's doing, form doesn't have much value. You're smart enough to make up your own rules, someone else can codify them and teach them to schoolkids later on. And forget the blah blah about 'technical grounding' etc. There's a lot of very dull, though technically very sound writers out there. Without wishing to carpet-bomb anyone, and without wishing to burn any bridges, almost the entire contemporary poetry lists of Faber, Bloodaxe and Carcanet (the big UK names) consist of unreadable drudge. Often very well written, but unreadable drudge nonetheless.
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