In Which I Learn a Newish Thing, Possibly Again

Apr20

So I was over at interestingliterature.com reading about Gerard Manley Hopkins, the great Jesuit poet, and one of the interesting facts about him that was mentioned was this rhythm he invented. According to Encyclopedia Brittanica:

Sprung rhythm, an irregular system of prosody developed by the 19th-century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is based on the number of stressed syllables in a line and permits an indeterminate number of unstressed syllables. In sprung rhythm, a foot may be composed of from one to four syllables. (In regular English metres, a foot consists of two or three syllables.) Because stressed syllables often occur sequentially in this patterning rather than in alternation with unstressed syllables, the rhythm is said to be “sprung.” Hopkins claimed to be only the theoretician, not the inventor, of sprung rhythm. He saw it as the rhythm of common English speech and the basis of such early English poems as Langland’s Piers Plowman and nursery rhymes such as: Ding dong, bell,/Pussys in the well.

Sprung rhythm is a bridge between regular metre and free verse. An example of Hopkins’ use of it, from “Spring and fall to a Young Child,” is: Margaret are you grieving/Over Goldengrove unleaving?

I think this is what I have been doing without knowing it when I say that I am using a loose version of iambic pentameter in the poetry project I have been working on. Gosh, and here I thought I had invented something. Who knew?

Sprung Rhythm. Encyclopedia Brittanica. 2015. Web. 20 April 2015.

How Point of View Changes Content

Apr19

A long time ago, while I was living in Japan after college, two of my best friends from school got married. In my absence, they invited my parents to serve as Pinch Guests. I got three letters describing the wedding and they could have all gone to three different weddings for all I could tell. My mother described what everyone wore (and what is tulle, anyway?). James, the best man and a musician, described the bachelor party and the music for the wedding and reception. The bride wrote about how Wonderful everything had been it was just so Wonderful it was Wonderful! I suspect she could not remember a thing that had happened. This is an example of the Rashomon Effect, which as Wikipedia tells us is “contradictory interpretations of the same event by different people…. It is named for Akira Kurosawa‘s film Rashomon, in which a crime involving four individuals is described in four mutually contradictory ways.”

We have seen this used in lots of films and TV shows, from Hero and Gone Girl to the X Files and Garfield and Friends, and often the use is to shift blame or take credit, but I think it is fun to show how two different characters see an event and choose what they focus their attention on. You walk into someone’s living room and you might notice the interior decoration, but I am going to notice the absence or presence of books and what genres the owner reads. So in theory, if I have written a scene from the point of view of an American interior decorator and I change the pov to that of a Japanese businessman, the whole scene should change.

“Rashomon Effect.” Wikipedia. 24 March 2015. Web. 19 April 2015.

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys: Or, Choosing the Problem to Address

Apr15

Life imitates art at least as much as art imitates life. This morning I walked into my office to find on my desk a Xeroxed meme of a little juggling monkey, with the words “Not my circus, not my monkeys –Polish proverb.” This is one of two meme phrases we use among ourselves a lot at the MIT Writing Center. (The other is “I am a tiny potato and I believe in you. You can do the thing,” which comes in handy a LOT during Thesis Pain Season, i.e., spring.) In life, choosing which battles to fight, and whose, is a constant struggle. The ability to create boundaries for ourselves is a crucial skill, and one that our socialization seems to make a bit harder for women than for men.

But I think this principle is also important for writing (because if you hand me a principle or concept of ANY kind, the odds are ridiculously good that I can figure out a way to make it be about writing: The arc of Susan is long, but it rolls towards writing.) Increasingly, I have been thinking about the process of writing, and that of writing poetry in particular, as being about problem solving. With a poem, I have not only a story to tell in a particular voice or voices, both of which I am managing with word choice and line length and spaces between lines (stanza control, as I think of it, even with free verse); but I am also singing this to my readers and I want them to hear the music, the rhythm and pitch, the emotions that those convey, and I have to choose each word so very carefully, so that you can pick up the poem and turn it in the light and you will see the facets of a gemstone rather than the patches of a soccer ball (unless of course you are a soccer fanatic, in which case I would rather have you see my poem as your beloved ball). And each word that I choose limits my choices for the following words.

I know that all writing has some of these difficulties. These are the things inherent in a piece of writing that make writing hard. The other, more environmental things are not at play here for me, since this is a personal, free form, deadlineless project. And I think, because of that, when I say that a poem is a series of problems that have been solved I think of it as mathematicians think about problems as opportunities for beauty to happen (no, seriously, they think that way; they are just as crazy as the soccer fans, which is also kind of beautiful).

And sometimes in writing the most important choice is to know when to stop hammering away at the thing and get up and go make dinner or play with the cat or grade papers. The words will be there, waiting for you, when you get back. Trust me on this.

The Object is the Thing. No, Literally.

Apr13

Fifteen years ago, I wrote a poem to commemorate the wedding of two friends. I based it on the traditional Navajo wedding vase, and tried to use internal rhyme to give it movement, and to say All The Things I think about marriage, have witnessed quite a few over the years. The irony: the poem first appeared in To Love One Another, a book of poetry about marriage by an assortment of poets, of whom I am probably the only one who had never been married. I also read this a few years back at the wedding of another set of friends, which was a great compliment and honor. I feel like it has held up well over the years.

Now You Have Become One

Pitcher Pouring out Water from Two Sides

…

reflection on a Navajo wedding vase

for Andrew and Cathy

…

A difficult trick, requiring cooperation

and grace, like a three-legged race

where you hop and kick your way

to the finish line. Such a pitcher is full

of contradiction. No more can you

say of the water, “This is mine,” or

of the pitcher, “I.” Now you learn

to say “we,” take turns pouring out

on the dry ground around you—

…

for desert will always surround you,

awaiting clean water to awaken the green,

the flowering red and blue, from the baking,

cracked ground. Now you will practice

togetherness mopping floors and grouting

tile, opening doors in yourselves and leaving

them open, like the spouting lip of this

pitcher on each side. Now, man and bride,

woman and groom, you will cleave

like clay braided together, reaching around

to embrace. But first, you will need

…

to leave room in your day to pour out

over one another’s faces, to quench each

other’s thirst. And in your trade-off

for closeness, you must give up those

crabby mornings, easy freedoms, blithe

old habits. Sometimes you must give away

what you most treasure. You must give

water in due season. You must give to

each other, the world, in equal measures.

…

“Now You Have Become One Pitcher Pouring out Water from Two Sides” first appeared in To Love One Another, published by Grayson Books (Ginny Lowe Connors, ed.).

The Mess of the Old School Writer

Apr12

One of the problems with still kicking it old school and writing most of my poetry by hand is that when I have a huge project like this (50 poems in the last 33 or so days), my poor roommates cant even sit on the couch without finding bits of paper that say things like “Penelope, Embattled, Requests Aid” or “your heart lies on the road” or “like the fire spreading.” I guess I am thinking of this because of yesterday’s cento, the poem made from bits of other poems. I guess what I really feel like is a kind of bardic Pigpen: as I walk around I let fall a cloud of poems instead of a cloud of dust.

Discovering the Cento

Apr11

So the other day, I was reading Robert Okaji’s poetry blog and he gave an example of a form of poetry I had never before heard of, the cento, a patchwork poem made from the lines of other poems. Naturally, I immediately wanted to do this, and today I sat down and did. I picked out some of my favorite volumes by some of my favorite writers on my main poetry shelf (the one I can reach without a ladder or chair) and went to work. My cat jumped up on the table, settled himself under his tanning lamp with his feet on my wrist and watched. So here it is. I have listed the poem each line is from below. They are in reverse chronological order because I moved from A to Z and put the stack down backwards. Sigh. See what you think.

Cento

Ah, the shining pastures of salt:

Flames bouncing off the river’s back,

A photograph of an eagle just setting down,

Bright fog reaching over the beaches.

How poignant and amplified the world before me seemed.

In this condition I write extraordinary love poems,

Strengthening our embrace.

…

I mostly chose lines that had roughly similar rhythm and length and ended with a short line, as that feels more musical. I like it because it is sort of representative of the inner geography of my mind when I sit down to write: the inside reality is bigger and grander than the outside reality. And I have been writing love poems of a sort lately; I am not actually in love myself, it is only part of a project. Then again, May Sarton would say that all writing is a love poem because love is attention to details.

…

Willard, Nancy. Missionaries among the Heathen. Water Walker.

Troupe, Quincy. Snakeback Solo #2. Avalanche.

Piercy, Marge. What Goes Up. Stone, Paper, Knife.

Ursula K. LeGuin. Incredible Good Fortune, Incredible Good Fortune.

Collins, Billy. Marginalia, and Purity. Sailing Along around the Room.

Boland, Eavan. VII. First Year, Against Love Poetry.

OToole, Robert. Eagle Morning Strike. Photo.

The Magic of Emergent Creativity

Apr10

Here I go again, letting my writing get in the way of my blogging about writing. Luckily, when I am in a big project like this, I also sit on my own shoulder to watch myself writing, and I learn stuff. What I have learned this week is not exactly new to me, but rather something I have known for a while but have not had the language for. There is a sense of trust that creative writers need to have to be really productive. We must trust that the writing wants to happen, that the story is out there somewhere trying to enter the world, and when we get really, really lucky, it finds us.

J.R.R. Tolkien called this process Subcreation, and talks about it with both fiction and nonfiction in his book Tree and Leaf. But I think today I would rather call it the emergent miracle of creativity or the magic of emergent creativity. In science, emergence is defined as characteristics of a material, say, that are not characteristics of the material’s cells or atoms. The human mind is an emergent characteristic of the human brain. Wetness, reflectivity, and splash are emergent qualities of water that have no clear source in either hydrogen or oxygen atoms. When we are creative, something happens that we do not really ever have complete control over. I throw words on a page, and sometimes they turn into clear or turgid prose and sometimes they turn into a failed poem or a poem of such beauty I reduce myself to tears. Yes, some of that is learned, some of that is my unique imagination applied to a particular subject. Sometimes it can come down to a word I came across the day before or an image from a dream, those tiny gifts the universe gives us, saying, “Take this. Make me more.”

But this thing we learn to trust is what Stephen Buhner, in his book Ensouling Language, calls the golden thread that we find and pick up and follow to the end. I like this metaphor because of the way it has mythic resonance, reminding us of Theseus getting through the labyrinth with his ball of thread, a story about order overcoming chaos, which is, after all, one of the duties of art.

I saw this today during my office hours, which I spent writing a poem about Love and the Epic Hero, which not surprisingly turned out to be very long, about 136 lines. After struggling with a piece at what I originally thought was the end, I finally realized that a different set of pieces in the middle Really Needed to be the ending, because of the pair of images those pieces ended with. One person ends the stanza saying:

I long for a map,

Even if much of it is blank and claiming

“Here be dragons.” At least then I would have

A chance to navigate this strange terrain.

Then the other speaker ends the next stanza with:

This is the territory of dragons. I dare not

Treat it instead as some kind of treasure map.

I love taking an image and using it in two different ways like that, and I did not see when I wrote the first image how I could use it until I wrote the next stanza, but I have learned to trust that I will know what needs to be done.

And now, for you, a small dose of Sandra Boynton.

The Stories We Tell and Live Into

Apr6

As a writer who is also a Christian, I find I think about Passover and Easter as being about the Story. We tell the stories of Exodus and the Passion of Christ at this sacred time of year to remind ourselves of who we are. That is what ritual is for: we eat specific food and tell specific stories and sing specific songs and we know ourselves as a people descended from the people who chose those foods, stories and songs, gathered or invented them and gave them meaning.

I think of this in the context of the popular cultural narratives that have been occupying my thoughts these last few weeks, in particular, the two separate and very different first century CE localities of ancient Greece and Rome, brought to us by Renaissance Pictures, Rob Tapert and Lucy Lawless, Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Xena: Warrior Princess. The more recent Spartacus (2010 to 2013) was about men (and women) bound to the gladiatorial arena. It was about despair and meaningless death. In contrast, the earlier XWP (1995 to 2001) was about changing one’s way and rising from death into something better.

I have binge watched XWP more than once. I rented the DVDs of Spartacus once; while the half naked gladiators were nice, there is no way I would watch those shows again. They are too much like Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, in that when blood sprayed across my computer screen, I automatically found myself throwing up my arms to keep the blood from splashing across my face.

Yep. That bad.

I think about all this now because of the two major interpretations of Christ’s death and resurrection. There are people who talk about Christ’s dying for our sins, as if God was so pissed off with humans that he (it is always he in these readings) needed to kill his own Son to make up for our sin. Weird shit, that. In contrast, a more liberal reading says that humans killed Jesus, but God the Father/Creator/Mother resurrected him to prove to us lame humans that death is not the end, that God can overcome this enormous problem.

So when I look at the stories I use to constitute my identity, I often choose the ones that are not about characters trying to see how much they can get away with but about characters engaged in rescue and redemption, rather like the Jewish idea of tikkun olam, the repair of the world. It is an ongoing project, a battle that never is entirely won. All you can do is stay on the road, take good friends with you for the journey, and keep telling yourselves the stories that remind you who you are, and how strong you can actually be.

Let Me Sing You the Song of My People

Apr4

One of the downsides of having a very productive month is that Normal People do not understand how amazing this is and ignore you and Writer People, who do understand, yes, my pretty, they understand All Too Well, resent you. Some of this divergence comes out of a misunderstanding about the creative process. I believe that Sustained Creative Productivity (SCP) requires a shitload of work and self-discipline, for a given value/definition of self-discipline. The word disciple simply means learner. So the kind of self-discipline I am talking about is really learning about yourself and your rhythms, motivations, inspiration. It can be scary, when you identify as a Writer People, to fall into a period of writers block or creative constipation. Like real constipation, it is painful. What is worse, it also threatens your identity. Like a bad knock-knock joke, you ask yourself, How can I Be a Writer if I am not writing? And the only answer you have is either, “Oooh, ooh, I know this one! The sound of one hand clapping!” or “I guess I am not.”

It feels a bit like that moment in Superman II when Clark Kent, who has thrown off his superpowers to be with Lois Lane, suddenly realizes that without his power, he is nothing. It is a crap feeling. (And can I just point out here something I have learned from a friend: if somebody ever tells you that the only way you can have love is to give up your super power, that person is singing the song of Patriarchal Oppression. Invite them out of your life. Then carry on loving and using your super power. Thank you, Jenna Tucker.)

I have often found that I get to the end of the academic year and I am so burnt out from teaching all year that I have nothing to work with. It is so frustrating because I have generally great weather and lots of time and nothing to show for it. And given that I did not always get a lot done during the two semesters, since I basically grade student papers two weeks out of every three, it meant I was not getting much done for the whole frigging year.

But lately, I have noticed that I am getting more done during the semester. This is due to a few things. First, from 2008 to 2012 I was teaching at two schools and doing a second Masters degree at a third (cuz it turns out the Masters degrees are collectible: get the whole set!). Ironically, I was doing this because I had gotten so burned out teaching. It was often a gruelling process to balance all that stuff, but, much like getting hit over the head with a baseball bat, it felt GREAT when it stopped. Suddenly I had extra time to do things, like write, or like watch old TV shows or read novels or pop culture textual criticism (cuz as an English teacher, I nerd hard).

Second, all those papers? There is a trick to using the thing you would rather not be doing as a counterbalance to what you do want to be doing. I can get any amount of writing done if I am staring at a pile of 38 student papers. Grade some, write some, grade some, write some. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finally, if next month turns out to be One of Those Mays, dry, barren, devoid of writerly hope, etc., I will try not to worry about it and just call it a vacation. Read some light novels. Kick back for a change. Failing that, I can sing you the Song of My People:

I am not writing!

I will neeeeeeeeever write again!

Woe betide me!

As the block rides me!

I will neeeeeeeeever write again!

It actually sounds a lot like the Darth Vader theme, now that I think about it, or possibly Wagner…

In Which Our Hero Learns Nifty New Pop Culture Slang

Apr3

I dedicate this post to my sister, Michelle Spilecki, whose birthday it is today.

So over the weekend I learned a catchy new abbreviation and the idea that goes with it: OTP, One True Pairing. Think about some of the TV pairs from the last twenty years. These are just the shows I watch. I am sure you could come up with plenty more yourself, especially if you are more of a Zombie Apocalypse kind of individual.

Scully and Mulder

Buffy and Angel

Booth and Bones

Castle and Beckett

Phil and Melinda

Carter and Martinelli (or Sousa, if you prefer)

Xena and Gabrielle

These are all pairings in which the chemistry between the actors almost immediately got conveyed to people who were prepared to see it. When I think about The X Files, Buffy, and Castle, in addition to Xena: Warrior Princess, I would argue that in the pilot of each series you see the kind of chemistry before the end of the episode.

I think one of the things that makes these shows so effective is that most of the pairs develop their relationship–their knowledge of each other, their professional and personal respect for each other, how they work together and when they give the other person space or slap them upside the head (usually metaphorically)–on the job, working to make the world a better place.

I have often observed that some of the solidest seeming marriages were between two people engaged in one or more complex, long term projects together: leading a church choir, producing community theater, things like that. Raising children together is not the ideal project for marriage building, simply because at some point your project learns to, for example, talk, and then express her/himself, and often what s/he might be projecting is disagreement with one or more of the aforesaid partners in the marriage. In comparison, plays and concerts don’t talk back (although to be fair, actors, singers and the like often do, although as they are not part of the marriage, even if they are part of the family, it does not matter as much). Anyhow, that is what it seems like to me.

So a friend was writing about OTP on her blog an I saw it and thought, as one does, Huh? So I asked her and she said:

One true pairing. As in, “Xena and Gabrielle are my OTP,” or, “Gabrielle and Xena are OTP more than any OTP in the history of fiction, and if you don’t see it, you’re crazy.”

Which makes sense. One of the big problems I see with all my favorite pairs is that they are never completely equal. One person, usually the man, is a little better, smarter, stronger, more… Part of that is how the star billing goes. Part of that is our culture. Part of that is our culture running how star billing goes.

But even on something like Buffy, whose two main squeezes were superpowerful vampires, well, Angel couldn’t be around her without problems, so their equality was made out to be impossible. And Spike was morally her inferior (that whole century of killing sprees thing not followed by a quest for redemption as Angel managed). So they were only equal at fighting not at being in the world and making decisions about good and evil, until really close to the end. And when Spike finally did something to redeem himself, he blew up hell and died with it. Whoops. One more sorta equal relationship bites the dust.

I think what they are doing on Castle is hopeful, with Stana Katic as Detective Beckett matching wits with Nathan Fillion and frequently taking on the more physical roles, but we will have to see how that goes. Hell, the fact that they are so much more often casting women who are five foot nine, and then putting them in four inch heels so they are as tall as the men, goes a long way toward changing how we see women as possibly strong and still lovable. But there is still a sense of women’s sphere and men’s sphere as different and probably not equal. Once Bones had her baby, she stopped going out into the field.

In comparison, what we see with Xena and Gabrielle is two people who start with a very uneven friendship, and end up, six years later with one of the most equal, solid friendships/ partnerships I think I have ever seen on television. I think we would all like a relationship like that. And to some extent I think one reason we often watch these shows is to try out what we think we want and see whether it works. Some writers serve their characters better than others, and we love best the ones that not only show the chemistry and respect between the pairings, but also resist the inorganic cultural forces that try to bend the relationship into an old familiar pattern at the risk of the relationship.

Because, you know, mystery babies are NEVER a good idea. And I would love to see more of Philinda…

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