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Writing about writing, part one
Friday, 25 March 2016 09:47 pm"Actually, It Was Incredible. It Was Primal. I Mean In The Animal, Not The Numerical Sense."*
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I have successfully written in three areas in my life: poetry, fiction, and essays. (Actually, I've also written a couple of plays, but for the purposes of this I'd file those under the fiction heading. I don't see myself writing fiction anymore.)
I've always known the poetry came from a different place from other things I write because unlike fiction or essays, I can't just sit down and write a poem. But this morning I realized that the essays and fiction come from different places, too. Metaphorically, if the poetry comes from my soul, the essays come from my brain and the fiction comes from my heart. Or maybe what I mean is that these forms are expressions of those parts of me.
Let's start with poetry.
I've written poetry since grade school. I'm sure it rhymed, and I'm sure it was mediocre at best. I wrote poems for school assignments and I wrote them for myself—I wrote a lot of heartbroken poems in high school—but I never let them expose me the way a good poem has to. It isn't talent that makes a poem, it's truth. (The talent's necessary to make the poem readable, but if you're not going to tell the truth, reading it is just a waste of time.)
Then in 1999, I had a pretty serious hypomanic episode and everything changed. I wrote feverishly and honestly, I wrote everything I was feeling and didn't care what anyone thought. I tapped something in myself—something in my soul—and I've been writing from there ever since. With only a few exceptions, poetry comes from a place of emotional chaos; it brings order.
The thing I love about poetry is that it's the language of metaphor, deflection, and distance. When you can't say the real words, metonymy can save you. Take two steps back from the thing that's trying to kill you—grief, shame, depression, anxiety—call it by another name, and tell the truth about it.
It's nice that people like my poetry. What I really like is that people who don't normally like poetry seem to like it, and that it seems to resonate with people. It's a lovely feeling, knowing your words are useful to other people. Helping people articulate their confused emotions is one of the best things art does.
But even if that wasn't happening now, I'd still write poetry because I believe that if anything I write will live after me, it will be the poems.
*Dr. Larry Fleinhardt
-:- -:- -:- -:-
I have successfully written in three areas in my life: poetry, fiction, and essays. (Actually, I've also written a couple of plays, but for the purposes of this I'd file those under the fiction heading. I don't see myself writing fiction anymore.)
I've always known the poetry came from a different place from other things I write because unlike fiction or essays, I can't just sit down and write a poem. But this morning I realized that the essays and fiction come from different places, too. Metaphorically, if the poetry comes from my soul, the essays come from my brain and the fiction comes from my heart. Or maybe what I mean is that these forms are expressions of those parts of me.
Let's start with poetry.
I've written poetry since grade school. I'm sure it rhymed, and I'm sure it was mediocre at best. I wrote poems for school assignments and I wrote them for myself—I wrote a lot of heartbroken poems in high school—but I never let them expose me the way a good poem has to. It isn't talent that makes a poem, it's truth. (The talent's necessary to make the poem readable, but if you're not going to tell the truth, reading it is just a waste of time.)
Then in 1999, I had a pretty serious hypomanic episode and everything changed. I wrote feverishly and honestly, I wrote everything I was feeling and didn't care what anyone thought. I tapped something in myself—something in my soul—and I've been writing from there ever since. With only a few exceptions, poetry comes from a place of emotional chaos; it brings order.
The thing I love about poetry is that it's the language of metaphor, deflection, and distance. When you can't say the real words, metonymy can save you. Take two steps back from the thing that's trying to kill you—grief, shame, depression, anxiety—call it by another name, and tell the truth about it.
It's nice that people like my poetry. What I really like is that people who don't normally like poetry seem to like it, and that it seems to resonate with people. It's a lovely feeling, knowing your words are useful to other people. Helping people articulate their confused emotions is one of the best things art does.
But even if that wasn't happening now, I'd still write poetry because I believe that if anything I write will live after me, it will be the poems.
*Dr. Larry Fleinhardt