My interview for this month kind of fell through, so it’s just me right now.
As I was trying to think about what to write, what I thought would be relevant or helpful, and related to the posts I’ve been doing these last few months, one idea kept coming to mind.
How do we make ourselves and our art accessible?
I feel that one problem with literary writing is forgetting the audience. I suppose writing can just be for itself; the exercise of the art, the self-expression. But to me, writing is both an expression and a connection…. like an arrow with a line shot–you’ve got a target in mind, and that target will pull your writing taut.
For instance, anti-novels, along the line of Samuel Beckett. Has anyone here ever tried to read his triad Molloy, Malone Dies, the Unnamable? I tried. I got about halfway through Malone Dies through sheer determination. And yes, the writing is evocative, and turns my mind around in all kinds of twisty ways, and so obviously Beckett is a consummate writer.
But to what end?
Not to say that art shouldn’t require some effort in its consumption and interpretation. A *lot* of effort, sometimes. That effort, to access a piece of art, can bring so much more depth of understanding of a piece once you’ve arrived at understanding, interpretation. Like a Urim-and-Thummim, almost…. you can look through a piece of art as a window into something wider and deeper.
Do I dare disturb
the beauty of the universe?
in a minute there is time
for decisions and revisions
which a minute can reverse.
***
A few weeks ago, I went and spoke to several high school classes about being a writer. I spoke to them about writing as a career, and a lifestyle, and the art of writing itself. I talked a lot about poetry. I feel that each of the arts has its “hard to access, must work hard and learn to appreciate” facet. For dancing, this would be ballet. It is hard to watch a ballet unless you really appreciate dancing; perhaps even are a dancer yourself, so that you can appreciate purity of form and the purity and power of the technique involved. For music, I’d target Opera (I’m a singer, so I’m erring in favor of vocal music) as this “hard to access, but you open worlds of un-surpassing beauty to yourself once you do”, facet. Who can fill a concert hall with his vocal sound like Placido or Renee? It is hard to listen to Opera if you haven’t listened to a lot of singing beyond the easily-accessible (but still lovely) pop-art that is floating around.
So what is this facet in the world of writing?
Personally, I think it is poetry.
Poetry is maybe the most literary of all writing, (call me out, literary novelists and essayists, that’s fine,) and the hardest to access. Unless you are a wordsmith yourself, it is difficult to understand a poem without investing a lot of time into it. But once you do…. oh, once you do.
It took me a few tries to like sushi. But now I dream of sushi.
Some poetry is so infused into my psyche that it comes up randomly in my head… singing cadences, words that punch in rapid-fire and bring my emotions to the surface, where they belong…. words that let me see inside another person’s mind, or bring a deep thrill of understanding.
And when you look at each of these examples–Ballet, Opera, Poetry–these are the techniques that hone the artist. Ballet technique is arguably essential if you want to become a great dancer… as well, classical technique for singing and poetry (I think) for writing. The word-smithing involved in writing poetry (I always compare it to scrubbing the tiles on a bathroom floor with a toothbrush, as compared to mopping a large swath of dining room floor with a mop) will give you a solid idea of which words are or aren’t necessary in your longer pieces.
Writing has to have a target, though, I think. When you write a poem, are you writing words for words’ sake? Are you being purposefully inscrutable? Are you falling in love with your own phrases because they sound so unique and avant-garde? In poetry more than any other art, you must kill every single darling.
I would argue that every piece of advice a person could give you to up your writing ability would be about making your words understandable and relatable.
What are your thoughts? This post really is all over the place.
I think it’s less that literary writing is written without regard to an audience than that it is often written for a very narrow, restricted audience.
Something I’ve thought about now and again is how much of world literature was actually written for a pretty narrow group of peers. Chaucer, I would argue, wrote less to impress his fellow Englishmen than throw down with Petrarch and Boccaccio. (Though part of that throwing-down was to write something that also appealed more broadly.)
It’s possible to write a work of fiction (for example) that succeeds well enough in one area that this can make the story successful despite a lackluster performance in other areas. In fact, perhaps that’s the way it most often happens. But as a writer, I like the idea of trying to make a story succeed in every area: vividness of prose, characterization, compelling pacing, worldbuilding, etc. Sometimes, admittedly, pursuit of multiple goals may weaken rather than help; but it’s a nice ideal to strive for.
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Sometimes it seems I can’t only write what I read. When I’m reading a lot of poetry, I write a lot of poetry. Poetry in, poetry out. PIPO.
I like to think everything I write has some poetry in it, though….