Take something beautiful: a rose.
Place it next to something unbeautiful: a corpse.
a rose
a corpse
There is emotion in naming that does not require explication. Nor must you remind the reader of their father's father who was lying stiff and cold in a grey striped suit. They will find those places on their own. Nor need you remind them of pockets nor posies. They will remember the playground, or Aunt Sonia's gardens, or the undertaker, wheeling death from the hospital elevator under a blanket of red velvet.
Try another.
Take something mechanical: a conveyor belt.
Place it next to something biological: an earthworm.
a conveyor belt
an earthworm
Mess with the articles. Definite and indefinite change things.
a conveyor belt
the earthworm
Allow your reader to think for himself. Do not tell him that the conveyor belt is moving, slowly, nor that the worm is crawling, quickly, yet too slowly, nor that there is doom at the end, nor that there is a will moving the machine against the will moving, and crawling, and leaving a small, wet, slimy trail on the black rubber. Do not tell him that the worm is the conveyor; though that, too, is possible.
Take something abstract: forgetfulness.
Place it next to something concrete: coconuts
forgetfulness
coconuts
And do not tell the reader stories about gravity and slapstick cartoons, nor draw analogies between nut and brain. These things happen in multitudes, and there is no need for you to draw the distinctions so clearly. Nor should you force feed alliteration. Can you understand this, Evangeline? Or should I have called you Pyotr the Magnificent?
Hrumph! Are you disappointed that I did not say your name, Steve?
Cindy?
Frandreka?
Jelle Van Everdingen?
You must master the art of suggestion: Names are quite subjective.
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Am I Evangeline? Because I seriously need a lesson. 1) Is this a conventional writing lesson or a poetry writing lesson? 2) What's the definition of poetry, and how is it different from other writing? 3) It seems like you were writing to people who may have known what you were writing about. No?
ReplyDeleteI don't fully understand things unless you start at the beginning and explain it like Bob Ion would. I took "Technical Writing" where I learned to say what I wanted to say clearly in as few words as possible. No room for interpretation.
Angie
I think what you are asking is a basic question about the difference between poetry and prose. And, Bob-Ion style, you are looking for some objective, quantifiable descriptors. The big problem, though, is that there is no difference.
ReplyDeleteOne of the the unique powers of God is the power to create something from nothing. And in the Bible, when God wants to do this, he does it through language, through words. Even the Ten Commandments were words written down in stone. This is the most significant power of humanity that separates us from all other creatures. We create through language: blueprints (architectural language); binary code (mathematical/computer language); movie scripts (theatrical language). We take things that once did not exist, and we create them through declarations of language: "I pronounce you husband and wife."
To me, poetry at its most basic level is the conscious effort to create through language. When a programmer sits down to write an elegant script, with the particular knowledge that it is a work of language that he is about to do, then I would describe that as poetry. (Not that I would split hairs about the consciousness of the creator in regard to whether or not he understands what he is doing: a programmer could create poetry without realizing it, I suppose). However, when one is more conscious that it is a work of language that he undertakes, then I believe that he will find--if nothing else--more personal satisfaction in the end result. In the end he can look back upon his creation and say, "I made this from nothing but my consciousness."
(Echoes of hubris resounding from the mountaintops).
Yeah, we are pretty much gods.
So, in answer to your questions:
1) Both
2) None
3) Yes and no. Any speaker of English who knows these words has a personal connection to what these words mean. Anybody who knows English will derive some meaning from these words, but that meaning is not necessarily the same meaning I would derive. People have many and various emotional connections to words, and the job of the poet is to create something big enough that the meaning is relevant to a large audience, while small enough that individuals feel a personal connection to the passage.
If one person in a million feels emotion after reading a poem, then the poem was successful for one in a million.
If ten thousand in a million feel emotion, then the poem has been more successful.
If you want to walk away from this "lesson" with anything objective, it is this: If you want to be a poet who writes with significance outside your personal circle of friends and family, you must write with a specificity that engages multitudes without alienating them. This poem seems to fail in that pursuit by the naming of particular people at the end. If your name is Jelle Van Everdingen, then the poem means a lot more to you than it would to someone else. However, as you demonstrated, most people try to find themselves in one or more of the names anyway--because it is our human instinct to find connections in writing. The poet must understand this about his audience--and exploit it.
I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but it has helped me a great deal. (Yes, that is ironic.)
Yes, it helps. Thank you and you're welcome.
ReplyDeleteEvangeline