This set of readings got me thinking about a poem I wrote a few years ago. I was very drunk and in the middle of some sort of emotional episode, and got it in my head that I should write something down, maybe just to vent. I ended up with this pretty incoherent poem that I didn't like very much, and that sensation of not liking it was a fairly bad feeling. Like we talked about in class, though, I ultimately took away a sort of gold nugget from it, and turned it into a piece that I was proud enough of to include in my first chapbook. It took a full year for me to return to that specific poem, but by the time I did, I was happy that I took a chance on writing it -- even though it felt like a failure at the time.
I guess it is pretty ridiculous to think that everything we write ought to be immediately passable, with no room for error. "Error" doesn't even seem like the right word, if the "error" is really an integral part of the writing process. It seems like writing, as a process, includes all the time spent in between writing. My process for writing the aforementioned poem was a year long and included a lot of personal reflection that never made it to the page.
Maybe it's for this reason that I resonate so strongly with "The Importance of Writing Badly." The tendency of some professors, or some folks in workshop groups, or really anyone with this mode of thinking to dog on a piece of writing for being somehow"bad" really rubs me the wrong way. Writing/workshop groups, to me, function ideally when members offer as feedback the ways in which they personally relate to a piece. Like, "here's what this means to me," or "here's how I interpret this," rather than "this is what the piece needs/is missing, here's what I don't like about this." Even if a piece of writing totally fucking stinks, there's always room to respond in that way. It's like peer counseling -- giving advice isn't always the best thing to do.
Anyway, back to the importance of just putting words on the page. The other night I was, again, having some sort of emotional episode, because that's just the way of the world sometimes. I kept having this particular thought, just a one-sentence long sentiment that seemed really poignant to the situation I was agonizing over. I could see myself incorporating it into a poem, but couldn't see myself sitting down to write a poem at the time. I almost let it go, but got to thinking about what we discussed in class, and the content of the readings. I wrote down the sentence, which led to a few more. I only ended up with a little reflective paragraph, but that one paragraph was immensely liberating. I think writing for writing's sake is a good and necessary habit to form, given that after graduation, no one is going to hold me accountable for my writing.
Elise,
ReplyDeleteI think what drew me initially to poetry was the freedom of it. I never struggled too much with grammar or punctuation, but the freedom of poetry was so...freeing. I'm glad to read that many of us are placing less importance on these acts of self importance. Yet, I do find it hard still to keep my keyboard quiet as I read "should of" instead of "should have". I learned a good lesson in a linguistics class about such nuances and the progression of language and once I viewed it with this lens it became far easier to ignore or accept. Do you plan to continue writing solely for yourself or will you pursue publishing opportunities?
Hi Elise,
ReplyDeleteYou write, " I think writing, as a process, includes all the time spent in between writing." I really love that line but I wonder what you mean by it. Are you simply referring to what Lukas called "waiting" and Murray called "delay," the process of marinating an idea? The key theme here, for me anyway, was the value of simply collecting material--a line or two, an observation, etc.--even if its usefulness isn't apparent. I think this is especially important for nonfiction writers, and yet I've always struggled to do it. What that kind of collecting demands, I think, is a note-taking strategy, tools and methods for simply getting things down. I taught a course called "Field Writing" a few years ago, and by the end, I thought that this was the core of the class: learning how to take notes. We don't talk about that enough.
Elise,
ReplyDeleteI resonate with your idea about the most helpful feedback being the reader's own connection and interpretation beyond typical 'I like/don't like' responses. I always wonder if my feedback is helpful to other writers but then I think of what would help most for me as a writer, which is knowing how and when my audience is or is not relating to the piece. More pertinent to the topic of writing to write, you make a good point about no one holding us accountable for writing after we graduate. I liked Goldberg's comparison of writing and running, just like one need practice to run a marathon one needs to practice writing regularly to find the gold nuggets, the things that become a writer's best work.