How can I take the reader's perspective into account when I write? I write from excess, from overflow, from abundance, a plethora, a cyclone of words. Aren't we all on journeys, discovering our way as we go? Mine isn't a journey of logic, nor do I know the path or the map that'll finally result from it all. I don't have a specific set of interests to write about. Though I do favour prose poetry and exploring emotional landscapes. My lifewriting is often hidden in metaphors, obscured with fictions, offered as a tie-dyed garment of brightly coloured silk, fragile and soft as the morning sun, or as dense dark broadcloth heavy with grime and flung before you. For I don't know who you are. I can only guess. With your writing at your sites, in comments, I create a sense of you that is surely only a part of who you are. We dance together, oh, yes, we do this, in our writing, our interconnections, and it's fun, most enjoyable, but I wonder about the intersections, parallels, curvatures, and parabolas of our intertextual writing. We share our core values, deeper selves, revealing who we are in ways that we might not in social situations, we let each other overhear us, our soliloquys, yet we are always cognizant of each other, and each other's perspectives. We love the dialogues we have. Small sitting rooms for writers writing on writing, where the style of the saying counts, not just what is said. Let's share fine champagne and fresh strawberries and talk of art and literature and philosophy and each other's joys and travails with the perfection that a purely writerly existence affords. It's a luxury, living through words like this. We can be true to our most generous, loving selves. Posts fall like golden leaves, etched with our words, disappearing into the world, a world that is surely far richer for what we are sharing.I write out of excess. I write because
I'm too full. Over-ripe. Spilling out.
The corset of silence too tight.
I write because I'm pregnant and have
to give birth.
It's the extravagance of living.
The fertility of words.
Because I carry around
a wild dictionary in my head.
Because of the aesthetics of expression,
how satisfying it is to compose, to share.
A thought, a heart motion, a poem, a gift.
From me, but to you.
Why do you write?
So I don't die~or succumb to genuine insanity~and that is the truth of it, plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteAt Blue Cottage, most of the writing is simply the sort of free flow one engages in at any given moment of reflection. I don't take a lot of effort to take the reader's perspective into account as a general [public forum] rule there; which is most likely why only kindred spirits can even understand what I am trying to say. With any professional endeavor, the trick is in the mechanics and, hopefully, the individualized voice in transmitting a story cohesively from what is in the mind. I don't always know if I accomplish this. It is difficult to stand back, although it is essential to do so in any professional respect. The greatest reply to my quest for show don't tell came on your site, inadvertently through a comment by Nyc Joyce as I had mentioned at the time. It was one of those "Eureka" moments~and I am grateful for it, no doubt.
I like what you have to say on this topic of discussion, Miss Brenda. It is an honest reflection and an indepth one. I love the image. It is aboslutely perfect in reflecting on your words. If there were an image to display openly what it feels in my mind half the time, that'd be the one.
Blessings~
Ken, the writing you do on technical issues at your blog, Digital Common Sense, barely taps what's underneath. What you've written here is beautiful, expansive, explanatory, creative, almost a whole life lesson in itself, a chunk of wisdom, a revealing of the self in the ways that enables others to open as well. Thank you for responding so eloquently. Those pocket journals sound not just useful but essential...
ReplyDeleteLaurieglynn, the Blue Cottage is such a respite from the world, sometimes. Your reflections there often quite minimal, but affect me greatly, with well chosen paintings, they are like poems, finely wrought, deeply felt. I am glad you are able to keep this quiet corner for what engages your mind at the moment. The other writing, the serious writing, is, I know, heavy with the weight, as it were, of carrying everything. Yet to read a longer piece of work of yours is an amazing experience. Those delicately wrought essences at Blue Cottage interweaving an entire manuscript is more than something to behold.
Ken, you mentioned release, and Laurieglynn, you mentioned insanity. Yes, I, too, have felt extreme pressure to write, to paint, to dance, to be. The blog form is quite ideal for our releases and insanities, excesses and abundances, ... :)
Lately, I don't. My mind and my body are tired -- fighting -- restless. Some days, I am afraid that meaningful words will never come again. And some days I am afraid they will -- and I will be unable to stop them.
ReplyDelete