12 posts tagged “writing”

found this while roaming online today. Is fun and a quick tool if you are looking for a rhyme.

Rhyming Dictionary

How do you write a primer and what on earth is it?

A post from an old blog of mine...

where written thoughts have no ink or lead, just bytes

It is odd how one can do something for so long and not see the obvious. It was as if a curtain had lifted from my eyes, I had a better understanding of myself. When I write my mind often jumps through many hoops, like a game. No, more like a biscuit recipe, none of the ingredients by themselves stand alone but when combined, they merge and become something different. Baking Soda by itself, is not something you would eat with dinner but combine flour and a few other ingredients and you have biscuits.

Much like multitasking, thirty of forty different thoughts quickly become part of the conversation or writing, skipping back and forth with questions or thoughts that do not always make sense until finally, all the pieces come together. The perspective continually changes with the thoughts. I often imagine scientists and mathematicians doing this as well, the expansion of odd thought moving about until a new and novel way to see becomes a postulate or hypothesis. I picture Einstein in my minds eye, looking up in the sky or trying to create the tones on his violin to correspond with a mathematical idea or maybe it was the other way around? Say he was listening to a piece of music and his mind was transported to an imaginary creation of space, mayhap he would have flown within the stars and planets? The ideas and fancies mind you are mere entertainment but often these flights of the imagination lead to other thoughts and ideas.

Can you imagine what it would be like to release the idea of time and just be? I mean, as if the idea of time where never noticed, as if the need to concentrate or to schedule your moments were simply put aside. Many think this is what a vacation is but if they think of it more along the lines of meditation or a moment of peace, then that is okay too.

You see, the thing about moments that makes them special is that a moment can feel like less than an instant or it can last for what seems like hours. It is our perspective of time that makes the moment change, so if we just let time mean nothing, a moment can last for a very long time. Perspective, in all of its forms seems to be what I strive for more often than not. I just wish I had figured this out twenty years ago but then again, if I had known would I know be blogging this entry?

Think of your mind as a ketchup bottle and as your pen and paper as the hand that holds the bottle. The glass bottle has a long neck and often as you try to pour it, it seems to stick. Now, if you were to pound the bottom of the bottle, at first nothing would come out, so you pound harder. Then suddenly, a torrent pours from the bottle, more than you wanted. Now, unless you were careful were you did your banging, you have a large mess on your plate that drips over and onto the table. Shaking also produces the same effect, but it can be even sloppier, always check your shirt when using this method.

Conversely, if you simply wait for the ketchup to come out, you might get what you want, find mostly liquid but little ketchup pouring out or you could be waiting a very long time. The best method for removing ketchup from a glass bottle is this; keeping the bottle closed, shake firmly and well, then open the bottle and with a knife, slowly draw out the amount needed.

There is a feeling of joy and pride when the ketchup pours without any kind of preparation. Everything comes together, almost like a moment of perfection. Writing is the same way, when the words flow without much effort, you feel inspired, you could write forever.

You never know though, when that feeling will leave and you are stuck with writers block. Just remember the story and don't force it, let things stew and occasionally shake things up a bit. Then when you feel as if your pen and hand or working in balance with your mind, slowly draw out what you need and you should be fine.

Personally, I think that many writers invested in plastic ketchup bottles, years before they came onto the market. Many say, with all humility, that the words that flow are inspired by God or faith while others say "it is all me and I am a genius". Whatever the reason, the outcome is all that matters. They have found a way to eek out the material without overflowing and missing the important things.

circa, '98

Science explores the known and makes it unknown; it delves into the familiar and sees the vast strangeness. It inspires the investigation of the path of travel to see, to experience and to understand. It is the quest for understanding that always pushes scientists into the known, playing, like a cat with some yarn, to see just how much of what is known is true.

Then, when this has been done to the extent that reality has shifted into the realm of chaos, they open themselves up to all the myriad possibilities. The quest for a cure for diabetes has opened up the research into DNA. Whether or not you believe such information is good or bad is irrelevant, as this is not a moral issue; rather it is an issue of connections. The research into DNA has made us more aware of how similar all of us are, creating a strong connection to the archaeological community and positioning us to be able to prove or disprove many commonly held beliefs.

The scientific research has been the trigger for many creative leaps. Many have been later disproved, but the quest itself opened up even more possibilities. The study of DNA has in turn prompted the increased study of the atom: ever smaller, each investigation finds an even smaller particle. Electrons, protons, quarks, flavors -- the common tongue can no longer speak of the smallest of things, as even smaller pieces are continually being discovered.

These discoveries have been integral to the study and design of miniaturization. Nano-technology has been able to thrive as the known becomes obsolete and new ways of doing things are discovered, making the lenses with which we see more powerful and our modes of communication more flexible. Without these developments we could never have progressed into the realm of computers in daily life. Considering space, it is now much more feasible than it was twenty years ago for the human race to live there -- to learn and study, to communicate and explore, to live, and mayhap one day to thrive.

How often has the fiction of science become a reality? Yet we are continually told that these things will never happen, that believing in such possibilities is a waste of time, as the reality of now is what needs our attention most. We are told to stop our brains and pretend that what we discover has no bearing on the present.

The fascination of mathematics and music, has created many forms of complex sound, that touches many. To say that Bach, who created the modern tonal scale, was not creative or a musical genius, would be to downplay the mathematical accomplishment. An accomplishment, that would never have happened, if the creative exploration was not at the crux of his mission.

Poet's have experimented with form, sound and applied mathematical strategies to poems. They have used visual and other sensory devices to bring you a tactile expression. They have sung the poems, in the form of vocal and metered lines. Science is as much a part of the creative process as art and music are. A form of expression that touches the everyday life and touches the unknown or inner being that says, "there is truth here".

There is a place within the poet that cries out to the unknown, and it answers: "Can you see me? Then tell my story; make others understand!" There is another part of the poet who sees what science sees, a transcendence of thought and imagination, that may not explain but can reveal the fascination. They say that the fool walks without watching his feet and explores the world with a look of wonder. I have faith that the scientist who walks like a fool, sees the world with the eyes of a child, and has the heart of an explorer continues on his journey into the awe of the universal poetry.

circa, '98

There has been an ongoing discussion as to whether poetry is Art or Craft. I really do not see the problem with it being both, yet people feel the need for it to be one or the other. As with painting, the sciences, literature, sculpture, music and many other creative genres, we learn by craft and eventually move beyond into art.

Many people learn the craft, but if they do not have the "spark" their pieces will never be art. Yet if the spark is there, the craft, or learning, only enhances the ability to create art. How often have you heard the phrase, "You need to learn the rules so you can break them?"

One mistake I think the academic community has made is the assumption of mastery immediately following the completion of a student's coursework. There is more to the mastery of any subject than academic learning. Rather I think these students have passed their apprenticeship and are then ready to become journeymen of the craft. To assume one needs a formal education to receive their apprenticeship is a fallacy and weakness among many people still crafting their art.

Many children learn the piano or another instrument by taking classes and joining the school band. They learn how to read sheet music and how to manipulate their instrument, yet only a few ever go beyond their initial introduction. The few who do either receive private lessons, go on to college courses, or go on the road to better understand their chosen way of music. Many of these people will give up after a few years, to return to home and hearth and treat their music as a well-loved hobby. Some, however, will strive to create using the framework they have learned, and then branch out to explore the possibilities. It is at this point that art has replaced craft.

Crafting one's art is the essence of the journeyman's path: still relying on the learned but also branching out into the unknown. I imagine Emily Dickinson's path to poetry must have taken many turns as she spoke with the poets of her time. She must have destroyed all of her poems from her time as an apprentice, and many of her journeyman pieces. It seems to me that the last half of her journeyman's time is reflected in her poetry. The resulting mastery of a style uniquely hers is evident as the years progress. She no longer crafts the words but is instead a master of her Art.

Beethoven's spark is evident at an early age, and as he is taught that spark undergoes tremendous growth. When he breaks from his father to become a composer in his own right, he takes the path of the Journeyman. As wonderful as his pieces are, he is still exploring the basics he has already learned and trying out new paths to explore. It isn't until his hearing starts to erode that he truly comes into his own and becomes a Master of his art.

We may no longer use the craftsman's program to describe the path of art, except in the realm of academic learning, but we still use it in our process of becoming what we wish to be. Whether it be prose or painting, music or sculpture, science or photography, it is when we are most comfortable in our voice and vision and our ability to express them that we truly become masters. No certificate of education will ever take the place of this one simple truth.

Circa, '98

There has to be a reason why so many people automatically say no to poetry. Could it be that they have lost their taste for it? Were they taught, or rather untaught, the love of poems when they went to school? Did their parents reinforce a feeling that poetry is useless in today's society, or is it the type of poetry they have read?

When poetry went to school and became "Creative Writing", did the poet stop writing poems for the layman and force poetry into a small circle of readers, or did people lose their taste for it because of the confessional style that became popular in the forties and fifties?

Just why has it lost its audience?

Some people blame television and its instant gratification; others blame an educational system that does not support creativity and so refrains from teaching poetry. On the net, it is obvious that poetry is flourishing, but outside of it, the mainstream seems to have consigned it to the archives of useless history. Yet people experience small tidbits of poetry in advertisements and commercials. They hear it within the lyrics of music and memorize the songs.

Poetry is alive and thriving, though its form has greatly changed to be seen as a consumer point of purchase. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, but I do have to wonder if the need to stimulate through ten-second sound bites is really that effective. I recently saw a BBC station that truly impressed me: not all commercial breaks were commercials! Instead, two commercial advertising slots per show were devoted to the arts. Often you would hear a poem read, while landscape or something that spoke of cinematic poetry was presented. Spellbinding, the moments captured a poem in all its beauty and revealed it to all who happened to watch the show.

Can you imagine what it would be like to see segments like this during the news hour or between sitcoms? There are enough styles and types of poems that the idea would not seem so far-fetched; indeed, we could be richer for the experience. Like a port in a storm, they would give us a moment's reflection and rebuild a world of creativity or truth within the confines of our living space. Who is to say how a moment of poetry would affect our children or ourselves? Perhaps we truly do need to be reminded that television is not the reality, and that we must live a life with quality.

Someone once mentioned that we have slowly become conditioned to short bursts. An example would be music, we turn on our radio and listen to songs or music that are usually less than three minutes in length. Listening to an orchestral piece, I notice that many in the audience fidget after a few minutes, they may love what they are hearing but it is longer than their conditioned responses, so it makes them uncomfortable.

When we listen to a speech, the first few minutes seem to be the most powerful, anything longer than five minutes and people begin to talk amongst themselves. Not everyone does this but you can see the number of people who have lost their patience as they mill around looking bored. The Commercial news hours and televised interviews have taught us to expect a certain time frame in which to listen. Maybe if speeches were made with preprogrammed commercials more people would stick around to listen? Who knows, but the point is that poetry has also come to be considered a timed piece, no longer than a one minute commercial.

I don't know how many times I have listened to a poem read and heard the speaker suddenly start to speed up their voiced words, as if they were timing themselves unconsciously to finish in under a minute. Conversely, I've seen people reciting poems that would slow down their poems to stretch the words to make it last the full minute. It seems a shame that the subconscious need to fill in the prescribed moment is ingrained so strongly into us that we destroy something so wondrous. Somehow the strength, effectiveness and beauty is lost when we have to adhere to a conditioned response.

Circa, '02

Metaphor and analogy are the tools most often used in poetry to express what is considered to be inexpressible. Sometimes we do it poorly, and sometimes it is done so superbly that it reaches many of those who read or hear it.

It is quite all right for a poem to have multiple layers as long as those layers tie together without pulling confusion into the meaning. I am reminded of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the fugues he created. Even if you do not care for his music, it is well worth the effort to spend some time listening to a few of his fugues. A fugue usually has at least three melodies that are layered with harmonies and are treated like rounds ("Row, Row, Row, Your Boat" is an example of a round). Each melody plays with the others while at the same time sounding unique unto itself. They are usually very simple and elegant, but as each round progresses, the complexity increases slightly within each melody. After seven or eight rounds you can still hear the original three, but the music itself interweaves, creating more harmonies that bridge and overlap, making something quite astounding in its subtlety.

Bach's fugues are great metaphors for poetry, primarily because they are poetry within a realm different from the written or spoken word. They elicit the same ethereal quality of exceptional poetry when read. Bach's music is mathematical in nature; he used meter, timing, pitch, melody and harmony. Poets use meter, timing, enunciation, space, rhyme, and percussion in their poems. No matter how mathematical Bach's pieces may be, in the end he found a way to supersede the mechanics and transcend the obvious. He was and still is a master of poetry in motion and emotional response, in intellect and the unknown. He creates subtlety with simple lines, turning the known into something marvelous and unexpected.

Many times, after listening to one of his fugues, I have gone outside and looked at the horizon. The clouds have become surrealistic and the colors have shifted into strange and fascinating bits, never before noticed. He has created a possible way to see the world and, for a time, you can share this possibility with him. The metaphor is in the transition from the music to your actual experience. The invention is in the responses elicited by you, becoming and then letting go of the music.

This is the goal of music, but it is also the goal of science and poetry: To discover that which is already there, bring it to the surface, and share it with others. To touch and be touched in turn, to create with your mind, the metaphor of the indefinable emotions and feelings all of us possess. There is a reason why our most compelling emotions are simple words that label, but are inadequate to describe, that which is within us -- why we must use math, philosophy and other sciences to describe what we discover. They are all metaphors of commonality used to share this experience and knowledge, just as our words and symbols are but metaphors of our true thoughts.

Circa, '99

Language is definitely important, as is imagery and emotion, but do they make a poem? More likely they are part of the recipe: the need to communicate an "otherness" within each of us or, perhaps, the expression of the history we see and learn.

Experience tells me that I must write poetry to feel complete, but does that make the poetry I write any good? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Emotion is integral to poetry but, by the same token, when it is very close to you, the poetry seems to suffer. Yes, you express yourself and release the words into the world, but it is often better left at home. Poetry feeds the inexpressible within us, releasing many of the uncertainties we live with, tapping into the vein of who we are; and by doing so, increases our appreciation.

Poetry is also a dispassionate historical account, like a story of aulde, drawing you into the mystery and adventure. You the reader, not necessarily the writer, are drawn into the accounting of Beowulf and Grendel and become fascinated with the Odyssey. The Bardic and Troubadour traditions were used to help us remember the history of our peoples before the written word became commonly read. That was then; how often does poetry fulfill this purpose now?

All these questions to lead up to the answer, but in the end, it is a subjective appraisal more than anything else that teaches us how to recognize a good poem. Pieces that speak to me, touch my heart and make my body move of its own volition, make my head spin and my mouth sigh, make me say "ouch" or simply sit stunned, are telling me that I am reading poetry. Like an addiction, I crave these feelings within and search for repeat performances! I never know what poem will elicit this response; it could be of a style I've never come across before or from a well-loved poet. As with music, my tastes are eclectic.

In the end, when you come straight down to it, there are two main criteria to a good poem. The first is the silent reading: the poem must speak to you as you read it, touching something within you that is universal and yet very personal. The second criterion is that of vocalization: read the poem aloud and taste its essence. Poems throughout the millennium have been meant to be read aloud. When a piece can traverse the bridge between the written and the read, with subtlety intact or even enhanced, you have a good poem.

Life is poetry -- to live and to breathe it, to absorb, share, and see. To touch the cold of snow and feel it melt into your skin, to smell the scent of pine and smoke and know that life is being lived in shelter, to hear the silence of the stars and know the moon will glow and refract through the screen of iced trees; truly this is poetry! I hope that as new seasons approach, we will see the beauty of life unfold in the world and set our words to express this poem.

Circa, '02

There is something to the feel of yarn as it passes slowly through your hand and bends itself around the needle. To the slither and click of the needles passing the loops, one to the other, and the shift of fingers as you change the type of knot you are creating. The sound varies to the type of yarn and stitch and becomes a meter of music that weaves itself into memories of comfort and well-being. My mother created beautiful sweaters when I was a child, I remember listening to the needles as she stitched the knots and watched the lengths slowly grow to become strangely patterned bits of material. Often I would watch her create Celtic knots that came into being like magic and as I watched, my eyes would slowly close until sleep took me.

To me, one of the most beautiful sights was the look on her face as she knit, a calmness and serenity that she rarely had at any other time. Occasionally I would see her suddenly become focused with her work, she would suddenly become stillness itself, except for the moving fingers and the lips, which counted out the stitches. During that time, the world would quiet and nothing else could be heard but the movements of needles, sliding and clicking. As soon as she was done with the mathematical aspects of the pattern she was making, the house would suddenly come back to life.

I never understood how the crickets knew when to be quiet, it was like a magic of space, inhabiting this world of creation. I was enthralled with the idea of having such an ability and tried to get her to teach me how to make the world hold it's breath. Wasn't till I was almost thirty that she finally decided that maybe I really was serious about learning how to knit. During the course of a winter, she taught me how to hold the needles and make stitches, then unwind the length and reknit again, by the time I was done with that length of yarn it was good only for cats to play with and birds to make nests of, but I had learned the way of knitting.

After a year of making hats and scarves, practicing various types of patterns, I decided it was time to start a large project and to see if I could find the magic of childhood memories. There is a reason why people knit in the winter more than at any other time, it is a comforting warmth that slowly grows as you add each line of stitches. Folds of lengths that slowly become swathes of material and then the comforting weight of a blanket. I found that my mind stopped moving in the normal sense of the word, it became more than a counting machine, moving like an automon. The world about me became for focused as the mind became free to see beyond the now and to hear more than I had ever noticed within the white of winter. If time could truly cease to exist, knitting came as close to that as possible, if you can imagine a moment of beginning and then a moment of ending, to discover that hours had gone by and you did not begrudge a moment of lost minutes because, in the end, you know you lived outside time for that period.

~~

The winter melts away and the tulips bloom through the bits of ice and hardened ground. Soggy brown mats of grass and sleeping or dead plant growth litter the landscape. My fingers itch with the anticipation of budding trees, that tells me it is safe to go out and garden. Clippers, rake, shovel, pitchfork, hoe, mulch and wheelbarrow in toe, dreams of vegetables and flowers in my head, I begin my outdoor ritual.

As long as the soil is not too wet, I love to till the earth, the smell of soil newly broken fills the area with the freshness of spring. The entire body is involved with the process of gardening and as the rhythms begin to touch my heart I find the click and slide of knitting needles emerge in a slower dance of movement. The sun rises and falls within this space where no time is relevant and thoughts become like a dream of motion and acceptance. The vision of nature becomes a simple petal and the texture of a stem, finds a way to expand outward with the breezes, whispering to the grass, singing like the ocean and the entirety of this world seems to fold in on you like an expanding galaxy of stars.

There is something to be said for the tending of living things, though it is a deeply personal experience it also has the tendency to make you more aware of the world outside your sphere of living. A bit of a contradiction in terms, to go inward as you grow outward but does not the plant do the same thing? Does it not grow both a root system from below as it grows stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, and seed?

~~

Strangely enough, I write quite a bit after knitting or gardening, perhaps it is the trance like quality of the work that impels the words to flow. Maybe it is the peace that comes from allowing thoughts to come to the fore and merge, like the sauce in stew. Like waking from a dream, the thoughts often fade but when the writing begins, they resurface in unexpected ways. It is just as possible though, that the secret to the writing lay in just allowing ourselves to be, to truly live within the moment and to be alive without any qualifications.

Circa, '97