 |
|
|
|
BACK | HOME
SUBSCRIBE
PS : Sponsor Poetry
visit Poetry Sponsors
|
|
DAVID L. JAMES
Surfacing at Random: Brief Rants on Writing and Teaching
Writing, like praying, is one of those uncommon personal acts that requires me to be “in touch” with my inner self, or at least in dialogue with that voice in my head. But it's more than that: it's my voice (which includes my thoughts, dreams, wishes, desires, experiences, fears) wrestling with a subject. So it is an act of communion, of contact, between me as a person and the subject as if it was a person. Using the mundane tools of language, I flesh out this relationship so that a third person, the reader, can understand.
Even though writing is a solitary and lonely act, its value depends upon the knowledge of its communal nature. I am not alone when I write. The subject is in my lap; the reader looks over my shoulder; and my words dance (if I'm lucky) to the rhythm of correspondences
How cliché to say I write because I have to. Yet if I didn't write, my life could still be lived; I could find pleasure and happiness; I could be productive in the world. But I would feel an absence. Part of that absence would find itself inside me, a dark corner somewhere that would make its presence known in quiet times. And some of that absence would haunt me the way a distant memory stays lodged, surfacing at random moments.
I write because I have to and because I do not want that absence, or regret, or longing, to take root and grow any larger.
Every time I stand in a classroom and talk about writing, I am lying. As Richard Hugo so aptly confessed in The Triggering Town, I can only talk about me and my writing. That's all I know, yet I can't even explain my process adequately. I use words like mystery, creative moment, inspiration, imagination, belief, intuition, trust. It's easy to discuss where and when in concrete terms, but the rest—the why and how—is foreign. My biology professor friend claims there is no free will because our subconscious mind comes up with the ideas through no conscious effort.
Should I stand in the classroom and simply say, “Open yourself up to the world, and the world will speak through you”? Do I really believe that?
Publication is a curse and a blessing, two sides of the same historical coin. Some people are driven to publish, motivated to write in order to receive acceptances or praise or prizes or book contracts. Others write for pure joy and pleasure; they write out of some instinctual urge to express themselves. Publication, to them, is secondary, viewed as a fringe benefit when it happens but nothing more.
Most writers bend both ways throughout their careers, seeking and hoping for publication, ignoring and downplaying publication. The old adage bears repeating here: publication makes me a published writer, not necessarily a better one.
Here's what I don't tell my students: if they choose to be writers, they will doubt their abilities; they will question whether they're “good enough”; they will wonder why they didn't pursue electrical or plumbing careers; they will steal away time in order to write; they will be envious of friends who appear to be more successful.
I don't tell them that writing, as Frank Conroy once said in an interview, will never get easier. They will never know with certainty that a piece is finished, or that there will always be younger writers more dazzling and creative than they are.
I do not tell them that there will be times when they will feel completely alone and will write about it to prevent themselves from losing their grip on the world.
What humans have in common is the world: we all see a robin in the apple tree; we hear a dog barking at midnight; we smell the bacon frying downstairs from our beds. It is this essential fact that requires us to use concrete imagery if we want to communicate with others, if we want them to experience what we're experiencing. The key is to breathe new life and meaning into these images. The robin must become our heart or love; the dog barking must dissolve into a lonely regret; the bacon sizzling must show our anger or contempt. Only by using concrete and specific images can we touch a reader's soul and make it flap in the winter storm.
It's useful to imitate those writers who inspire us. It's a form of honor; it's a subtle type of mentoring. I've found inspiration and ideas in almost everything I've read. And when I try to model my work after some writer, I always end up with something different, something that's mine despite myself. It's mine but with an innovative shift or movement. By trying to imitate, I discover a new voice or vision or attitude that I would not have discovered on my own. Through imitation, I find the outer limits of my own voice, and add it to the community of writers.
Recently, I came home after a one-week vacation and opened up twelve rejection slips. Does this mean I should stop writing? Absolutely not. Would I prefer to have a couple of acceptances instead? Of course. It's at these moments I have to remember why I write at all: because I enjoy it and it helps me to make sense of my world. I don't write to publish (though I admit I like publication). I don't write for fame (but to be honest, I'd love a little attention). And I don't write for money (hell, I'm a poet). Rejection and failure are companions to all writers. The best anyone can do is grow a thick skin and get used to it.
I like to think of writing as a tool to help me live a fuller life, a wonderful life, an engaged life. Early on, I was under the illusion that perhaps fame and fortune would find me, but now, after thirty years on the force (as John Woods once said), it doesn't matter. What matters is that writing forces me to see, to observe, to capture, to explain, to question. Writing does all this for me regardless of its quality.
If given the choice between writing immortal poems while living a tortured and desperate life, or writing mediocre poems while living a happy, contented life, I'll choose the later any day of the week.
It's important to remember that only time can determine quality in art. Writers can have temporary flashes of glory in the form of prizes and books and accolades, but the years, the decades, the centuries will become the ultimate arbiters of what is universally valuable and immortal. Therefore, writers should accept whatever success they have in this lifetime with humbleness. Three hundred years from now, readers will choose greatness among them.
When you write, you are God. You create something out of thin air and then name it. You write because you can, because you need and want to, because some urge within calls to you. When you write, everything and anything is possible. If you don't believe this, quit now.
---copyright DAVID JAMES
His latest chapbook, TREMBLING IN SOMEONE'S PALM, was published in 2007[ marchstreetpress.com ]; He has had six one-act plays produced off-Broadway. DAVID JAMES teaches for Oakland Community College in Michigan.
poetryREpairs.com welcomes essays on any topic related to poetry..
|
|