Learning To Read Pt 6 (Metaphor and The Descent into Sub-Text)

A poem is not always what it seems. There is the apparent story - the text. And the thing we are not talking about when we talk about the story - sub-text.

In this way our conversation between reader and writer can get dangerous. 

and the way to bridge that gap is - metaphor

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this is a series about understanding and improving our ability to write through my experience of becoming a reader. check out parts 1-5 on this page

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When I was young-er and a not so avid reader in middle school we read a poem about blueberries - I've tried to find it but haven't - and I remember it was about blueberries cause I got into an argument with my teacher that went something like this:

teacher - what do you think the poem was about?

me - blueberries

teacher - but what else was it about? maybe the blueberries were a way to talk about something else...

me - why can't a poem just be about blueberries?

teacher - *sigh

Now, I'm sure the poem was about more than blueberries and I'm also sure if I was older than 10 I might have been able to think more critically about blueberries. 

The truth is trying to define sub-text is tricky even now. There is not one answer that works for every reader or writer. Every one can and will read into a poem differently but that's not a problem younger me failed to grasp:

What my younger self failed to understand was the metaphor of the blueberries, or if I remember correctly, picking blueberries. That is, the act of picking blueberries was the subject of the text, and the rail into which I could have begun to descend into the author's sub-text. 

The poet chose blueberries out of all the fruits or vegetables that they could talk about and why can give us a clue about the poem is really about when we talk about blueberries. Maybe they picked blueberries because it was a real life experience, so blueberries was a historical choice, but this would lead us to possible sub-texts like nostalgia, family, youth, nature, innocence, etc. Or maybe blueberry picking is regional and the sub-text can wonder into class, race, gender, history, occupational, etc. Or maybe the blueberry is representative of something bigger like a person, or relationship, or a nation, or a people. 

teacher - so what is the poem about?

This would all be easier if I remembered the rest of the poem, but like I said the metaphor is just the handrail for the descent into the sub-text, not the sub-text itself. So any poem can be read in these different ways and they are not more or less valid just more thoughtful.

younger me - blueberries

me - all I remember are the blueberries

teacher - *sigh

-rene

Learning to Read Pt 5 (Line Breaks)

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This series looks from a readers point of view about how to become a better writer. How I learned to read poetry taught me a lot about how I want to write. Check out parts 1-3.

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Line Breaks might be the most misunderstood concepts in amateur poetry. Many beginner readers/writers, my past self included, think of breaks as serving a singular function. 

Either one of the look of poetry, as in short words in a line looks like poetry:

a poem 

looks 

lik'a poem 

when 

its shape 

looks

like this

or one of idea breaks, as in breaking each line when a thought is complete:

a poem

looks lik'a poem

when its shape

looks like this

Both look like poems because we know they are not written in long format like this sentence. But the truth is that trying to pin down and understand why or how to break lines is less a science or a rule, but an artistic touch. Poems can be full paragraphs. One to several words per line, or even parts of words. They can break at full thoughts, or in the middle of a thought. So where do you begin to understand it?

I once again take it back to reading. 

One of the biggest functions I see across all kinds of line breaks is the question of flow. Or the reason to make a break is to help guide the reader into the tempo of the piece. Is the poem supposed to be fluid and easy? Is it slow and deliberate? Is it fun and whimsical? Or a million other things that the form could be used to represent the ideas of a poem.

If the lines break and clean full thoughts the words become really easy to read. The idea flows as if it was a full prose sentence but almost easier because it is arranged into smaller thoughts. But if the lines are broken erratically, the same words can become difficult and slow.  As in:

a po

em looks 

lik'a po

em when it

s shape

looks

like this

None of these break choices are right or wrong, poetry isn't about that, but they do convey different messages with the same words. They tell a different story. They have a different "voice" (a concept I have issues with but that's for a different post). It really is a matter of flow and flow, to me, comes from concept. 

What is the poem about? 

How should it be read? 

How do I want someone else to read it?

These are all ideas that go through my head when I am writing. Because we know now that even this is a poem:

A poem looks lik'a poem when its shape looks like this.

But what would that tell the audience? Somehow the words lose a bit of meaning when they are written out in a regular prose format. Somehow the idea becomes one dimensional. The voice becomes generic. Not to say those are bad things, just different choices. And every choice in a poem is critical.

The more poems you read, the more you will see how and why other authors have chosen to make these breaks, and how it affects the way you read.

I'd challenge you to take the line "a poem looks" and make you own variations. I'd love to see what you come up with.

much love

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter. Also my new website ReneTheWriter.

pps. Let me know if you liked this and I can do more.

Learning To Read Pt 3 (Improving Your Writing or The Devil of Detail)

How often do we think we know someone from their work? 

Have you ever read something and felt like the author just got you? That they had some intuitive look into your psyche? If your like me, it happens too many times to count. 

But the more I write the more I come to believe that the opposite is true. Maybe it's not the author that gives words magic, but the reader?

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This series looks from a readers point of view about how to become a better writer. How I learned to read poetry taught me a lot about how I want to write. Check out Part 1, and Part 2.

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One of the first things I did after I decided that poetry reading was something I wanted to do, was read aloud to myself. At my home, pacing back and forth, in my underwear as I read my favorite poems to the furniture.

Trying things out in different inflections. Different voices. It went from uncomfortable, to absurd, to terrible, to ok, to horrible, to ok, and the more I tried to read like somebody else the less sense it all made.

So then I tried not trying. 

And the more I let go of what I thought the reading should sound like, the more I could relax, slow things down, and read clearly. Suddenly my readings became better.

The less character I put into it, the more my voice emerged into the piece. And when I could hear my voice in the words, the poems became more meaningful.

That struck me. And it's a simple idea.

What I got out of it, was not the words as written, but the meaning I put in as a reader. Without a reader. All writing is dead. Without a reader, the writer is sending thoughts to a great abyss of meaninglessness. A writer is only half an equation - if even that. 

It is Readers who birth these still thoughts to life. 

Sometimes even incomplete thoughts become lush and full. 

I thought, out of all my favorite books how many details were missing that I filled in as a reader. How much of the scenery, costumes, emotion did I put in. I mean there are some writers who are heavily detailed, but even they can't put in every color, every sound, every smell, every taste, every thought and breath. And why would they want to?

This isn't an excuse to be lazy as a writer. It's a fundamental understanding that everything written, every word, is in service to this great mysterious reader and their benevolent imagination.

Writing then becomes about the quality of the details and skill. Not just the abundance of technique. Any written world will always be incomplete, but the right details in the right place will feed the imagination of the reader. 

Give just enough to orientate a reader into your world, but not too much where the piece becomes a dictation of a photograph.

Read a piece, see what details stick out and why that works? Imagine what details you would give instead. Or best, try to write a poem with as few details as possible and see what emerges.

every one

in every room tonight

over books and screens over

thin scraps of paper waiting lonely

for release dying to see a person

in the piece but they ain't

in the thing

collecting fragments

we're only buying dreams of dreams

whose words dried-dead

they

belong

to you now

say it now. say

and I'll echo you

but I ain't in

the thing

every one 

in it together

in every room tonight

looking lonely for answers

in cracked-mirrors

but it ain't in 

                           the thing 

much love

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter. Also my new website ReneTheWriter.

pps. Let me know if you liked this and I can do more.

Learning To Read pt 2 - Improving Your Writing

Poetry, like all writing, is the message. Every poem has one. From the author to the reader. From reader to listener. And often that message is simple, though sometimes it is obscured in difficult layers of representation. *(from part 1)

Part 2

The Message is Lost

I'm not one to tell people what is or isn't poetry. I think that is a pointless conversation. I'm also hesitant to say things are right or wrong, or good or bad. I tend to think of poems as being in-progress or finished.

It's also worth a note that Whitman's Leaves of Grass was in-progress from 1855-1892 as a published work. So it's OK to improve and change. Things don't have to be so final. 

Another note: my observations aren't meant as a law, but more of a guide for something that I see all the time with poetry, 
especially on Instagram.

I read a lot of poems on my feed. Some really move me, some make me laugh. A lot fall into this beautifully-confusing category. So many poems have great stories and ideas, but collapse in on themselves. 

They start about subject A then move to B then so on and so on until we are at F and  never have come back to any of the earlier points. Then its over.

It becomes hard to keep them all straight, but the lines feel good and there is something of a story there. Something the author wanted to say. I can read the author's excitement. Their passion. They're right on the cusp of having a polished idea in their poem, but somewhere between the feeling and the page, the message was lost. 

The poem doesn't hold the burn. 

And when I'm done reading the piece, I don't feel like I understood anything clearly. Maybe I could chalk it up to poetry being abstract or vague... poetry can be. But there is a big difference between an abstract concept, and the complete lack of one. 

This is something we develop as readers.

As a reader it is easy to make a judgement and say I liked that, this made sense, this was weird, or good, or sexy, or terrible... but as Writers, I see that judgement disappear.

I think because it is easy to understand ourselves, and it is hard to know how others will read our words. But we need that readers mind in order to write our messages clearer.

So lets start again small.

Instead of worrying about a big idea. Start with a simple one. Some people say start with a title, but I have trouble with that honestly. I think the point is to start with a concept. Something that you can return to. Something that can ground a poem into a setting, or character, or action. This is where my Zen style thinking takes over for me. Good or bad. 

Recently I wrote a poem called Coffee. 

coffee 

the taste was bitter - she looked at me as if to say 

t'know more things are different

t'know more things have changed

t'know of the many things we lost 

like the slow drip

in the cold morning

unaccounted, unrecorded, unappreciated

unable to recall just one

the taste was bitter -

and she didn't have to say

Whether or not you think it is great, I don't care, but it demonstrates one of my favorite things about writing poetry. Evolving a simple idea into an emotion, and then into an experience. 

I wrote it with the idea of coffee in the morning. Home brewed. It was a simple setting. Once I arrived on the line, the taste was bitter. I felt I had an emotional hook. The flavor for the coffee became the symbol for the relationship between the narrator and this second person.

It was tempting for me to want to evolve that idea more. To let it run away, but I try to control myself to some degree. To talk about the relationship. Why it has become bitter. Where it started. What could happen next, but there has to be a point to what is being said, or else the message will be lost. 

This is the part I think is subjective 
and where real writing craftsmanship takes over.

To me it was enough to know that the bitterness had overwhelmed the relationship. To know that the characters were not on talking terms, notice the lack of dialogue, combined with the repeating lines - she didn't have to say. It was enough of a story to focus on the drink. The slow, drip of the machine, the cold, wordless interaction fusing with the taste of bad coffee. The story became self-contained but not dull; there was a story between the lines.

And I built that taste for enough/not enough through reading. Relating my poem to all the things I liked as a reader. That is my barometer. Not what you think. Not what magazines think. Not what teachers or lovers or friends think. But my taste from reading.

For example, I am a big fan of returning to the opening line to close off a poem. It's a simple technique, not to be over-done, but it can help close off the loop of a narrative; reinforce the main concept of the bitter taste, and the establish the importance of the relationship to the reader. That is, after all, the one thing I want a reader to take away from this piece.

If I had ended with the line, unable to recall just one, the last image of the poem would be the slow drip of the machine. Which is cool and poetic in its own way, but betrays the conceit of the poem. 

Coffee is not about the machine or even the coffee being made. It is about the people drinking it, and their inability to connect during a very communal activity.

Having a cup of coffee and talking about the day is a near Universal staple of the human experience. We could simplify it even more to say, talking over a drink be it alcohol, tea, water, soda, or coffee is so human it is easy to forget that it is a thing we choose to do in order to help us connect with each other.

The utter failure in this relationship to move in to normal conversation means they are so infused with the bitterness, that there is nothing left. Nothing to talk about. Nothing to exchange but the bitter looks. 

And they both know.

So maybe you didn't get all that from my poem the first time. Maybe you think it is not a poem, cause it doesn't rhyme or have an identifiable structure that can easily be categorized as a poem. Or maybe you think it sucks. Honestly I don't care.

The words I wrote have a deliberate message I am creating through 

Imagery
Word Choice
Structure
Repetition
Composition
Social Constructs


and even though I have used a lot of poetic tools, those individual terms would mean nothing if the poem meant nothing. 

If it didn't add up to the communication experience between writing and the reader. If it didn't have a story behind the poem.

So think about this: What do you want the reader to understand and take away from your poem? What is the essential idea? Make it small. Make it focused. And see if that makes a difference in your writing.

Third Note: This completely applies to most types of writing in general. Either Song. Novel. Essay. There should be some clear idea in any writing that needs to be said. With out that essence, why should anyone read it?

Much love

-rene

ps. as always like, share, subscribe and if you want to talk you can reach me on this blog, youtube, facebook and twitter. Also my new website ReneTheWriter.

pps. Let me know if you liked this and I can do more.

Past Life: Clinically, Scientifically Naked

See the man with the stage fright, Just standing up there to give it all his might - The Band

Past Life:

I've never been scared to be in front of an audience with the band. But that doesn't mean I've never felt the chest-thumping, quick breath fear that can overpower any performance. I've just learned to live in it.


Once I had an assignment for a high school speech class...

I hated that class, not my teacher she was great as were the other kids, but I was just out of place. Having been lifted up two years I was 14 taking a summer class with 17-year-olds giving speeches about my life, politics, and drama readings. As you can imagine it was awkward. I wasn't living their life, I didn't know their music, their movies, their parties... to all my classmates I was still a kid. It's amazing the social gap between high school-ers.

...  Anyway, every time I stood in front of the class seeing, what then looked like men and women, adult faces wearing too much make-up and the beginnings of very bad mustaches, I wanted to disappear. To run out the door. To hide underneath my hoodie and stay in the back of the class reading. But you can't do that in high school, because for some reason, the more you hide the more teachers try to get you out of your shell. So instead I had to stand at the podium with the feeling of my lunch crawling higher and higher up my throat, with my hands shaking holding my note-cards, and the words failing to come. Receiving a flood of rolled eyes, smirks, and sarcasm. But this assignment was different.

We had to record ourselves as a Radio DJ, making a commercial segment between songs. So I grabbed a portable tape recorder, sat in my favorite spot: my bedroom had a window on the opposite side of my bed, I could sit look at the sky and no one could see me from the hallway, and I drained myself out in to the microphone. Recording songs off the radio, writing my skit, complete with a commercial break for Fizz Bang Cola. 

I got wild, gave my best Wolfman Jack impression:
Heeeeellllloooooooo, San Antooonne! So happy to be in the land of a thousand dances, a thousand chances, and the thousand lovers making gooood romances... hawr hawr...

There was no one watching. No faces to look at. Just me, the recorder, and my imagination. I wasn't thinking about what everyone else would think when I had to play the tape on Monday. I wasn't thinking about the grade. I wasn't really thinking about the assignment, cause I kinda went overboard making twice as long as needed. I was only thinking about the performance. I don't know why this project, why this time I decided to really try, but it felt different. It felt real. It felt comfortable.


There is a moment when a song finishes, no matter how quick the response is, there is a moment while waiting for the audience reaction that can be nerve racking. While the note is ringing out, and the heart beat raises a little. Waiting to see if you get applause or the silent death stare - I don't think people boo anymore. It's not that the audience controls me, I've played plenty of shows when the crowd and I just don't connect, and it doesn't mean we were good or bad, we just either connect or not. Still, in a performance something is given away and it feels so good when people receive it openly. I think that's where the tension comes from. Wanting to be understood. And the moment of uncertainty, that place can be scarier than first stepping out on the stage in the first place.

I was in that moment when my tape stopped. And I, the over-achieving 14-year-old watching the faces of the apathetic summer school 17-ishes and my teacher, waited for the verdict. 

Then the teacher laughed, the students laughed, I laughed, some of the kids paying attention even applauded, of course there were others who didn't really care. I was happy with that little bit of respect. But I gained something more than just my highest grade of the class.

I'd put myself out there and earned the response I wanted. They laughed at the jokes, they heard the words, it sounded like a radio program - poorly recorded - but legitimately like a radio program. It was a creative expression fully realized... Ah what a moment... And it was armor. And it was strong.

Making something without purpose and conviction will leave you feeling naked. You are exposed to every flaw of your humanity. Clinically, scientifically naked.

I go on stage believing in every song, in every note. That gives me strength to go into uncertainty.  To stand in front of people and sing myself. To write these words and give them to you. I have faith in my creation. In my ideas. I don't get my confidence from some in-born ability -  maybe others have that but I do not. I have honesty, and hard work. I have conviction. Living in the fear, is to free yourself from it.

-rene

Mother. At Mass

All of the wraps and knots a riddle.

This is the moment. She kept her fingers twisting threads

turning gold, her silken mind. Each thought golden

and each look... as the wick burned down.

What was it to know like she knew?

What was it like to turn a key?

All the answers I could never give.

The skill to unravel.

Understanding when we unravel, we go.

The Living Text Pt. 2, What Banksy is Telling Me

There's no right or wrong in making, but music is more than just making, music is connecting. With that thought, from my home in Texas, I've been keeping a half-eye on the October Banksy art attack. And though I'm not so much a visual artist,  as a writer I was drawn to something in his work.

Words.

A lot, not all, but a lot of his work involves writing. At the very least the titles, but some works actually incorporate text. He lifted words off the page and put them in a new context, and by doing so has given new life to their meaning. This is not so different as trying to put elements of artful writing into song.

His writing is not poetic. There's nothing drastically interesting in the words, or arrangements. Simple clear statements accompany the meaning of the graphic, but the text is critical to the understanding of the piece, and the work as a whole is saying more. And that's poetic. 


Writers, even the most fore-thinking, are traditionalists. Why else use such an ancient form of communication for your craft? And by being traditionalistic, it becomes hard to adapt. There are many of the global literati, who oppose eBooks as a form of distribution. Who prefer the printed text - Or like me, the handwritten document - Who shy away from changes in dialect, or the improper jumble of texting language. Who see language as right and wrong. There's nothing bad about being so stern, but without change, without adaptation, we risk losing relevance and falling into extinction.

So there's a need to be adventurous with our work. We could start by thinking about writing in different ways. Transmitting in different forms. Don't start to graffiti on my account, but that is one idea. Banksy reached a whole new level of cultural acceptance and notoriety by moving beyond the canvas and onto the streets. More people are seeing his art, not because of content but because of presentation. Because of style. Because of context.

Achieving the sort of immediate viatality most artists crave but will never have. His work isn't in a museum. Not relegated to a small genre trade zine or blog. He is in the news, he is vital. That is not to say good or bad, but alive. It is a great achievement.

As a poet, I chose to move to music to spread my writing. I felt as a songwriter, my writing had a wider audience reach than I ever could as simply a page writer. 

Now I'm thinking about what it means to be a songwriter... How can a band reach a wider audience, in a climate where the doors are closing? Opportunities narrowing. The internet is quickly becoming more and more selective. As does media in general. And audiences too.

I'm not a bandwagoner, don't expect a rap album from us, but it's hard not to ignore what's happening. Are rock bands necessary? How do you compete with DJ's, million dollar pop stars, and a unstable shapless industry?

Banksy might not have an answer specifically useful for musicians or poets, but he does give some inspiring presentation. Proving the world is hungry for creative output. For unique perspectives from artists with the guts to try.

-rene

The street in roar by foot, fire, mesquite
Her tongue jumps from tooth
to sweet tastes sunk in bone.
Bells, un-even hoofs fall, a wooden moan
Head down in the black iron café. Sheathed
No words drawn.
                            Something's are not to-be.

















*Image Source: http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1484934!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/banksy15q-3-web.jpg

The Living Text pt 1.

INTERVIEWER

What would you say makes the writer different from other people?

HUXLEY

Well, one has the urge, first of all, to order the facts one observes and to give meaning to life; and along with that goes the love of words for their own sake and a desire to manipulate them. It’s not a matter of intelligence; some very intelligent and original people don’t have the love of words or the knack to use them effectively. On the verbal level they express themselves very badly.

I've always loved hand-writing. Completely beautiful. The preservation of thought. The symbol scratched into existence, an idea wholly represented to the world. I once felt the written word, carefully chosen, was our best means of communication.

Spoken language is easy and quick, needing little effort, and often produced carelessly; however, a handwritten expression carries more thought. Artful at every level. The more meticulously attended, the greater density of information. Giving life. Words become action, sentences become experience, and pages become memories.

I love that.

The same person writing in haste, or anger, or love, can write the same line several different ways. Everything about the way we write. From the words we choose, to the medium- letter, note, pen, or ink- can give deeper information to our meaning. *2




I used to think the job of a writer was to be as clear as possible. Consciously controlling every detail.

My quest for perfect writing was a great ambition. But the hunt was all wrong. Impossible. Especially for lyrics. The mind is too tricky, even for written words. They will fail, be misunderstood. Translations muddied. Intentions subverted. And I have found more often, especially in songwriting, preciseness is less important than the feeling behind the words.

Some audiences care more for the sound of a word than its meaning. They look for NEW with a heavy thirst for style, not clarity. Especially in rock. I try to fight this... I prefer clarity. Many songs do not make any sense when read out loud, but they can still convey a semblance of meaning in the mood of the music (i.e. glam rock, grunge). 

Fads will always be coming in and out and I won't advocate trend following. But learning from the purposeful invention of these new ideas. We can learn a lot from unrelated genres- I'll get back to this later.  Directness is too boring, but know that a good story will never lose its value no matter what style it is wrapped in.

Maybe that's why I'm attracted to handwriting. The human element, the penmanship is itself a beautiful natural intensifying effect. Style, a facet of overall technique, can give an edge in the short run but the advantage fades quickly without substance to back it.

                                                   Nothing ages as well as substance.

But like I said, substance isn't the lone ingredient. Every writer has a complete love of words. Not just the ideas they give the mind but the full audio/visual spectrum of a well arranged piece. The sounds and rhythms of words entrance our spirit. As writers we need to know the impact style has on the audience's understanding and appreciation of a text. But we should apply style, without letting the technique-love get in the way of story. The effects should enhance the message, not blur it.

This is like having too many effect pedals on an instrument. Our instrument's sound should fill the melody, not replace it. If done right, our writing style will resonate with purpose of message. Everything balanced. Using and not being used. Controlling and not being controlled.

It would be no good to read an instruction manual for a blender written with the mad freedom of Burroughs, though it would be a fun read, nothing would ever get blended. Just like it would be a bore to read a novel with the straight-clear formalism of an instruction booklet. There is art in purpose. 

I love to write lyrics by hand. On the move. Whenever an idea hits me. I like to look back and see when I was writing furiously, or when I was taking my time. I like to be able to see where I paused to think of the next word, and when I was thinking so fast the words attached together in a long chain. But my handwritten notes have no purpose for anyone else. I always retype for others to read my ideas. That doesn't mean I should write on a computer to begin with, just that writing is not a one step procedure.

Writing, though it seems stationed, is a living art. Free of change. Free from the limitations of its own form. Read a passage out loud vs. quietly and see how much the same words can change. Write a line by hand, and then type it and see how the look changes the feel. There are limitless potentials to writing and its impact....

t.b.c.

-rene

On a ledge
her bronzed hand silks the banister
like her descent against the fullest night
could raise the sun right there. A push, a tilt.

        I believe I had a premonition
            and talking. decided.
            taking her by candle-lit smoke, and tea.
            My finger ripped against white stones
            rocking the gums. Then I,
            before I was through with my glass,
            spit on the table stone white words.
            Growing the timpanic change
            rolling in the yaw of my stomach
            I watched her come in.
           
Her heel clapped the tile. Poised beautifully.
Momentum arrested. I swear she was
the fiery sword itself, cutting away hands.
'Nothing is still,' she said
'but you will remember me like that.'
And never did her lips move
I swear










*1: Quote Source: Aldous Huxley, The Art of Fiction No. 24 By Raymond Fraser, George Wickes
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4698/the-art-of-fiction-no-24-aldous-Huxley

*2:  Image Source: http://collecting.wdfiles.com/local--files/image:handwritten-john-keats-poem/keats.jpg