On writing and books
Butler is devoted to something he loosely calls “method writing.” He believes that too many writers intellectualize their writing but never tap the deep emotions that create great art, and that the practice has led to an abundance of polished, bloodless prose. “Creative-writing students, who are typically trained almost exclusively in craft and technique, come to me knowing the second through the tenth things about being an artist,” Butler says. “But they don’t know the first thing about it.” In his workshop, students first struggle to find what Butler says is a primary element of a story: the yearning of the character. “Many don’t get it by the end of the workshop. Some will get it later. But some will never get it,” he says. “Not everyone is destined to be an artist.”
- Edward J. Delaney, "Where Great Writers Are Made"
Writing for the advancement of art and literature, or writing for the pleasure and enjoyment of the readers? And when I say for the pleasure and enjoyment of the readers, I don't mean the shit that Dan Brown and Rowling churn out. We have things by writers like Morrison and Joyce that make us go "WTF *HEADSPIN* @__@ X__x", and then we have writers like Gaiman and Austen, who, while are amazingly talented writers, write for the story and for the way language is put together, and not necessarily for the GREAT LITERARY REFERENCES AND SYMBOLISM AND STUFF THAT MAKES YOU CRY INSIDE. (Not that I'm saying Austen and Gaiman don't have symbolism in their works, it's just much more subtle and not as necessary for the overall enjoyment of piece.)
I don't know. I feel like that applies much more to poetry than it does to prose, because at least with prose, you actually need a somewhat coherent story. (Ignoring stream-of-consciousness novels like Please Don't Kill the Freshman and Only Revolutions because while those things are AMAZING and BRILLIANT and GORGEOUS I put them down after a few chapters cause it drove me crazy. I can only take so much abstract stuff before I need to come back to reality.)
This NYU grad student who came into the Writing Institute to teach the other day said something along the lines of how you have those pretentious writers who win Nobel Prizes about things that nobody understands and in 20 years, nobody will understand, and then we have poetry that's more readable, and that really sticks with people because of the meter and because they can really relate to the poem.
I really do prefer poems are are more simplistic that I can understand to poems that ridiculously complicated and make my head spin. The poems that are complicated and make my head spin are beautiful and wonderful and I'm absolutely in love with them (See "Baked Alaska", by Matthea Harvey), but in the end, it's going to be this poem that sticks to me and actually means something to me, and it's going to be that poem that I'm going to keep coming back to, and it's going to be that poem that I'll turn to when I'm depressed. (And did turn to actually. I was depressed and sitting in Barnes and Noble the other day, and I just sat there reread that poem over and over.) It's going to be "My Father's Love Letters" that I swoon over, rather than anything by like, Dickens or Wallace. Not because they're not brilliant, but because I feel like I'm not brilliant enough to understand it, and because it doesn't touch me as much as something I understand would. I absolutely absolutely love The Great Gatsby with all my heart, because I can understand it. I don't understand Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (despite loving it), and I'm just not going to come back to it for comfort the way I am going to come back to that-one-poem-by-Linda-Gregg-whose-title-I-keep-forgetting.
Even with cummings, my favorite poem by him is may i feel said he which is much more simple than his usual stuff, because of the way it sounds and the meanings that I derive from such a seemingly simple poem. I don't know. Maybe I just don't get English and literature as much as I want to.
And, I just kind of rambled there. Wow. Oops. Let's get back to the original topic: I'm curious as to what you guys think about writing as an art versus writing for enjoyment of the people?
....Also, I think we should take this time to absolutely "SQUEE" (also, some of you may need to call me to get the full effect of that "SQUEE"-ing noise I just typed. Or ask Ben/Zach/Sherwin/Maia/Dorian. Red trees go SQUEE!) over Matthrew Rohrer. This is a beautiful poem. And "SQUEE" over this reading of My Father's Love Letters. And "SQUEE" over Night Music by Linda Gregg even though I can't find an online version of it. It's really pretty though and everyone should read it.
And as long as I'm throwing poems at people, this poem on Vietnam is pretty good too.
- Edward J. Delaney, "Where Great Writers Are Made"
Writing for the advancement of art and literature, or writing for the pleasure and enjoyment of the readers? And when I say for the pleasure and enjoyment of the readers, I don't mean the shit that Dan Brown and Rowling churn out. We have things by writers like Morrison and Joyce that make us go "WTF *HEADSPIN* @__@ X__x", and then we have writers like Gaiman and Austen, who, while are amazingly talented writers, write for the story and for the way language is put together, and not necessarily for the GREAT LITERARY REFERENCES AND SYMBOLISM AND STUFF THAT MAKES YOU CRY INSIDE. (Not that I'm saying Austen and Gaiman don't have symbolism in their works, it's just much more subtle and not as necessary for the overall enjoyment of piece.)
I don't know. I feel like that applies much more to poetry than it does to prose, because at least with prose, you actually need a somewhat coherent story. (Ignoring stream-of-consciousness novels like Please Don't Kill the Freshman and Only Revolutions because while those things are AMAZING and BRILLIANT and GORGEOUS I put them down after a few chapters cause it drove me crazy. I can only take so much abstract stuff before I need to come back to reality.)
This NYU grad student who came into the Writing Institute to teach the other day said something along the lines of how you have those pretentious writers who win Nobel Prizes about things that nobody understands and in 20 years, nobody will understand, and then we have poetry that's more readable, and that really sticks with people because of the meter and because they can really relate to the poem.
I really do prefer poems are are more simplistic that I can understand to poems that ridiculously complicated and make my head spin. The poems that are complicated and make my head spin are beautiful and wonderful and I'm absolutely in love with them (See "Baked Alaska", by Matthea Harvey), but in the end, it's going to be this poem that sticks to me and actually means something to me, and it's going to be that poem that I'm going to keep coming back to, and it's going to be that poem that I'll turn to when I'm depressed. (And did turn to actually. I was depressed and sitting in Barnes and Noble the other day, and I just sat there reread that poem over and over.) It's going to be "My Father's Love Letters" that I swoon over, rather than anything by like, Dickens or Wallace. Not because they're not brilliant, but because I feel like I'm not brilliant enough to understand it, and because it doesn't touch me as much as something I understand would. I absolutely absolutely love The Great Gatsby with all my heart, because I can understand it. I don't understand Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (despite loving it), and I'm just not going to come back to it for comfort the way I am going to come back to that-one-poem-by-Linda-Gregg-whose-title-I-keep-forgetting.
Even with cummings, my favorite poem by him is may i feel said he which is much more simple than his usual stuff, because of the way it sounds and the meanings that I derive from such a seemingly simple poem. I don't know. Maybe I just don't get English and literature as much as I want to.
And, I just kind of rambled there. Wow. Oops. Let's get back to the original topic: I'm curious as to what you guys think about writing as an art versus writing for enjoyment of the people?
....Also, I think we should take this time to absolutely "SQUEE" (also, some of you may need to call me to get the full effect of that "SQUEE"-ing noise I just typed. Or ask Ben/Zach/Sherwin/Maia/Dorian. Red trees go SQUEE!) over Matthrew Rohrer. This is a beautiful poem. And "SQUEE" over this reading of My Father's Love Letters. And "SQUEE" over Night Music by Linda Gregg even though I can't find an online version of it. It's really pretty though and everyone should read it.
And as long as I'm throwing poems at people, this poem on Vietnam is pretty good too.