Loose Verse

I wrote two poems today, with similar themes. Though “Sustenance” feels more complete at this point, I still want to work more on both of them.


States of Matter

These gassy ideas,
shifting and searching,
wisping along my mind,

could mean anything to anyone,
or nothing to no one,
like animals in the clouds.

I need tidy oceans,
deep and powerful,
to sail for uncharted lands.

Even a passing shower,
palpable, nourishing,
some liquid to sate this thirst.

Better yet: concrete,
solid and steady,
supporting others’ weight.

Maybe a pebble,
to toss at your head,
something you could feel.




Sustenance

You sit under the tree,
reading, feeling, thinking,
contemplating, realizing, deciding.

You see a new world.
Colors vibrate.
Words explode.

You sit at the table,
cleaning, chopping, boiling,
scooping, chewing, swallowing.

You still need to eat.
Food tastes the same.
People still laugh and cry.

Chaos, Insanity, Violence

A Vermont teacher gave a demo this summer that helped me connect Faulkner’s writing, the film The Dark Knight, and pedagogy for writing. She didn’t mention the first two topics, but she did give a sequence from educational theorist Ruby Payne that goes as follows (my notes, not quoted):

Inability to plan → cannot predict → cannot identify cause and effect → cannot identify consequence → cannot control impulsivity → will have an inclination toward criminal behavior (That is, if a student cannot plan, he/she will not be able to predict. If he/she cannot predict, he/she will not be able to identify cause and effect, etc.)

The teacher used the sequence to emphasize the importance of teaching structured, ordered writing. Though the teacher’s focus was on the style of writing and the thinking it required, Payne’s argument states that criminal behavior may result if students can’t plan and give structure to memories. Implied in this is that “good” behavior, unlike the end result of Payne’s sequence, relies on linear thinking and trust in cause and effect.

Ideally, a teacher will work with students at a young age to help them develop the skills – the way of thinking – necessary to avoid Payne’s sequence. The child will learn to create ordered stories, and in turn that will help them to see and fit in with the order that society creates. Specific to their trust in cause and effect is that good action will result in reward, and bad action will result in punishment. But what happens when the system doesn’t work? When good things happen to bad people, and vice versa? Since this system is how we create order out of the seeming chaos around us, chaos is all we are left with when the system fails. Insanity.

In The Dark Knight, the Joker tells different, conflicting stories to explain the scars on his mouth. There’s no cohesive background to him. No clear motivation. That’s what Batman struggles to understand, with Alfred eventually helping to explain. The Joker isn’t a criminal looking for money or power. He just wants chaos. He wants to see the world burn, as Alfred puts it. As for his background, it’s left to the audience’s imagination, with no rational way of pinpointing what made him who he is.

We do, however, know a fair amount about Harvey, the man who later becomes Two Face. He trusted the system, and its collapse, pushed by the Joker, makes him insane. All he has left is the flip of a coin, showing that the only fairness in the world is chance. Heads you live, tails you die. Justice, as he sees it, must come from his own vendetta. Starting out as a hero for the city, a man who defends the system and stands as one of its leaders, he ends up a villain.

The Joker argues, and convinces Harvey, that this imposed system belies human nature. Betrays the universe. As I understand his work, having read only As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom!, Faulkner presented the universe in much the same way. His writing is dark, violent, and real. Particularly interesting, and often challenging, is his decision to reflect this chaos in his prose. Not on the sentence level – though they too can stand against the demands for clear, concise statements – but with his shifts in time and perspective. Often abrupt and unexplained, the reader grapples with uncertainty. Faulkner’s writing does not fit the mold of structured, ordered writing. The reader wants to impose order, but Faulkner’s point is that he has written the universe as it is. As the Joker would have it. As students shouldn't see it

Stick It

Why does NBC think I want to watch Olympic volleyball? They’re right, but it’s certainly not my top choice for sports. Still, it seems to be there whenever I turn on the TV. Fortunately I can see any previously aired event online – though not with my computer because it’s outdated the necessary software – and I’ve been able to watch whatever I want. My first choice is gymnastics.
My parents started me in gymnastics at a young age, and I trained and competed for about seven years. I quit in middle school when the amount of practice overwhelmed me. At that point I had more interest in skateboarding and playing music. But I stayed active enough to maintain certain skills – handstands, back handsprings, back tucks – and eventually I got a good friend to go to the gym with me once a week during our sophomore year in high school.

We only went for a couple of months. I felt out of place because we, though still teenagers, were so much older than most other gymnasts there. But I don’t think that was the reason we stopped. I can’t remember why. It was lots of fun, and I got a chance to polish my form a bit and even learn some new stuff. In the constant drilling of specific movements, our coach would use a saying that I’d heard many times before, from different coaches during my more serious training. He said, “practice doesn’t make perfect – perfect practice makes perfect.”

Watching the Olympics makes me wish I’d stuck with gymnastics a bit longer, but I’m happy with the other pursuits I’ve taken up in its place. Yet I often think about that saying. Does it apply to other things I “practice?” Classical guitar? Probably. If I learn bad technique to start it will become a bad habit to painfully break later. Exercise? Sure. Poor technique will not only keep me from getting the most out of an exercise, but can cause serious injury.

But writing? I’m not sure. And if not, what is it about writing, or anything else that doesn’t fit the saying, that’s different? Is it a matter of my end goal? In writing I may not know what the ideal form looks like. I can know what I want the writing to do, but that doesn’t mean I know what it will look like. So is it because I need to explore, because there isn’t an ideal technique, that I can’t worry about practicing perfect writing? Or am I approaching writing the wrong way? Is it less subjective than I see it? Can judges agree on a perfect 10 for a piece of writing, and if so would they agree as to why?

Painting My Cave

I want to find out more about the shift from hunter-gatherer to agrarian societies. Specifically, I want to compare their levels of productivity. That word, productivity, sounds a bit industrial and brings to mind a measurement of how many pounds of food each society would produce in a day. And though food production does interest me, with the issues of health that accompany it, I’m thinking more of artistic productivity. Like, who wrote more poems per day?

My stake in the question comes from my own experience. Whenever I have a chance to travel around and cut loose, my creative output drops to almost nothing. Instead, my greatest productivity usually comes when I’m in a comfortable routine. However, at the end of September I will fly to France, and I won’t return to the US until May. There’s a romantic idea of traveling to a foreign place and having a fling with the muse. But the last time I lived in a foreign country I spent more time playing sudoku than writing.

Is comfort the key? If so, what kind of comfort? Maybe it’s a comfortable sense of self, which could come out of a routine environment that reinforces who I am. When my surroundings always change, or seem too foreign, I could doubt what defines me. In that doubt, I may not be able to explore new ideas or reflect on experiences. Or maybe not. It could be physical comfort, specifically more time freed up from not needing to worry about where to get my next meal. Not worrying about figuring out my new surroundings.

Or maybe it isn’t comfort. Maybe I need those times of change and uncertainty to get the juices flowing. Then it isn’t until I get back into a steady routine that I have a chance to process everything. Flesh it out, articulate it. Maybe the past has answers.

-spk