Creativity-- NOT!

I often ponder creativity, most recently wondering how I can return to "creative writing" since my schedule was upset by my father-in-law moving in last November. It used to be that I could spend an hour uninterrupted early in the morning. Now I cannot stop listening for the clatter of his walker, his gruff voice barking at the cats, the slam of the bathroom door, the clank of his spoon on his cereal bowl.

I am a fan of the idea that creative action can occur anywhere and cannot now prove it in my own life. It is not for this reason that I'm looking at new takes on creativity although even a mild cynic could think so given that I am tottering on the edge of thinking/saying that poets should shed the notion of creativity entirely. I come to this not from desperation to justify my father-in-law's upsetting my schedule but from the notion that creativity, for the poet, is a formal organizing of chaos, a saying of the unsayable. This means that creativity is the making of cages, structures. It is a violent, radical subjugating of things to create a mimicry of Truth.

I thus come to the conclusion that the poet must know and practice the rules, ancient and modern, the craft comes with since creativity cannot exist outside of the very rules the very notion of creativity seeks to erase. Choose your slavery, choose your master and submit to its violence. I always wondered why poetry is so hard. The answer is two-fold:

First, it uses words for the wordless;

Second, it joins the abysmal with the sublime.

Except by faith it is an impossible endeavor.

I re-conclude that there is no such thing as creativity since the poet creates nothing new other than a fresh mimicry. This is not to belittle the poet. Well, yes it is-- but only from thinking himself a god. My experience with poets is that too many think they are the Creator of the truth they try to speak or, worse, they think their words are THE TRUTH. They are not sufficiently submissive to the violence of their art.

Worse is the poet who doesn't think he is trying for Truth.

The landscape would be drastically improved by poets practicing poetry and forgetting about creativity.

So long for now.

Therapy as Poetry

Get this: IT ISN'T! Don't show me or anybody your poems until your poems-as-couch-sessions end. Doing this will prevent thousands of lousy poems from print and will thus save many trees-- which we need more than we need crappy poems. Confessional poetry in the right hands-- Berryman, Plath, Sexton, etc.-- can be good, even great. In the wrong hands it is nothing but a flubbed brain scan ruining perfectly good blank paper.
The world is full of stress, depression, pestilence, war, famine and pain, much of which can give birth to good poetry but, in the main, I (and everyone else really) don't care about your stress, depression, pestilence, war, famine and pain. I have enough of my own and I make it my business to make it not your business. If you're going to write yours down at least do it as a way of practicing the craft for your future poems. Aim for one good poem some day in the far future. This is a cruel art. Don't kid yourself and give me your therapy. I'd rather hear the cats yowling in the dark.
In the next post: Advice for Young Writers
So long for now.

The Reason to Go to Workshops

Although it will sound so, this is not a self-help, feel good thing. It is, however, true. After exhausting myself of ways to get something out of the workshops I decided that I was going at it ass backwards and chose to give as much as I could. If the workshop required submitting work to be critiqued I picked something I was interested in working on but did not go in committed to getting anything specific but rather to be as selfless and committed to giving others all the help I could once I got there. Any help I received was a bonus. This was a breakthrough. I enjoyed the workshops much more and gained a far deeper appreciation of the others in the group and the work they were doing. I did not find them any better as poets but I did find them genuinely interested and harder working than I had given them credit for. The payoff for me has been and remains that I have learned to read my own poems more critically and that, despite my somewhat jaundiced attitude, I have learned to be a far better coach, teacher and writer than I otherwise might have been. So, my advice is that beyond the first couple you attend if you want to enroll in workshops, enroll for what you can give, not what you can get.

In the next post I will discuss where to go to get the help not provided by workshops.

Why not to workshop, part 2

This is really about why not to expect to get much from a workshop and is meant for those who have gone to more than two. The real reason is that if you're paying attention and maturing as a poet then workshops won't offer much. End of story. Because they operate at the lowest common denominator you will have to find your growth elsewhere. I learned after two or three workshops that I should never go expecting to get something, expecting to be given something. Thus, my next step was to plan exactly what I wanted to get as opposed to what might be offered. This relieved me from paying too much attention and allowed me to focus upon what I wanted. Of course, it didn't work that well and I was disappointed although I never left without gaining something tangible, usually from a lecture by a visiting writer; this was not enough alone to justify the expense. I also found myself unhappy putting up with those participants who made up the lower half that reduced the common denominator. They were honest,decent and tried hard. But they were not poets.
My next move made all the difference in the world. It will be detailed in my next post.
So long for now.

Why Workshops-- the pros

Twenty or so years ago I had my first workshop experience. It was an informal meeting with two other writers looking for people to workshop with and I was put in contact with one of them by Hugh Ogden who I had known since my college days. The three of us worked well together and managed to continue for a couple of years mostly monthly but with longer breaks. This prepared me for my first formal workshop at The Robert Frost Festival of Poetry at The Frost Place in Franconia, NH. My first year there I learned how to be there, the second year there was transcendent. I finally "got" poetry. I encourage all poets to get to formal, genuine workshops sometime early in their careers. It is good to find such communities and helps de-sterilize the environment we work in. Great launch pads! And now a note of caution-- There are a lot of reasons not to attend workshops. I'll begin to tell you what they are in the next post.
So long for now.

Mission Statement

This is about poetry and poets. However, let's first drop the phrase "mission statement".   It's too military sounding, too stringent in its connotation.  What is "connotation"?  Look it up and you'll be executing the mission I am trying to refer to.  While you're at it, look up "denotation" too.  The two words are important to the poet, as important as I intend this blog to be.  So, to the mission statement:

My mission is to give you all the information, wisdom, knowledge, resources I can for your career as a poet.  I especially mean coaching, instruction, tips-- all the things I have learned in workshops and by way of study and teaching.  And it's all free.  The reason for this is simple:

 

1.  It's unlikely that I or anyone will make a good deal of money writing poetry or writing about poetry

2.  One of the sad things I've encountered is that workshops are attended by those who can afford them and the good ones are expensive and so many, many good people and potentially good poets miss out on them

3.  Most workshops available at any price are a lot of balderdash anyway

4.  I cling to the belief that art ought not to be for sale

5.  I get gassed by helping others to write more than promoting myself

 

In light of the above how can I justify monetizing this blog?  Simple-- I need help if I'm going to do this for free.

 

There will be one cost to you:

     I want and need every one who reads this to send links to their entire address book and plead, beg, request, kick, threaten and cajole all their contacts to do the same until millions and millions of people are clicking the links and hopefully this will become a way of generating income.  I'd call that a cheap price for all I will give.

 

But why should you trust me?  The answer in the next blog.

So long for now.