Writing is an expression. I know, I can hardly read that statement, myself, without thinking: no kidding? What else is knew? So What? But it is too often that we scoff at the basest principle of a thing because of its simplicity then refuse to mind it.
Forgetting that writing is an expression, though, is to forget the essence of writing, which then may lead to the omission of important questions, such as: What am I trying to say? Why am I saying it? Does it need to be said? How should I say it? In any conversation, these issues are addressed and resolved again and again as the words flow while we gab, completely unaware. Writing is similar.
I've heard fiction literature referred to as, “The Great Conversation” (I believe it was Eliot who said it, but because I am writing on the fly, so to speak, I don’t care to research it). It makes perfect sense, though. Shakespeare read the expressions of, say, Chaucer, internalized them, and then perceived humanity and nature differently as influenced by that expression. Pope read Shakespeare and Chaucer. Wordsworth and Coleridge read Pope, Shakespeare, and Chaucer. And Poe and Hawthorne read them, and Whitman and Dickinson read them, and O’Conner and Hemingway read them, and Vonnegut and King read them…and so on, and so on.
Every time we craft fiction or poetry or criticism, we offer our piece of mind, our expressions, to the “Great Conversation,” and how they impress will influence the expressions that follow, and so on, and so on, and so on…
Read, write, and be read, but always be yourself, for your voice is yours alone and originality can be found within, if no where else...
I must report to the page my conscience,
only the matters of life, death, and love.
To dusk the sun draws nigh, and alone,
To sit in the night watching the cat’s eye.
To humble myself to a lesser as of late.
As of the present do I need it most.
I shun merriment to only welcome scorn .
The presence of my soul must remain truant while in this state.
I confiscate from myself the logic of reason,
Finding myself confined to a thought in mind.
I do not desire simplicity as I do conceit.
For conceit is something I know not of.
I long for such complexity within a manipulation.
Anguish and anger now making its way to heir the throne —
Good bye waking world! We’ll rendezvous on the morrow,
Awakening to the day anew.
In the early hours my mind shall recollect.
The fragments of today’s endeavors; look upon’t and sudden.
Then request leave of me once more.
Then I shall take the day’s dose and start o’er.
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Comments: 25
I'm very lucky to have run across you and been able to read your writings.
"Alone am I, prisoner for such a crime,
I know that I am not guilty of."....this is powerful
Sarah;
I see only 3 options as writers; 1. go with the flow 2. go against the flow 3. drown...sometimes we expose the shadows of our underbellies and smear vomit across the page but expression is not always pretty pink pansies and as Barbara says below, all artists question their validity and must examine their intentions,,,but true artists must BE in spite of their questions...just because they are
and I have heard that even the most famous (Ernest Hemingway) stopped, "in the middle,"
to ask "who am I, to think there is something original in what I have to say, and have it heard?" BUT THAT is not what is important...what is, is, each writers perspective, no matter what it is, that is original...what makes a writer HAVE to write as one has to breathe. Great post!
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Thanks Greg..I was feeing left out.
To sit in the night watching the cat’s eye.
This poetry invokes deep emotion, that is what makes it so good.