Why We Don't Put Words
In Eachother's Mouths
In Poetry
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The picture above is my grandson, Bill, on the
occasion of his first birthday. I remember that Bill did not at all care for cake to be foisted upon him, but he dearly loved to shovel it in himself. I think there's something to be learned in this, and that is, everyone is happiest when the cake is left alone.
Despite the popularity of online workshops, there are still quite a few of us who really would like our lines left as we wrote them, our metaphors mixed or unmixed as we please, and who resent those who feel all writing is part of a group effort: it's not. Not all of it anyway--unless the writer wants and welcomes changes.
I'm reminded of an interview on NPR with screenwriter, Elmore Leonard, who was asked why he doesn't do more of it, since so many of his novels are primarily dialogue and it seems that cinema would be the perfect medium for him. He answered that screenwriting paid for his ability to write novels for 20 years; that novel writing is peaceful work. No one has any say in it but the author who can direct things at will, which is just the opposite from what he goes through writing for a motion picture. And that he absolutely hated writer's conferences where everyone sat around and couldn't stop themselves from making suggestions.
He went on to say that didn't they realize the very suggestions they were making were ones he'd most likely have thought of already himself and rejected, deciding they didn't work-- that what he brought to them was the very best he could do as he saw it and labored over it, honing on his own?
I feel the same way about poetry. Taking a writer's words and slashing away lines, making substitutions for words or images or titles....well, doesn't that negate it as an act of the writer's own gifts? And how often has someone offered something that the poet has already rejected for personal reasons, ones that involve no one but the writer and the page? As far as I'm concerned, group writing is about as interesting as group sex: 90 percent of it becomes competition, even in the suggesting of changes. It implies that what is already there in black and white is somehow unworthy or sub-par, and doesn't that cancel out the joy of doing something creative to begin with?
Isn't sole authorship most of where the joy comes from?
Do you think that artists who work in paint or clay want someone to come along when a piece is finished, and start remixing colors, daubing on paint? I'm not speaking here about the 'Andy Warhol' idea of a creative factory, I'm talking about solo flights of artistry. Ones that have one pilot, one destination.
What I'm saying most fervently here is this: just like Bill in the above picture reaps the most enjoyment by being left alone with his cake, making whatever mess he wants to, so should we allow other poets to handle their own lines in their own style. We may think it could be better....hell, things can ALWAYS be better...but if we followed that line of thinking, would writers ever publish or send out? Even here on the internet, who would be brave enough to push the 'save' or 'submit' button?
True beauty always has its flaws. Love the thing for it's particular blend of good and bad, then write the poet a kind of 'loveletter' based on what they've tried to accomplish: what meaning you took from it, what beauty or insight you stumbled upon. That is what fosters confidence and will lead to better writing, if not shackled by a bunch of second-guesses. Writers learn from one another most effectively by reading one another, not by putting words in eachother's mouths, and like most things we try and complicate......it's that simple.
