From the Mouths of Poets

The first time I remember seeing a poet read her work I was an undergrad student at BYU.  My wife and I went with our professor Sirpa Grierson and another student (I don’t remember her name) up to Copper Hills High School to hear Jorie Graham read and present to the high school students.

We got a little lost on the way up; arriving late, we had to find a seat in the back of the school’s library, which was fairly large for a high school, if I remember, and it was packed.  A group of students were selected to read their works.  We came in during this time.  Most of the poems were full of imageless angst, awkward swearing, and pretend pent-up anger. It was like I was back in the Lancer Lot writing group back at Belleville East; too many kids trying to have horrible lives to write about, when most of them were pampered snobs—“phonies,” as Holden Caulfield identifies them.  Few were genuine.  And the same was happening in the semi-open mic session at CHHS.

Lunch was a zoo, and it took a while to reconvene for the keynote.  When Jorie got up she dropped the F-bomb on everyone.  One.  Single.  Word.  There was an audible gasp; most of the crowd swallowed themselves.  It was silent full a full five alligators, and then the room began to buzz.  Loudly.  Jorie stepped back from the microphone then patiently stood and watched.  After a moment she cleared her throat and taught a powerful lesson.  She said that if you were offended hearing the words, then you shouldn't use them in your poetry.  Don’t use words that are not your own.  The most important thing to be in poetry is real.  You can’t pretend to be something you are not.

Back in 10th grade I wrote a poem for Mr. Albert’s Honors English class about the death of a girlfriend.  It was rushed—written on the bus on the way to school after someone asked if I had written anything.  During first period I shared it with a few girls to see if it made any sense.  After class they returned my folded sheet of loose leaf covered in blue ink with tears in their eyes.  They repeatedly asked if I was okay…if I was over it…if I wanted to talk about it.  Huh?

Confused, I wasn't sure what they were talking about.  Oh, yeah.  My poem.  It wasn't real, but I wasn't going to them that…yet.  I believe I was in a Poe phase—having read and studied “Annabel Lee” recently.  I had been imitating style and content.  Needless to say, I had drawn instant sympathy…instant status…every sophomore’s dream, right?  That is until Mr. Albert saw through the phoniness as they were read in aloud in class.  He saw in an instant that I had no idea what I was talking about and had me confess in front of the class.  Crash and burn.  Status revoked.  I didn't try it again.  (Side note: Don’t ask.  I don’t have a copy of it.  And I don’t really remember it either.) 

I don’t remember any of the poetry Ms. Graham read and performed that day, or much else of what was said in that library—just a little explication of W.C.W’s red wheelbarrow poem—something to do with the American Revolution or whatnot.  Actually, I have only read one or two of her poems since that experience—simply out of neglect not spite or self-righteousness.  The experience (until today) had been buried under layers of other poets and preachers and presenters.  This is how I remember the occasion.  My wife Amy, Dr. Grierson, or any others who attended that session might remember it differently.  And I may or may not have presented things as black-and-white accurately as they happened.  But in my head this is truth.  It happened.  I was there.  I learned from it.

So I guess this is a little plug for the adage to write what you know (even if what you know is created in your imagination, as I've heard some sci-fi/fantasy authors say).  Sometimes my version of reality is a little skewed, but then again, so is everyone else’s.

And as I rehearsed to my 9th graders this morning, keep working at what you know.  I do it all the time. Each memory I excavate and develop becomes another narrative that I have learned from or someone else can learn from—lessons about writing, about girls, about when not to fart, and other important facets of life.  I challenge you to do the same.

Swears and Voice

Last night, I read Stephen King’s novella Blockade Billy. My son seven-year-old found it on the YA shelf at the public library and picked it up because it was a baseball story. I, recognizing the author, decided to read it myself first.

The story was intriguing, and I enjoyed the reflective point of view from which the tale was spun, but the profanity was so strong that it interfered with the story.
It made me reflect on a question my writing fellow Claudia posed via email a few days prior, questioning the need for profanity in writing to create strong voice. Here is a snippet from her email:

“Here's the question: Do you have to swear to be a voice-ful, authentic writer? Certain words do shock, surprise, pack a punch, generate humor, sometimes nail the emotion, the situation, but what of those of us who are religiously uncomfortable with expressing ourselves with that sort of ‘authenticity’? Yes, I sometimes think such words, mutter them under my breath, and (on very rare occasions) let loose with one -- living in the world and not always resisting being of-the-world, and having grown up with a farmer dad who responded to uncooperative cattle and tractors and kids with plenty of damn's and hell's.

“However, when in control of my speech and writing, I shrink from using words I think of as offensive -- though I was tolerably comfortable with writing damn's and hell's above.

“My qualms are not just religious. Attention to audience matters to me, and even more than that, I've long been convinced that ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent of the time, the ‘foul’ words are not the best, most precise, or even the most powerful words. When we call such words ‘strong language,’ we are often giving them more credit than they deserve. (An interesting line of thought would be wondering why we use the words we do to describe THOSE words. Are they ‘strong,’ ‘crude,’ ‘foul,’ and so on?)”

Claudia poses a good question. Are these four-letter wonders really the best choice in these situations? Or do they merely show the extent of someone’s intelligence and negligence to vocabulary? I would hope that most adults, if not just junior high students, could be more imaginative in their descriptions and insults. Seriously, if you want to hear originality listen to kids before they’ve been corrupted by their older siblings and the punks hanging loafing down the street (and television). Really, go listen to a handful of toddlers just starting to construct language. My favorite comes from my friend Erin’s little girl, who told her mommy she wanted to dream about “lemonade rain.” How awesome is that? And from a preschooler.

Voice is so much more than swearing. I enjoyed Debbie’s response to Claudia’s question:

“I have often wondered about that same point and worried that voice gets correlated with the use of ‘strong’ language just because it is so shocking. I have to say that to me voice is making the most of whatever is appropriate for the situation. And most writing situations don't really require swearing. I worry that the concept of voice sometimes get carried away to mean that kind of shocking, saying what no one else would say, language use. I think it's more a matter of knowledge and the other traits Tom [Romano] mentioned on Friday, but the advocates of voice tend to think of only one kind: the ability to shock and be on the edge. The other aspect of that view is that the content or subject is almost always personal experience. Very few of these proponents help students see that voice can be found in all kinds of writing--and it isn’t the kind of voice that most of them address with students. Part of the discussion has to do with what we mean by voice, certainly, but for the expressivists (biggest proponents of voice as a concept) there is only one voice and only one kind of writing--thus the feeling you've had that the shocking, even without the strong language, is the only representation of voice. You might try reading Harris or Darcie Bowden on voice. They are about the only two ‘voices’ speaking differently about voice. I know that when people say my writing sounds like me, I think that's voice--it's academic without being dry, I hope. No swearing. So I think voice can be much bigger than it is often considered.”

Thinking about those who are proponents of swearing for shock value, I have a question. Why? Where did that “power” come from? Who even determines what constitutes a dirty word, or even inappropriate ones? It gets old. Fast.

If I were to create my own word (freb), keep it at four or five letters—it can’t be too complicated for those with the intelligence most likely to use it (dumb frebbers)— and start using it in derogatory ways, conjugating it in verb form (you frebbing idiot! Go freb yourself!), could I create the NEW “f” word? Shocking, isn’t it? (See also Frindle by Andrew Clements.)

And when said frebbing words become so commonplace, don’t they lose their frebbing significance? M.T. Anderson’s Feed, for example, illustrates such a case. The characters—good-for-nothing teens, adults, children—use a few common swears as if they were nothing. It was overbearing and cumbersome to wade through them and uncover the characters’ actions and actual thoughts (heh-heh). But by the end of the book, I hardly noticed them. My senses were dulled to this SHOCK factor; it didn’t work any more. Don’t get me wrong; it’s an excellent plot and commentary on our frebbed up society.

Another frebbing interesting example of what a pile of freb this argument is can be found at NPR’s “Power Players And Profanity: It Can Be &%#@ Risky.” When I read this I was , like, “Holy freb!” and I laughed my freb off.

I remember hearing Chris Crutcher quite a few years ago speak on censorship in writing. I don’t remember if he brought it up, or an audience frebber during Q&A, but the discussion about art reflecting society surfaced.

So I ask all you frebbing writers out there, or you who just read this frebbin’ blog, who the freb wants to imitate a society so frebbin’ stupid they can’t speak worth a flyin’ freb? Do we want to perpetuate the freb flow?

What about the frebbin’ argument that society imitating the mutha frebbing media? Well, I’ll leave that to you frebs. I’d love to hear your take on any of these arguments.