Realization

So here I am, behind schedule, tired to the point of fighting sleep as I type this (hoping for a third wind to be honest) and wanting to keep up with a commitment I made to myself to write this blog. I was supposed to write about realization last week. This week it dawned on me that there were several reasons why I hadn't been keeping up with this writing:

1) I was taking it a little too seriously. I was writing a draft in my notebook, typing it up, and then, well at first anyway, having someone read over it. Now. That's not to say that I shouldn't take it seriously. After all, I'm posting it on the internet to be there for, I guess, forever, and it's writing, and I take my writing seriously, but, I think I should trust myself to blog, instead of draft. To not put so much of a burden on editing myself.

2) I wasn't having fun. This follows naturally from taking it a little too seriously. I was trying to come up with different formats, unique angles to approach the words I wanted to discuss, when I think I should write what comes up, in the time I give myself to sit down to write. This way I can look forward to the time I get to sit and think on the page, and not think about the process of drafting,  about what I have to do next.

3) I have too much to do. I won't go into it here, but it is true. Writing is something that I want to do. And I am determined to make time for it while I have too much to do. Still, it is a reason for why I have gotten behind. When it comes down to it, the obligations I make to other people are more important than I feel that this blog is, and even more than I am determined to make time to write, I am determined to make good on my commitment to those I love.

I'm typing this on the couch. I'm in my underwear. I'm listening to Accents Radio show. I'm about to get up and brush my teeth. Kiss my daughter goodnight. Kiss my fiancée goodnight. It took me 37 minutes to write this post. And I enjoy it. There's no poem here. No prompt. There probably won't be for some time. There might even be mistakes. I'm not going to proofread. I am OK with that. I'm having fun. I'm looking forward to this, again.

Next week I'll be talking about gratitude. 

Mistakes

Learning from your mistakes it the lazy and dangerous way to handle mistakes. The common phrase “learn from your mistakes” you hear is inviting though. It gives us permission, of sorts, to mess up—as long as the lesson you take away from the mistake is valuable. I don’t mean to say that you can’t learn from mistakes, you can and should. Most mistakes anyway. Some do lead to death and dismemberment, so I want to suggest alternate way to deal with mistakes, that is to anticipate what would or could go wrong in a given situation and work to avoid it. To do this I’m going to use an analogy to playing the trading card game Magic the gathering.

What you need to know about the game to understand this is that (1) you have to make decisions and those decisions can either help  you win by defeating your enemy (who must die!) or lead to your downfall (death). You also need to know (2) that your decisions are based on known information (your cards—I said it was a trading card game ) and your opponents cards—unknown information. The parallel to real life is apparent, I hope. In a given match, usually lasting between 25 minutes to 4 hours, you will make many decisions that will impact your chances of winning, as is the case with any game of skill (luck is involved, sure, but life has it’s luck, as well).

It is crucial in the game (and life) to figure out what decisions will be the best decisions and what will be the mistakes. The best players anticipate what a mistake will be before they make it and seek to understand why it would be a mistake, and what would be an acceptable alternative. This is how victories are won consistently in a game where variables are changing constantly, much like life.

 A lot can be learned from making mistakes, but that is not an excuse to make them. I’m not sure my poetry has benefited from this thinking, but my life has and those two are linked in the most intimate way.

Rivalry

What interests me about rivalry is the community that must exist to support it. Community exists on many levels. In family a rivalry can exists between two siblings, between parents, between cousins. Small towns and big cities have sports team rivalries. I suppose these are the two common kinds of rivalry, though technically a rivalry is simply a competition for the same objective or for superiority in a field (according to google define, anyway).

What makes a rivalry noteworthy is the spectator. To properly fuel a rivalry the spectator has to be a member of the community that is shared by the competitors. The competitors have to care about the spectator, perhaps this is way family rivalries are so vehement. The spectator should feel as if the well-being of the community rests on the outcome of the rivalry being in their favor. This is more common in sports rivalry, because in family rivalry there will not be a “spectator” in the way I mean it. Though family a rivalry can spread to immediate family, extended family, to the local community and beyond.

This is probably a modern interpretation of rivalry, highlighting the competition, the performance aspect of obtaining a goal or proving dominance.

 

In poetry, the one clear area of competition is the slam. I tried this for about a year. It was my entrance into poetry. I competed in a regional slam and was placed on the national team as an alternate. Basically, I went to watch, to be a spectator. The nature of slam creates rivalry. There is community amongst teammates, spectators within those community, and judges who evaluate superiority.

I moved away from that. Still I think that as we seek to publish and reach people with our poetry, competition is inevitable. There are, after all, contests for individual poems, chapbooks, full-length books.

What I like about the non-slam, local community I live in is our attempt to overcome rivalry. We are all seeking the same goal, in the same field, trying to be our best, but we aren’t seeking superiority over each other. In fact, the opposite may be the case, we are trying to advance each other to understand and cope with our own inferiority.

Metaphor

We understand the world and each other through metaphor. A metaphor is best when used to explain complex emotional states or take an emotional state experienced by an individual and translate it to a larger, cultural experience that could be understood by a group of people. In this, it is easy to see how clichés form.  We seek a common way to understand each other and we see a common way to communicate thoughts, emotions, and ideas. This is what compels us to take a wolf’s skin and spread it over a sheep. Or, wait, it’s the other way around. The wolf puts on the sheep skin, but is that interesting? Not really. Not anymore, I would say. Maybe it still has some use as a teaching tool. Still, because of this clichéd metaphor, when we think of the reverse, a sheep in wolf’s skin, we understand what that might be like. There are even several other clichés to explain this metaphor:

his bark is bigger than his bite

he talks the talk, but does he walk the walk

 

But of these, imagining the sheep walking around in a wolf’s skin seems far more interesting. Maybe it is because we (or at least I) haven’t encountered this before, but also because it takes a common metaphor, one most of our culture would recognize instantly, and uses it to communicate. What’s communicated is fresh and exciting. Mentally stimulating. It’s one of my favorite parts of poetry.

 

 

Next Week I'll be discussing rivalry.

   

Observation

The following are observations recorded in my notebook from 2009 to present.
 
 
A poet has three ways of looking: observation, memory, and imagination. (Could be a quote that I don’t know who to attribute to.)

 

I have to look at pictures of myself to remember who I am.

 

A friend is like a book of memories.

 

If you adopt someone else’s voice are you taking it away?

 

Once you become everyone, you are no one.

 

It’s dangerous to watch time too closely.

 

Train lovers seldom lie on the tracks.

 

Eventually we all become our representations.

 

There is pleasure in being alone in someone else’s home.

 

We leave marks on every place we visit.

 

I don’t want to live anywhere I can’t outrun the buildings falling.

 

What drives people to write on bathroom walls?

 

There are few things more painful than having the only seat in the bar that faces the married couple in the middle of an argument.

 

A baby’s sleeping form projects her mother.

 

The worst part about living in a cardboard box is anyone can kick your door in.

 

Students write their names in boxes.

 

Face, hands and feet are the most color-filled parts of the body.

 

I have imagined the death of every person I love.

 

Grass should be wild like pubic hair.

 

I haven’t observed much.

 

Next week I'll be thinking about metaphor.

 



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Go through your journal and write down every observation you have made.

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Conversations

I am not a very good conversationalist. I checkout out of conversations and rely on stock phrases to appear interested:

That’s funny.

Interesting.

You think so?

How do you mean?

Maybe.

Really?

Eloise, my fiancée, calls this Autopilot Chris. She even has games she plays with me when she realizes that I am not fully committed to the conversation. Most of the time it’s nonsense, and when I feign interest in the absurd or overtly perverted remarks engineered to get my attention, her point has been proven well enough. Occasionally, she will throw our daughter’s toys at me. Or knock whatever I’m reading out of my hands.

 

In groups I often feel like the only way to contribute is talk about myself, and even I grow tired of that. Most of the time.

 

In groups of guys, I usually have nothing to contribute to discussion. I don’t like sports; I don’t drink or smoke cigars. I’m a head nodding master.

 

Formalities escape me. I can forget to ask someone how they are, in as little time it takes me to respond to the same question. I will prattle on about something I’ve done or am doing and not realize that whoever I am talking to has been saying:

That’s funny.

Interesting.

You think so?

How do you mean?

Maybe.

Really?

Sometimes I don’t even care. I just like to hear myself talking.

I value my opinion more than most other peoples, which must mean that I think what I have to say is more important.

I don’t listen enough.

I write this blog, which isn’t a conversation, really. It’s really just me talking and some of my friends and family reading (which I am super thankful for).

I write poems.

I’m a horrible conversationalist.

 

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Record a conversation between you and someone else.

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Confession

The following is a fictional account of a true story:

 

The confessional crowded in on Jacob and a low pressuring light made him feel sticky with sweat. “Why are you here my son?” His voice was smooth and captivating. Jacob felt like he could trust him immediately. The way he trusted that if he broke a mirror he would get seven years bad luck. The way he trusted if he stepped on a crack he would break his mother’s back. In the same way if he couldn’t say the prayers this man gave him to say, he would go to hell.     

“Forgive me Father for I have sinned.” Jacob felt like crying.

“What is it that troubles you?” he asked.

Jacob kept his eyes on his boots and dredged up every time he could remember that he had ever been called bad and told the Father: every incident where he had been grounded, spanked, sat in the corner at school, or put in time out at his babysitter’s. He told him everything.

When he finished telling Father Ferrell his sins he felt dirty and exhausted. He told the Father doing all those wrong things made him feel guilt-ridden, nervous that he would go to Hell for doing them.  But really he had no idea what that meant. “Do you feel sorry for your transgressions?” Father Ferrell asked Jacob.

“Yes Father.”

“Then go and repent. Say the Lord’s Prayer four times.”

“Yes sir,” Jacob said.

 Father Ferrell was silent and when Jacob glanced up at him there was a delicate smile on his face. Jacob pulled open the door and walked up towards the altar. Jacob saw Sister Crump sitting quietly with her rosary draped over hand in the pew behind the rest of his class mates. Had she told Father Ferrell that he didn’t know the Hail Mary, how else could he have gotten away with no Hail Marys?

Our father who art in Heaven, he began and finished the prayer.

Our Father who art in Heaven, he began and finished a second time.

Our Father who art in Heaven, he began but stopped a little over half way through.

He didn’t even start the last.

 

 

 

A confession requires the following: a confessor, someone or thing to hear the confession, and a shared understanding of what is right and wrong and the consequences of having done something wrong. Usually there is an attempt at absolution, but the confession itself is separate.

 

The confessor could have any number of motives for confessing. Like Jacob above, the confessor could have an overwhelming fear for one’s self. That is, Jacob felt, at least at first, that his soul would be damned without confessing his wrongdoings.  The confessor could feel genuinely guilty for the wrong they feel they have committed. These two I feel are the most common reasons for confessing, though there are many others:

 

commiserating with someone else’s guilt or fear

manipulating someone’s perception of you

believing that a confession will lessen the atonement

 

 

There doesn’t seem to be any rules as to who can hear a confession. Undoubtedly some will be better trained than others. Typically the person will have some knowledge of the severity of what is being confessed. Their reaction is everything to the confessor, who has come specifically to this person anticipating, to some extent, what the outcome of the confession will be. Jacob anticipates that he will be asked to recite a prayer or a number of prayers and this will give him absolution. Other anticipated reactions:

 

a murderer confesses and is put in jail

a cheating husband confesses and finds his clothes on fire

 

These scenarios have a clear perception of right and wrong that has been established. Even the person who uses the confession to manipulate understands that there are perceived “rules” that were supposed to be followed. A second-grader (Catholics give their First Confession in the second grade) like Jacob would confesses breaking the rules of his parents and babysitter and teacher because those are the boundaries of right and wrong that make up his life. When he doesn’t follow directions he gets punished:

 

timeout

spanking

grounded

bed without dinner

 

I think part of the reason Jacob never finished his prayers, never achieved absolution, is that the reparation for not sharing, for being too loud in class, for throwing a tantrum didn’t seem to be related to knelling in prayer and certainly not Hell.

 

Poetry follows all of the above when it is confessional except that the audience does not get a chance to ask for reparation. In this way a poem I think that a confessional poem is the confession and the absolution.

 

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Write a lighthearted confessional poem.

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