Mark K April 29th, 2008
Recently I had a chance to hear Billy Collins, two time poet laureate of the United States, read some of his poetry. Afterwards, he was asked what a young writer could do to improve his or her writing.
He said the key was to read as many books as you can get your hands on - read poets and authors whose style you would like to emulate. If you don’t absolutely fall in love with the writing, read through these books quickly until you find a writer who makes you absolutely sick with envy because you wish it were you who had written those perfect lines. Keep searching until you find more of these writers and then try out their style - borrow, copy, imitate. He added in a tone that could have been taken as a joke or as serious, that eventually you will meld all of these styles into your own style, that people will think is an original one.
I was telling this story to a writer friend of mine and her face lit up with recognition as she described her experience with “writer envy” with the hyperbole of a writer who is passionate about her work. She admitted that she once admired a writer’s work so much that she “wanted to actually eat the pages” and that she would sometimes take pages that she had written and tuck them inside his book, hoping that some of the magic would rub off on her work!
As writers, we’re always trying to find our own unique voice. I remember once when I read a piece in a writer’s workshop and someone commented that he could recognize right away that it was written in my usual style. I had always wondered how someone develops a style of writing that is his own and it made me feel good that mine was starting to emerge.
As we develop our “unique style”, I guess that we never really know how much of that voice is an echo of writers who inspire us and how much is of our own invention.
Mark K December 27th, 2007
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a showing of the artwork of Joseph Cornell, which will be on display until January 6. The display and website at sfmoma.com have pulled me back time and again to study his work.
Cornell was self-taught and had a life-long fascination and correspondence with other creative people who intrigued him. He had a filing system where you collected ideas, along with photos, drawings and other found objects. He would then construct box-like cabinets in which he would display these items, arranged in such a way as to evoke a theme or an image of a dream.
Today, those boxes can be viewed at SFMOMA as well as on the interactive website for the museum (www.sfmoma.com). It wasn’t so much the boxes themselves that fascinated me as it was the idea of a person being curious and absorbing as much as possible from the simple details of everday life, at the same time surrounding himself with other creative people who inspire him.
There is a reason why I’m drawn to this work time and time again, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Like Cornell, I think that the key is to be curious and to collect ideas, then be open to what might come of them.
Tags: SFMOMA
Mark K June 9th, 2007
The French actually have a name for the art of strolling - they call it flanerie and the person who strolls is a flaneur. The idea of flanerie is to stroll or wander with the intention of being curious about and open to all that you encounter, but without having any particular goal. It’s hard to find an adequate English translation for flanerie - loitering is one possiblity - but in this country we post signs warning that this is a potentially criminal activity!
In his book The Flaneur, Edmund White states the opinion that Americans are particularly ill-suited to be flaneurs, because we are so driven towards self-improvement. So, I’m left with a bit of a quandry - is it possible to work at being a better flaneur?
Tags: Edmund White, flanerie, flaneur
Mark K February 16th, 2007
My friend Tucker shared this quote with me, which relates to the idea of creativity. It seems to me that one can interpret it in a number of different ways, some of which are in direct contradiction with others. What does it mean to you?
“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be
understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But
in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.” - Paul Dirac
Tags: Paul Dirac
