Hear, Be Now
I'm not going to play with the time of post (though I wonder if anyone pays attention to that anyway). It's 12:17 AM. Shabbos was amazingly nice. If you want to hear about it, really, be in touch, let me know, stay with me, listen.
I thank G-d for my opportunity to teach, to connect, to be someone students are comfortable with. The other day I saw a student in the library, he was with his girlfriend, also my student. I said hi. Out of the blue - but not totally because the kids know that I write poetry - he asked if I wanted to see a poem he'd just written. I didn't know that L writes poetry. He showed me a few and they were very good. I really liked one in particular about a man with an umbrella, standing and waiting. My editorial comment was that the last line, which judged the man, should be removed. It's always better to show not tell (I didn't use that cliche' to L) and so I thought it would be better to end after the last descriptive line about umbrella man. He crossed out the last line on the spot. It reminds me, as I think of it, of when I sat at Aaron Bulman's dining room table with my Mead notebook and he told me what he thought. I crossed out and corrected as he spoke. One of Aaron's main running comments was to take out unnecessary lines or even whole chunks of the poem ("I think the poem only starts here," "It ended already," "This is repetitive.")
The next day I saw L in the hall and he informed me that he and another student had to meet with me. They are poets. They brought their work and we looked at it and we talked and we set up to meet again. What a joy. With a few minutes left in the period I suggested we pick a topic and spend three minutes each writing a poem on that topic. We agreed. The topic was "Talking." After we shared our work L commented, "Isn't it interesting how we each have our own style." Yes. I told him that some people claim they can't write but I believe that everyone has a voice.
Here's what yours truly came up with about talking:
There are no words
only spaces
wwwwwwas we talk
;
There is no hearing
only feeling
rrrrrrrras we listen
k
There are oceans
and ballroom floors
as we dance and swim
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 12:16 AM
2 Comments:
Really nice--I like how you conveyed dialogue and the dialogue that goes on without words within dialogue.
How does the third stanza relate to the other two? Is the order of dance and swim purposely not sequentially matched to ocean and ballroom dancing?
Sharon
Thanks Sharon. This flowed. It's all describing one thing - as I see it - first the talking that's not talking, then the listening that's beyond listening, finally what there is in place of the regular conversation which isn't: an ethereal dancing and swimming.
The order came out the way it did and then I noticed that the order of the frameworks didn't match the order of the verbs. I decided I'd keep it, that I liked it, that maybe what is being described is better reflected via the switcheroo.
In that meeting with students I cited my writing teacher who said that you should throw up on the paper. Being high school kids they loved that idea and wondered with smiles and actions what it would be like to do that literally, sound effects and all. I am a big believer in what Jennifer Natalya Fink calls "bleching it out" and sorting through it after.
The same teacher said that themes and meanings come largely from the subconcious and it's better not to plan them too much.
I like how this came out. It is what it is. I'm not sure that an author can explain a work much better than anyone else (just as I'm not sure in general that a person can answer for or explain themselves better than an other, despite the conventional widom that the only one that knows the truth about a person is the person themself.
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