patrickkanouse.com Blog

Just Let It Happen

So I have been struggling lately (OK, much of this year, particularly since the summer) in writing in a what I consider a satisfactory manner. This feeling usually strikes me when I have written little, am unsatisfied with that little written, and have allowed myself to be too lazy for too long. It happens. It just does. But over time, my response to this has become less helpful I think.

I have been reading Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, which is a wonderful book and on which I will comment more when I complete it, and in the second part he specifically begins his discussion of poetry (and other arts) as gifts. He quotes several writers and the lesson he takes is that artists give themselves the space to fail, to write crap, to get it out and the sift and edit and revise to the good stuff.

I’ve become too concerned about writing a really good poem on the first draft…or a poem I think I can get to something good. So two nights ago, I decided that I was just going to write a poem a day for a couple of weeks. The rules: one draft, no stopping to contemplate the lines, don’t look at it again until 2009, just let the words flow, and don’t look to get a usable poem out of this. I think I need this mental exercise, this writing exercise just to flush the brain, to return to me the sense of writing freely with no expectations…least of all mine. The point is to write and then edit. I’ve been editing too much lately while writing.

Just thinking of it is pretty exciting. So that’s a good thing.

Authenticity, Part 1

For those who know me, they will know that I have long been a fan of science fiction. During high school, science fiction books were my daily bread. I read enormous amounts of cheap paperbacks available at the only place that sold books in Paris, Illinois, in the 80s…a Hallmark store. I have spent many hours in recent months watching the Battlestar Galactica series on Sci-Fi (I am now watching season 3). While not as good as Firefly, this series is exceptional and I have been thoroughly enjoying it. I have also been watching Heroes. I did not initially watch this series when it first came out, and I cannot remember why. My wife, however, enjoyed it so much that I followed suit and enjoyed it as well (I was particularly impressed that Gina enjoyed it given that superheroes and science fiction are not really her cup of tea). While watching the this season’s Heroes episode “It’s Coming” and the season 2’s Battlestar Galactica episode “Lay Down Your Burdens: Part II,” I was struck by my reactions to the two series, particularly the most recent season of Heroes, and I sum up my response to each series as authenticity.

Let’s face it, superheroes and science fiction routinely call for a suspension of belief beyond most novels, films, and television programs. And we accept this. A radioactive spider bites a normal guy and transfers super powers to him. Come on. Really? We accept it, but we also accept the impossibility of it. We let it be.

Heroes has recently asked its viewers to accept several such suspensions: that an eclipse is somehow associated with their superpowers, that somehow Clare is the catalyst, etc. Battlestar Galactica asks for its own share of suspensions: that machines somehow have created biological machines, that these biological machines somehow can produce a human/machine hybrid. Again, come on?! These suspensions are ridiculous. But as a viewer and a person letting myself just go with the story, I find myself rejecting the latest Heroes requests and fully accepting the Battlestar Galactica requests. Why? Authenticity. Heroes use of time travel, the eclipse, and other such items have felt to be easy solutions and not authentic within the Heroes universe. Frankly, it feels lazy and as if it were implemented without a coherent structure in mind. It is as if the writers got together and could not come up with anything viable so they pulled stuff out of a hat and expected us to go with it. Lazy. In contrast, nothing yet about the suspensions that Battlestar Galactica have asked for seems outside of a coherent and logical structure. It does not feel like the writers took an easy way out. The whole idea is ridiculous, but they have been true to their created universe, which means as a viewer, I am willfully going along for the ride.

This idea of laziness and its effect on authenticity reminds me of two movies whose endings seemed to me entirely lazy and destroyed the whole fabric of the film: Fearless and A.I. I thought both movies were powerful, strong narratives until their ending moments. Now, for whatever reason, I think both of these movies should have ended darkly. Bridges’ character in Fearless (who survives a train crash and tempts death by placing himself in dangerous situations and who early in the movie reveals a deathly allergy to strawberries) should have succumbed to the strawberry that he eats at the end of the movie. The “survival” ending felt 100% Hollywood and just easier to present to audiences. A.I. may have been hampered by Stanley Kubrick’s vision of the film before his passing, but that vision could have been flawed or Kubrick may have changed his mind. Nonetheless, I continue to feel that the movie’s brilliance was completely undone by the last few minutes. David, the android child, is trapped at the bottom of the sea facing the Blue Fairy and asking to be made into a real child. And, I think, if they had left it there, the movie would have been fantastic. Instead, we leap far into the future and stumble into a sentimental mess that robs the movie of all its strengths. The ending was lazy, easy, foreseeable, and completely inauthentic to the tone of the rest of the movie.

Authenticity as I am using it does not mean true to life, nature, and the physical laws of the universe. Rather, it means true to the context and universe of the art and respect for the labor of the art. Inauthenticity is often the result of laziness, committee work, lack of a coherent structure, etc. Heroes seems betrayed by its initial success and has flopped around looking for some way to reconnect with its audience as it did the first season. Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, has for the most part remained true to its vision and kept its audience pleased and consistently presents strong works of art. Neither speaks from a physical reality; nonetheless, they speak from a reality of their universe and betraying that universe results in poor art.

But what about authenticity in poetry? To be continued…

Hallelujah Junction

I have recently read John Adams’ (the composer) memoir, Hallelujah Junction. I am quite a fan of Adams’ work, particularly Nixon in China, On the Transmigration of Souls, and Road Movies. His memoir is well-written and offers some interesting insights regarding his opinions of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Charles Ives, etc. Many of the later chapters discuss the context and reception of his work, while leaving out many personal details. The first few chapters, however, document his early life, up through the mid 1970s. After deciding to attend graduate school and then acknowledging he was not going to complete the degree he states the following:

I knew that a life in academia would wear me down for certain. I saw young men and women still awaiting the big moment [the awarding of their doctorate]. For musicologists, for scholars of all sorts, this slow maturing seemed appropriate. But for someone trying to stake out a personal language, a genuine creative voice, a long period of graduate servitude seemed counterproductive. I thought that then, and thirty-five years later my opinion has not changed.

I find this interesting because it in many ways mirrors my own thoughts. I have flirted with attending graduate school myself now twice. Both times I have not followed through on that flirtation, and I am grateful for that. Simply put, I do not think that academic life would be conducive to my writing. For some people, this is possible. For me, I do not think it is. Robert Frost would venture into teaching poetry occasionally, but he always gave it up and returned to his poetry. He loved teaching. He loved poetry. But he found that the two did not mix for him. He could become a teacher of poetry or a writer of poetry. Fortunately, for us, he chose the latter.

For me, I think the ability to pursue my own reading paths, my own writing paths, my own daydreaming paths without any sort of external pressure to publish, to research, to specialize, and so on is critical to my writing. Graduate school and teaching poetry or other literature would, for me, have proved disastrous for my poetry. My poetry may never equal the heights of Frost, but at least I will have pursued my own path, and I think Adams summarizes accurately the dilemma for many.