I sit, suffuse
I take in
Everything
I murmur, recite
I roam the lilt of
Syllables
I sift my thoughts
And there – we
Are
I forge, I mark
Such sable symbols
Here
I trace, expatiate
I will anesthetize
Away
The tick
The tock – of
Time
Please forgive
This person
I am
Nothing
Without those times
We spent together
Have I known
“Lonely”?
I’ve forgotten
With it
All those times
We laughed together
This schism
Only I partake
Can it be sealed
With want
For those times
I saw you
Unequivocally?
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My friends have given me more than they know. This will always remain true no matter where we go, or how much we change.
I remember
The moment
I first
Awakened to
Live life
Is to compromise
Humanity
Did you know
I cried
Raw and
Uninhibited
I force myself to not merge,
To doubt clearness,
Question reach,
And draw away.
But don’t ever think
That I did not believe in you, or
That I never observed your eyes.
This is the only way I know
To prolong the warmth,
And try to make it so
I will love you,
Ad infinitum.
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I believe people are worth the trouble to get to know, and I hope I’ll always have the strength to remain this way.
There are some images that always fill me with a deep sense of sadness.
They’re the littlest things.
A cheerful, worn-out middle aged women working at a fast food restaurant,
An overweight boy eating ice cream,
An elderly man making small talk with everyone, anyone.
It strikes me that they are not happy –
Not with the monotony, not with the loneliness, not with the insignificance.
It occurs to me that they are unable to do anything against the pull of these tides.
And this makes me sad because, in these moments, I forget that people are strong,
Resilient against wrongs, and evolutionary when fortitude fails.
I forget that, in the spectrum of human experiences, these are a mild grey.
Still, the impulse remains –
To reach and touch and prove real,
To cradle their inconsequential hurts,
Gently,
Momentarily,
And blow them away.
In the midst of intolerable experiences, I sometimes can’t help but think that these greys are the ones most worth consideration – these feelings, the ones most worth protecting.
I went to my first poetry slam this month (Dec. 7), and then to my first The Moth show ten days later. These were my first experiences with spoken word, and I was enamored.
Who knew that printed words undergo a transformation when they are strung along the silence of a captivated audience?
It may seem shortsighted to say that I didn’t anticipate this; written word and spoken word are two distinct forms of expression. But – I don’t know – I guess I didn’t expect there to be such a delicious quality of change. It was like witnessing a transmutation. The end result was part familiar, part foreign, and all alluring.
Is this true for any art form that is translated into another?
I don’t have enough experience to really answer this question. Neither do I have enough experience with spoken word (yet) to discern the ingredients that differentiate it from written word, but I think there are two main things that really draw me in.
The first is the interaction with the audience. It is something of a paradox. Compared to written text, these performances are interactive, and allow for much more give-and-take between the two entities. At the same time, authors have potential for far more control over their audience because of their real-time presence.
A compelling speaker will enthrall.
He or she binds with clear, elongated vowels,
releases with crisp, curt consonants.
There is one who is allowed to take the stage and speak, perform, persuade; there is less leeway for others to interpret and take their words for anything other then what it is in that moment.
The second factor is the way the words reach the audience. In both mediums, they emanate from one, unique individual. This does not change. Yet spoken words cut deep, impress slowly, and are withheld painfully – in ways that written word can not. Where the latter is flat before it is inhabited and read through audience members, the former is three dimensional and forged by one immediate, booming – or, perhaps, gentle – voice. Each word is distinct, each a different personality of its own depending on how it is presented.
The impact these performances had, especially when unexpected, was enchanting. They drew me in.
Though I had always thought of myself as someone who was “creatively-inclined,” this image decreased more and more as I grew up. I came to realize that maybe I was more attracted to the idea of writing than the art itself. I never wrote poetry, and I hardly touched fiction. It was not so much that I didn’t enjoy it, it was more a problem of drive or inspiration: I just didn’t have the desire to make or craft.
Call it a muse or call it a convenient convergence of a temporary stimulus and Christmas break (i.e. so much free time that everything gets a bit boring), but spoken word seems to have pulled me in and given me this needed push.
It may be that the motivation simply comes from it being so new to me, or from some superficial reason and will eventually fade away. I recognize that it, at least in part, derives from the ability to effect, gauge, and experience an immediate influence over others through one’s performance (narcissism at its best?).
What is also true, though, is that I’ve never felt such a need to create before. I would say that it is beyond the matter of degrees or superlatives. I’ve never experienced this need before – period.
It comes as a want to recklessly churn, spill, dump, and spew forth whatever intangible fibers of imagination onto paper, and then to meticulously, obsessively shape these into tangibles of word, print, voice, tone – expression.
I wonder whether this feeling is a glimmering of what it is like to occupy an artist’s sphere. Then I contemplate whether it would make me happiest if I were one too.
This enthusiasm could be temporary, it could be forever. Does it matter?
No, I think I will try to be an alchemist no matter how set in failure it may be.
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I’m thinking of writing and/or casting my name in the ballot to speak at one of The Moth’s upcoming events. There are several themes but the one I’m most interested in is “Beginnings.” I will definitely post if I decide to go through with it : )
Photo credit: http://arigulla.deviantart.com/art/Use-your-imagination-328230960
Sometimes I find myself missing you, even though we have never met.
It isn’t sharp or desperate, as with the others.
It’s warm and touching and almost comforting.
Often times I find myself waiting for you, though we have yet to meet.
Or, should it be – “because we have yet to meet”?
I may not be one to believe, but might this be what they call Fate?
I think it wonderfully strange.
I love-hate academia. No, wait: I love-hate academia. This is because what I study resonates within me in a way that no amount of stress or sleep-deprivation can lessen its impression on my soul.
Sometimes, in between long stretches of procrastination or escapism, I am a serious student. This is because I feel that what I study is serious, revelatory, true.
I must have looked especially dedicated during one game day when a burlesque alumnus lumbers over to my table and posits, “Law?”
I could understand why he had assumed so. I was reading from a mammoth of an anthology; Apparently it looked somber, and grave, and profound enough to speak for his profession.
Amused, I answered, “No, Lit theory.”
“Oh.”
Short. Mo-no-syl-la-bic. Possibly the quickest dismissal I have ever encountered. I was almost impressed.
I can’t say that I was particularly offended. I supposed that I should have been glad he even knew what literary theory was.
But as he walked away, his daughter clinging on to his forearm, I began to think about what it means for he who subsumes the humanities under the more objective, practical – superior – social or science fields.
I wondered how many shades of perception were veiled from his vision.
I wondered if whether he, knowing the definitional difference between “black” and “white” or “good” and “bad” or “man” and “beast,” knew of the numerous levels and planes at which these terms intersected.
I wondered how he would have reacted if I told him what I believe:
That more meaningful ways of learning and growing – of guiding humanity towards coexistence and away from discord, of bringing awareness to the consequences of silence and to the importance of kindness, and of teaching the individual how to live, love, consider, cope, ponder, imagine, accept, and tolerate – can be found in the rhythms of a single poetic line, or the obscure tropes of a work of prose, than all his books, mandates, and documents on “law” and “order” can ever give to a civilization of people.
Literature has consequences.
The study of philosophy, religion, history, culture, linguistics, visual and performing arts has consequences.
I won’t feign to possess a profound or universally correct answer to how they induce these changes or effects – but I can offer my own.
Literature is a capsule that contains all possibilities: problems and solutions, life and death, beauty and beast, right and wrong, love and loss. When it is read as something that is legitimate – something that is not devalued because of its aesthetics or subjectivity – it can offer commentary, solace, and answers.
It is able to do so because it allows us to inhabit different worlds, perspectives, and moral codes.
For myself, literature stands foremost as the guardian of diverse viewpoints, as the representative of shades of experiences. In this form, it has given me companionship in times when I believed I was alone in what I felt; it has taught me to understand and give consideration to experiences that are “other” to my own; it reminds me of what is human; it reminds me of what is “not human” – and yet still is.
It has expanded my mind to include other people’s well being in my life’s purpose, and has imbibed my will with a belief in the elusive “good of humanity,” despite contrary efforts to do otherwise. It has crafted an idealist out of this individual, one who is tempered by realism, moved by people’s diversity, and motivated by a desire to help. It has given at least one individual the conviction to believe that a “mere” person has the ability, as well as the responsibility, to make a difference somewhere, for someone.
I say this with emphasis because, as I am this way now, I was not so before.
Literature has consequences.
The study of philosophy, religion, history, culture, linguistics, visual and performing arts has consequences.
It begins with the individual, expanding his or her mind. It ends with the cosmos or society or person, influenced and moved by this other.
Perhaps you are blind to its effects, as – I admit – I am partially blind to the magic that happens in the S.T.E.M., or other academic subjects. This does not mean that it is not there.
As Glyn Maxwell, one of Britain’s great poets point out, to think that there is nothing to learn from long ago, from works that have outrun time immemorial, is solipsistic, reductive – can I add, illogical?
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I don’t mean to make assumptions about the alumnus I spoke to. It could have been entirely possible that he wasn’t being dismissive at all; many people who study or major in a liberal arts subject go on to pursue a profession in law. He simply stands in as a symbol of what is often said about the liberal arts and, also, as a way into framing the argument.
I really enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s lecture/speech on why our future depends on libraries, reading, and daydreaming, and you guys should check it out if you’re interested in reading more.
seeking knowledge, expression, love.
(though not necessarily in that order) : P
Let me be young for a little while, please.
That’s not too overwhelming of a request, is it? : )
There are times (i.e. every time I open my mouth) when I wish I could speak like an English major. Or at least like a normal person. Here are some hall-of-famers:
“They’re supposed to have well-spoken…ness…”
“I like this sound the worst” – Just. What?”
“What do I think? Um. Ah. Ahem. Hm…I don’t know.” – Upon being asked to share my opinion about a book IN CLASS.
I think it might be related to the whole introverted thing. I just need to make myself talk more often and it’ll get better with practice, right?? Dear god I hope so ._.
“What in me is dark illumine, what is low raise and support.”
I am (at long last) reading Paradise Lost and although I am utterly confused by much of it I can’t help but be moved by Milton’s language. I think that there’s nothing else quite like it.
I bought each of my siblings a book for Christmas: a hard cover edition of Of Mice and Men for a sister who shares an interest in Steinbeck and who likes to think on those simple but universal themes that he is so good at evoking, a collection of H.P. Lovecraft’s works for a brother who loves horror and mystery stories, and The Professor and the Madman for another brother who has a penchant for both scientific and literary prose (he’s considering tacking on an English major on top of his biology one!). Nerd presents are the best, aren’t they? Hehe
As you guys can probably tell from these books, my brothers and sister are pretty different from one another. I’ve always recognized this, but it has only been recently that I began to appreciate each of them distinctly for who they are. When I was younger, the word “siblings” was somewhat of an amorphous blanket term to me, basically meaning that we were to love and support each other unconditionally (not without much enforcement from my mom, of course lol). But overtime it developed further to mean more specific lines of individualized, bilateral relationships. Although we love each other just as equally as before, we also have our own preferences as to who to come to talk to about academics versus relationships, to go to amusement parks versus museums with, and to share whispered secrets with. I guess the best way to put it is that, before, they were “siblings” to me – something important in and of itself – but now they are also, each in their unique way, friends.
I think a big part of why I’m feeling this way now has to do with our ages and where we are in life currently. I’m 21 years old. My sister is a couple of years older, and my bothers are a couple of years younger. We are just beginning to develop our own personalities and world views. It is also a time when, after many years of being in a one-track mind set (elementary school –> middle school –> high school –> college), life is ceasing to be so formulaic and predictable. We are expected to take our own initiatives now; “blaze a new path,” as they say. Which for me basically means this: college –> ???? D: haha. I mention all this right now because along with these books, I also gave my siblings Christmas cards; writing to them made me realize how different we are, and how I love and appreciate them more all because of it. It makes me want to wrap them in bubble wrap and beat any potential whoevers/whatevers that would hurt them with sticks. But that’s simply too illegal :p
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I’m sure I’ll take more about my brothers and sister in later posts. Meanwhile, my family decided to “do” gift-giving a little bit earlier this year, opening presents on the night of the 21st instead of the 24th. This is because we’re visiting family in Toronto during Christmas and didn’t want to bring everything with us. This year I got a pair of super fuzzy-warm Urban Outfitter’s gloves, Bose speakers (Bose!!!), and a Coach cross body bag. It’s been a pretty eventful past few days (I’m actually finishing up this post in Toronto right now), but since it’s Christmas break, I’ll be able to update relatively frequently!
Liminal 