In search of an aesthetic
As opposed to "in search of anaesthetic" which would be a different sort of post altogether.
This is in essence a continuation of the previous post. Though the blog's lain fallow for a couple of months (for which the day job is entirely culpable) the actual act of writing itself has, thankfully, not. But the questions implicit in the last post need, I think to be made explicit. And after a brief bit of head scratching, i boiled it down to two basic questions. This is what I have.
What is my writing for?
An easy one, this. It exists becuase it must. Not writing is not an option, it never has been. So having got the warm up out of the way, time to deal with the second question.
What does my writing stand for?
A subtle difference here, and the crux of my problems over the last few wilderness years. I have always mistrusted conviction. I have never been of a "school" as such and my taste is fairly catholic. It either sucks, or it doesn't, is largely my view (and why I never get asked to do any reviews, I imagine). Looking back over the writing accrued over the last few weeks I don't really say anything in the wway of an overaching aesthetic. I referred in the last post to my first chapbook, L39, and I recall well that at the time one comment I often recieved was that someone would now I had written that poem without being told. I don't know that holds true today. there are spare, spartan pieces, silly pieces, formal (ish) pieces and ones which were clearly written just to get something down. There's a lt of landfill but there are a few worth working on and polsihing up, and the one thing they have in common is nothing.
But I wonder of this lack of an aesthetic is actually an end in itself. I wonder whether having an instantly recognisable voice is necessarily such a desirable thing. I suspect that my worries about this stem from a suspicion that if you aren't wriitng in a style "your own" you are writing in a style which is, be extension, somebody elses. You are a pasticheur (which is what I felt I became OF MYSELF when writing L39, talk about painting yourself into a corner).
So, what DOES it stand for? If there's no definable style, what exactly do I hang my hat on? Well, I do note recurring themes, a lot of the small town weirdness stuff I tackled in my earlier work is still there, it's simply being approached differently. The procedural work I became interested in post L39 is still extant (there's an ongoing, highly procedural poem in the works at the moment). There are also a lot of love poems, and always have been, though they're always pretty oblique.
So there we have it. Following on from the unmanifesto we have an unpoetics. A not much to work with, a no flag to rally round. It'll do to be going on with.
This is in essence a continuation of the previous post. Though the blog's lain fallow for a couple of months (for which the day job is entirely culpable) the actual act of writing itself has, thankfully, not. But the questions implicit in the last post need, I think to be made explicit. And after a brief bit of head scratching, i boiled it down to two basic questions. This is what I have.
What is my writing for?
An easy one, this. It exists becuase it must. Not writing is not an option, it never has been. So having got the warm up out of the way, time to deal with the second question.
What does my writing stand for?
A subtle difference here, and the crux of my problems over the last few wilderness years. I have always mistrusted conviction. I have never been of a "school" as such and my taste is fairly catholic. It either sucks, or it doesn't, is largely my view (and why I never get asked to do any reviews, I imagine). Looking back over the writing accrued over the last few weeks I don't really say anything in the wway of an overaching aesthetic. I referred in the last post to my first chapbook, L39, and I recall well that at the time one comment I often recieved was that someone would now I had written that poem without being told. I don't know that holds true today. there are spare, spartan pieces, silly pieces, formal (ish) pieces and ones which were clearly written just to get something down. There's a lt of landfill but there are a few worth working on and polsihing up, and the one thing they have in common is nothing.
But I wonder of this lack of an aesthetic is actually an end in itself. I wonder whether having an instantly recognisable voice is necessarily such a desirable thing. I suspect that my worries about this stem from a suspicion that if you aren't wriitng in a style "your own" you are writing in a style which is, be extension, somebody elses. You are a pasticheur (which is what I felt I became OF MYSELF when writing L39, talk about painting yourself into a corner).
So, what DOES it stand for? If there's no definable style, what exactly do I hang my hat on? Well, I do note recurring themes, a lot of the small town weirdness stuff I tackled in my earlier work is still there, it's simply being approached differently. The procedural work I became interested in post L39 is still extant (there's an ongoing, highly procedural poem in the works at the moment). There are also a lot of love poems, and always have been, though they're always pretty oblique.
So there we have it. Following on from the unmanifesto we have an unpoetics. A not much to work with, a no flag to rally round. It'll do to be going on with.
posted by Matt | 12:43 PM
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