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Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
It's been a while since I put together one of these columns, and I'm not sure why I'm doing one now. I'm not ready to write one, at least in my own mind.
I try to work on one or more poems every day. I go after a poem even if I'm not "ready" to write. I think it's really the only way to go for me -- the practice of writing when there's no pressing issue, no immediate topic at hand, no burning issue -- just sitting down and going for it.
So why does the prospect of doing the same with this column fill me with such trepidation?
Prose is a tricky animal for me. I envy my friends who double up or triple up, working with ease in several genres from poetry to essays to short stories, screenplays, and the like. I've always been a bit of a dummy with that -- my poetry muscles are way too overdeveloped; I end up veering from my course and diving into a poem no matter what I start out writing.
The one exception to that has always been this column. In the years since I began writing it, I've gotten quite fond of my process here, which has been to let a topic stew for a bit and then sit down and bang it out. I've usually got an outline on how I want to approach the topic at hand, and while there's plenty of room to deviate and follow the piece where the muse takes me, it usually ends up looking pretty much the way I conceived it from the beginning.
Over the last few months, though, I've had little to write about -- or rather, little I felt I could do justice to. Folks like Deb Powers, Victor Infante, Scott Woods, and Beverly Wilkinson had begun writing columns for the site and were covering territory that I had covered myself at various points, and were doing a far better job at it, too. They were exploring various aspects of the poet's life and doing more with it than I had. Why bother writing?
Interesting reaction, and one that stands in contrast to the way I think about poetry. I've never been afraid to tackle a subject that other poets have done, and have done better; I figure that any of us have a unique point of view that can be brought forward. Like an arrogant diamond cutter, I thought I could slice a facet off the rock of a topic that would illuminate a point never before conceived.
Much like the speaker in Buddy Wakefield's poem "Convenience Stores," I'm addicted to novelty. If I can't be unique, can't take a unique tack on a subject, I don't see it as worth tackling.
So -- the column's been stalled. And that's eaten at me -- partly because I brought it back by request (I had taken a year or so off after two solid years of weekly columns averaging 1500 words a column -- 150,000 words or so total) and I felt I was letting people down, partly because that stubborn ego of mine was freaked out over my inability to write it.
Over the last few weeks, I've come to a realization: that I've let my work and myself be limited by a whole series of assumed constraints, not least of which was that I had to keep cranking out the work the way I always had, with a set agenda and plan and a process that was pretty rigid from start to finish. I don't write my poetry that way, but I write the column that way, and never the twain shall meet. That was my unconscious motto.
There's really no reason to feel that prose needs to be written more logically, just as there's no reason to feel that poetry needs to be written in the throes of inspiration.
A poem that came to me not too long ago captures, for me, the essence of where I find myself right now.
Lesson
On a Sunday night long ago
while I was supposed to be doing homework
I stuck the point
of a cheap school compass
into a page, labeled the hole
my art and then swung
the flaking chrome arm
with its crunch-clamped pencil around
and around, calling everything inside
the circle Tony.
Years have passed and I have kept that Sabbath
holy.
I know
there's space outside
my limit. It's also true
that I still don't know what name to give
that line except that
the word for it has more
than two syllables and can't
be pronounced more than once
in a lifetime.
Geometers
tell us that any circle that can be drawn
is only an approximation of a true circle,
which has no real dimension.
I could choose to believe them
and just erase the line,
but I'd still be stuck
with that cursed old hole.
So I tell them,
dare me
to step across that ancient and still unnamed line,
turning back to point and say
That's been my work
and this has been my life.
Dare me to set a new point on the page
and charm myself a new circle.
The new hole will remain unnamed
because it's only a means to an end,
Area will become my name
because it means nothing beyond cold description,
and if once before I die
I am brave enough
to call that new limit
Circumference
it will be because
at the last
I found that such simple answers
granted me the peace
to say just that
and nothing more.
A mysterious little poem, even to me. It speaks, I think, to the limits I've imposed on myself over the years, saying that what sits at the center of my life is a hole, a void, and the world I created around that void is all there is -- everything is defined by a reaction to the void. But it also speaks to the idea of reinvention -- the idea that one can look at the body of one's work, one's life, and redefine the ground of understanding so that forward movement becomes possible.
For those of you who have read my previous columns, or followed various discussions in the Forums here, you'll note something unusual about that previous paragraph -- namely, that I've made it clear that the poem is about me, Tony Brown. I'm usually a stickler for ensuring that my poems are not autobiographical per se.
This one, in all its metaphorical glory, is. I think it's as good a metaphor for the paralysis I've been feeling of late in my work. Granted, I've kept writing poems fairly regularly, but they've felt stifled, burdened with expectations and past practices. It's been in the writing of this column that the paralysis has been overtly manifested.
Poetry, prose -- why look at this column as being separate from the greater body of my work? As essays on craft and process, they've been as much about reflection on where I am at a given point in my life as any of my poems. They hold my voice and my heart as much as any poem I've ever written.
So here's the new promise, a promise to myself: I'll sit down monthly and produce this column. Sometimes it'll be from a topic and outline pulled together ahead of time, but sometimes I'll just go for it -- sit down, as I did tonight, and write a piece the way I write so many of my poems -- planned in progress and edited as I go, revised at the end of the writing and released as an exemplar of where one poet's head is at in a given moment. It may happen that I'll write something similar to what another's done, but I will write it as an exercise in not caring about that; I'll write it because it'll need to be written, and I'll worry (or not) about originality later.
It's about kicking an addiction to novelty, to the need to always be unique among writers.
(An aside, or perhaps not: I know the theme of this column mirrors the theme of Deb Powers' most recent column about planning and not planning. I didn't quite get that before I started this; sometimes you come to the point as a result of the process. As it is, I don't think it'll feel like repetition, so this work stands.)
If I am to grow as a writer, I have to do the things that scare me, that push me past my assumed constraints and traditional limits. We all do -- and sometimes that has to do with things beyond the narrow practice of writing poems. Sometimes it's about redefining entire philosophies of art -- and indeed, of life.
Submitted by Tony on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (07:32:35) (1260 reads)
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| "Features: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction" | Login/Create an Account | 12 comments |
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by Mayo on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (07:13:01) |
i have this weird rule of not commenting on a column, but i want to break it this morning. i also have a rule about breaking rules, but that is another thing all together.
first, i am thrilled to see something new on this front page. i had begun to give up on new articles. that being said, thanks.
secondly, i had to chuckle that to break out of your constrained thoughts you made a new 'rule' to bind yourself with. but since i like your new rule i only chuckle in self-recognition.
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by Tony on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (08:54:55) |
Funny -- we add news articles all the time, but I have noticed that the same articles have kept appearing over and over of late. Weird.
Thanks for the comment -- I can only do what I do, I guess.
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by chameleon on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (09:42:07) |
The articles that appear in the Featured Article box(es) are driven by the votes on them - if you like something and think others should read it, click one of those little circles labeled 1-5 beside the article. It will push it up in the rotation so it appears in the big box up top more often. This week has been a great one for new stuff - so far there are four new columns - Tony's Zero Point Zero, Bev's The Bell Curve, Scott's Poetry is Doomed and my Girls Want Porn Too.
Tony, loved the column, love the poem, and thrilled to see a new one, no matter what inspired you to write it.
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Good news!
(Score: 1 )
by John on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (09:03:13) |
Great news and interesting topic and poem.
I've always liked your columns that include a poem as reference.
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by glecharles on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (11:42:58) |
One of the reasons I stepped away from poetry for a long while was that I felt like I didn't have anything new or interesting to say, partly because most of my poetry was very auto-biographical (or overly topical, with a limited shelf life) and that well was pretty dry. I'm going through that something similar now with my comics blog, as the pressure to say something interesting when I have nothing to say leaves two choices: continue to tread well-worn ground or find something else to talk about.
I've taken a variation on the second option, putting that blog on hiatus for a bit while I focus on poetry again, with the goal of casting my net wider and writing about other people's experiences. "I" am still in many of the poems taht have resulted, but it's becoming more of a fictional "I", freed from the constraints of literal "truth" and indulging in the wide open spaces of metaphorical "truths".
All that to say, I'm looking forward to where you take this column in the future and wanted to let you know that I'm still here, reading along. I'm a big fan of reinvention, both personally and in those I admire, and you are certainly amongst the latter.
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by John on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (11:54:27) |
Honestly, I think we're all lucky to have you back in the scene. I missed your voice these past years.
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by Tony on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (13:12:48) |
Thanks, Guy. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by kimm1956 on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (13:52:39) |
Tony,
I am an old coot new to the poetry scene. Being old, I don't read much on a computer screen. For some reason, I read your post today. Having read at GotPoetryLive only a half dozen times where your voice welcomes each performer whether new or young or scared or seasoned, I still could hear your voice in this column and knew it was you before I saw your name. Your gifts are not just in writing. The post is refreshing and honest, and the poem reflects the cycle of a poet's life, as well as life itself. Thanks for letting us know it was you. Best, Kim
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by Tony on Thursday, July 12, 2007 (11:56:26) |
Thanks, Kim.
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
by Anonymous on Wednesday, July 11, 2007 (20:40:45) |
I agree with a lot of what your saying here. I've always wanted to be a short story writer, but it takes me forever to write, and I mean years, and I suffer more frustration and depression when I'm attempting it. I'll let things rest for a while, then pick it up again. I wouldn't say poetry is easier by any means, but the shorter form works better for me, but most difficult at times is finding things to write about. So I stopped looking. Now, I just remind myself that poetry is everywhere, including in my morning coffee, the construction across the street, and ther person who just stepped on my foot. The challenge is making it all interesting. Sorry if I got side tracked with my thoughts... I'm not sure I made all the connections I was trying to make. -heather
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by Tony on Thursday, July 12, 2007 (11:57:54) |
thanks, Heather.
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Re: Zero Point Zero: Kicking an Addiction
(Score: 1 )
by ocvictor on Friday, July 13, 2007 (11:17:39) |
I've always thought of the columns here as sort of an ongoing conversation. as opposed to Conversations, which is my other project. There's a lot of crossover in territory, but I feel we rarely come at it from the same perspective, and disagree (at least on fine points) more often than one would expect.
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