Writing Is Not A Mystery - Creating A Safe Space

"You can write anything.   

Just don't show it to anybody."*

- Allen Ginsberg

This is so simple and so important.  And so often forgotten.  The writing is yours - of you, from you, and first for you.  If it's not good (by your standards and yours alone), if it makes you uncomfortable, if it scares you, put it in a drawer.  Forget about it.  Move on.

Somewhere I read that Bukowski said that when you wrote a poem, you should put it away for 18 days and then come back to it.  I don't know if this attribution was correct, I don't know what it might be about 18 days, but sometimes putting things away for 18 days - or forever - is a great idea.  A little distance can help.

We are starting to get into the realm of editing and rewriting here, just a bit, which we're not quite ready for.  However, I do want to stress how incredibly important it is to create a safe space for you and your writing.

Visceral, go-for-the-jugular Rachel McKibbens pointed this out in a workshop she ran at WOWps - and no one would say her work lacks courage and candor on the stage.  Being safe is a different principle.

As a poet/performer, there are poems you write and immediately want to jump on stage and read before an audience.  You are burning to share, you are burning to see if it works for other people like it does for you. There are also things you write that make you cringe in parts, that feel too fleshy and raw.  Feel free not to jump up on a stage and read them.  Feel free not to blog them, tweet them, FB them, tumblr them, or share them in any way, until and unless you are comfortable doing so.

This is permission to hide some of the things that you write.  This is therefore permission to write anything and everything that you want.  Are you a mom with 4 kids longing to be the next Anais Nin?  Go ahead.  Write it.  If it makes you uncomfortable, put it in a drawer, or an encrypted file, or a locked folder when you're done.

I'm not suggesting you all go out and become Henry Dargers - working in private secrecy your whole life and revealing a treasure trove of wondrous oddities upon your death.  If you find you're hiding more than you are exposing, it may be that you need to realign some things in your life, or tackle some issues in a different forum, with guidance.

Detail from a larger work by Henry Darger

What I'm saying is that there's no need to block the creative impulses you feel in order to appease a hypothetical, perceived future audience.  So you give yourself permission to never show them while you're writing, and even after you've written it.

There are times you have to write through something to get to something else.  This is true in relationships, too - you have to work through some knots in order to be able to grow.  By blocking the impulse out of fear of exposure (a huge universal fear), you may block yourself from getting through that difficult bit of writing in order to find the juicy writing you have been seeking.

Ginsberg was arguably one of the most open writers and people ever.  Just look at his eyes in the picture above - it's like he's living right there in the lens.  But he still knew about creating safety for yourself.  Writing can be an emotional maelstrom.  The subjects you want to tackle are the ones with the most energy and may also be the ones most fraught with peril.  Give yourself permission to back off.

I evolved a rule a while back - anything that makes me cringe in any way, any where, for any reason gets cut.  It could be too personal - or personal in an incorrect way for sharing.  It could just be bad writing.  If it makes me cringe, I cut it.  Simple.  Useful.  Effective.

Find your own healthy boundaries that allow you to express yourself fully, while allowing you to present your best work publicly.  Find or create a comfortable nurturing area in your life for your writing - whether it's writing in your favorite cafe, or an easy chair that was your grandmother's, or working in a writers' group - find your spot and cultivate it.

*I haven't been able to verify this quote before posting, however, I've had it written down long enough that I believe I've memorized it correctly.  However - it may be a paraphrase.




(This blog is part of a series - you can look the others up on the side, or go to the blog search and type "writing is not a Mystery" - either should work.)

Don’t be nice.

“Don’t be nice!”  “Poet – don’t be nice!”

This is what they were yelling from the audience as a youth poet stepped up to the mic today at Youthspeaks Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam.  The 13^th Annual BNV is in L.A. this year, as it was in 2004.  I haven’t been to a BNV since 2006, when I was a judge.  In 2004, I both coached a team and helped to coordinate the event.

“Don’t be nice.”  That’s new.  We have a lot of things we say to each other in the silence before we start a poem.  “Bring it.”  “Rock the mic.”  “Speak truth” but “Don’t be nice” that’s fresh.

It’s the advice my friend G was giving me when I slammed earlier in the summer.  He’d say “Let Bitchy slam,”  referring to my favourite alter-ego Bitchy Winans.

You can lose points on nice.  For gross generalizations here we come – women and youth don’t often feel entitled to speak.  “Nice” is a way of mitigating the fact that we are about to tell you how we really feel.  But it doesn’t always ring true, because in truth, you’re not feeling nice when you’re doing a passionate piece about injustice, or foster care, or Marilyn Monroe (we’ll come back to that) – you’re enraged, or impassioned, or full-tilt desperate or you’re baring your soul like teeth in a way that you can never fully close up again.

Nice doesn’t cut it.  You’ve already written the words and the words are not nice.  The words are rapier thin, razor’s edge sharp, and they will cut you.  The words make demands; fill them.

I am learning about not being nice – not just on stage, but off.  Nice is a good hiding place but it is so very rarely real.  Kind is real.  Kind is always real.  And as Buddy Wakefield, who was hosting the semi-final I was judging added when the crowd once again was calling out “Don’t be nice”  -- “but be love.”

Because, truth now, the opposite of nice is not mean.  Nice holds its tongue, but mean carves holes in its prey.  Nice is a neutral zombie.  Nice is learned behaviour.The opposite of nice can be expressed, connected, soulful, deep, seated, real.  

And what was most striking – in fact, is always most striking – about the youth poets I had the blessing to judge today, was how real they were.  How grounded in their words, their art, how well-guided, and how humble.  There was real humility on the stage today.  Not learned or practiced humility, not I wish I was truly humble humility, but true humility.  In that, their truth is not obfuscated by their bodies, their voices, or their words.

A girl got up and began a poem about Marilyn Monroe.  One of my signature pieces is about Marilyn Monroe.  My piece comments on glamour and what it stands for and what it steals.  From the moment she spoke, though, I let this girl from Team Albuquerque school me on her Marilyn, because it was clear she had something to say.  Her Marilyn was broken, too, but her Marilyn was the icon women came to idolize who never deserved the status.  She wanted to see more women like Bella Abzug celebrated (oh, how I’ve been wanting to do a piece on Bella Abzug for so long!), despite their lack of photogenic beauty.  The piece was shockingly strong, both in writing, critical thinking and delivery.  A fellow judge said he was not fully convinced by her argument – that Marilyn was not only a pin-up – we didn’t get to fully have that conversation, but I see where he was going – the facts of Marilyn’s life don’t add up to her just being a shill for Hollywood.  I had to concede, though, that it might be generational.  That just as my Marilyn piece is about my perception of her, this piece is about her conception of Marilyn.  From her perspective, in high school in 2010, this may be the image she is privy to.  She knew her facts, but they may look differently to her now than they did to me ten years ago.

As always at BNV – there was an extraordinary act of kindness.  In 2004, it was the team who gave up the chance to win in at Finals in order to be able to bring up more poets on the stage, so everyone got a chance.  Today it was a member of Team Austin stepping up to the mic and giving up her spot for another team member after praising her growth and development.  It ain’t about the scores.

This was not my first time judging a slam, or BNV.  I started to really look at how I was creating a score in my mind.

The elements for me are:

-Personal – The story or poem needs to have personal relevance or connection for the poet – don’t tell me about THE hood – tell me about YOUR hood or tell me your perspective that is different from everyone else’s on the hood.

- Context – Even if your story is completely personal – put it in a context, give it a wider theme, show me how it applies to me or to everyone or connects to the larger picture of our lives.

- Originality – Please let something about your poem be truly original – have your signature as a poet or a team on it.  It can be language, concept, subject, analysis or even presentation, but a list of facts about injustice and a few clichés spewed with finesse at the top of your lungs do not a 10 make.  (10 being the highest score in slam.)

Performance and writing count, but in youth slam scoring, I think the above three are more important.  Once you get to the level of semi’s, you’re already assured that the poetry is going to be at a certain level of writing and performance.

I held myself to a pretty rigorous standard of judging today.  I know this because we kept an overall scorecard, and my favorite team, was not in fact, the team that I judged the highest.  I was surprised to find that Stockton – a team I adored – came in second in my scores to Albuquerque – who I felt were a very strong team.  The difference was an infinitesimal .1, but I believe it meant that I was judging the work and not the poets.

But I’ll tell you, this girl from Stockton about knocked me over with her piece about Stockton as the next Katrina waiting to happen.  That girl is gunning for the inventive and daring Rachel McKibbens as a take-no-prisoneres open a vein to say it poet.

Finals are tomorrow night.  You might want to be there.