Once a Writer: A Digression.

Literature is the study of writing. Literature is the study of history and culture. Literature is the study of those who write. Literature is the study of form and structure of what they write.  Literature is the study of...

Once a writer now a man who wishes he could write. Once a writer, I am now a man searching for a place to place his words. Once a writer, now a man mentally boxed in, afraid to jot his thoughts on the page.

To write one must feel free within them self. Free to place words on the page, to lace the white spaces with inner, outer, wispy, crispy, or crazy lines. Lines which the writer or others wish to inject snort, or phusshh push straight into their brains.  In order to write one must feel that words matter to at least him, her, the dog, the cat, or a tiny piece of shit.  In order to write one must knock or block the inner, the outer, the twirling barbed wired, electric spire criers that zip, zing, flip, fling doubt lines and shards shot wrapped in membranes of snot by jitter critters binging in the mind.  To write one must at least have confidence in what they wish to, want to, or are about to jot, scribble, babble, spew, or say.  Many times I lack confidence.

"What the fuck?" those of you who have known me for years might say. “What the fuck, man you've been tossing words for over twenty years. You love the written word?”

Yes, I do.   But the more I jot my spew, fling my mental pencil, paint and primp my literary injected, infected, crass worthy wordy ass, the more I find that many folks like boxes.  Yes, boxes. I'm not talking about the prim and proper grammar, syntax, and punctuation. Sure, I bulked against that stuff when I was a kid. I now understand why folks arranged words neatly into those understood notches, sturdy nails, and familiar boards.  It packages ideas in ways that others can understand. The boxes I'm talking about are the boxes of form, the boxes of ideas, and the boxes which encapsulate those ideas and forms. 

Form?   Form is how something is written. Haiku is a form. Sonnet is a form. Essays have an understood form. Many story types have forms. Journalism has accepted forms. Shit, even free verse is a form. Form is a box made constructed by sets of conventions. These sets of conventions help folks keep comfy.  They let the reader and the writer know how the words are gonna lay on the page. Many times they dictate what images are to be used, what ideas are to be discussed, or what topics might be popped and tossed about.  In fact, I'll be bold enough to say that  for many comfy folks, who like to sit comfy in their comfiness,  it's sets of conventions that makes their favorite form of writing important and meaningful.  That's okay-- if you like to convene and restrict writing to forms of comfiness.

I don't.  I like to create forms, ignore forms, or take forms and play with them.

Take Haiku and free verse for example.  Rhyme and time. I like make an image by 5-7-5, free verse it, and mixed win an occasional  ab, aa, or bb rhyme. Free verse ain't supposed to have time. It ain't supposed to follow 5-7-5.  Haiku ain't supposed to have rhyme. Free verse is supposed to mimic how people talk. Aw, man please don't balk.  I've heard folks speak in rhyme.  It happens all the time. Shit, if you break up small exchange between two kids you might even hear it in 5-7-5.....

Literature is the study of one's self and the written expression thereof. Literature is the study of one’s own forms, the forms that live within them, or the discovery of ways to express one's self by using forms already discovered. Literature is authentic and spiritual.  But I digress, I guess. Anyone like Herman Hesse?

Cheers.