Letting your art dissolve
Today at work a friend recited a poem to me that she had composed in her head. She will not write it down. Never. She was very excited about the poem, eager to share it and it was lovely. It walked an edge of meaning.
She often composes poems while driving or waiting for her kids and she never writes them down to preserve them. Composing the poems and reciting them to friends or simply to herself delights her and it's enough for her. Then she lets them dissolve.
So unlike me! I must write it down with the IDEA that someone besides me will read it and enjoy it in the future. My writing (this is my intention) will have a life without me. Beyond me and after I am dead and gone. I'm astonished that she never saves her poems, especially as she gets so much pleasure from them.
It's like dance as art form. Ephemeral. It may be recorded on video, but the art itself is about kinetics and by nature disappears. Dancers talk about this and value it, while it makes me sad. These people are honoring being in the moment - it's part of their creative expression. Writing, books have some permanence. Or at least the illusion lasts longer than the dance!
I am delighted to learn about my friend's driving activity!
She often composes poems while driving or waiting for her kids and she never writes them down to preserve them. Composing the poems and reciting them to friends or simply to herself delights her and it's enough for her. Then she lets them dissolve.
So unlike me! I must write it down with the IDEA that someone besides me will read it and enjoy it in the future. My writing (this is my intention) will have a life without me. Beyond me and after I am dead and gone. I'm astonished that she never saves her poems, especially as she gets so much pleasure from them.
It's like dance as art form. Ephemeral. It may be recorded on video, but the art itself is about kinetics and by nature disappears. Dancers talk about this and value it, while it makes me sad. These people are honoring being in the moment - it's part of their creative expression. Writing, books have some permanence. Or at least the illusion lasts longer than the dance!
I am delighted to learn about my friend's driving activity!
posted by Seven Authors in A Private Conversation at 8:13 PM
1 Comments:
Performance art is so much about the acoustics, the audience and the energy that comes from a shared experience. A video or audio recording can't duplicate that atmosphere, surround sound can't imitate real life. A reader won't experience a novel the way the writer experienced it in the writing process, but as novelists it is difficult to find an audience who will sit in the room with you while you pour out your story. Gone are the campfires and the bards. Maybe one day when everyone is unemployed we'll have the liesure to share our stories in real time.
Amy
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