October 10, 2000: playing to the firmament
Sunday was the Dar Williams concert, which rocked. It was a date with a woman who I'll call my Charming Companion, or CC. The concert was at the Moore, which is a nice downtown theater--not as lush as the Paramount, but certianly a good space.
The opening act was Toshi Reggon (?, i think), who could probably have filled the entire theater with her voice without the benefit of amplification. I am in awe. CC and I were sitting in the second row ad were completely blown away by her voice. I've decided to eventually get her albums, if I can.
And then Dar came on.
I always forget how tiny she is. She was dressed in a sparkly sequined dress and did a bunch of stuff off her new album as well as some older stuff. (The version of "As Cool As I Am" rocked my entire tiny little world. Wow.)
Good concert. Yesyes.
I practice a poetry writing technique that I have no name for, that was made necessary by the peculiar circumstances under which i came of age as a writer.
When i started writing, I used pencil and paper, and the graduated to pen, and later still I started composing one-offs for various BBS fora. In the days before client software, once I hit the return key, the line was set in stone. Just like that. no going back and editing.
I had to learn how to write a line and let it go. I learned how to write around my own mistakes, building a poem like a crystalline matrix around a beautiful flaw. It really encouraged me to writer as if I were sure of myself; under those circumstances I rarely spend more than fifteen minutes on a poem. Keep moving, is the moral here. Don't anticipate going back and editing--this is throwaway work that will never get recorded anywhere but a BBS and it'll scroll off in an hour or a day or a week.
It's become a habit. I still write as if each return stroke means that the line before is completely lost to editing. I don't look back. i like to write myself in and out of corners.
The first thing I ever learned to be fearless about was writing. Yes, my first drafts can be (and very often are) awful. But, you know, sometimes i end up with a halfway-decent finished project.
bursting into
flame, my tireless inner editor
writes me out of the script
makes tick marks in the margin
scribbles on me with red (ball-point) pen
she pokes me with her terrible weapon
and suggests that I move on.
I've got this little nuclear device
and I'm not afraid to use it. love, me.
I spring up from my half-reclining position.
This is serious.
This is war.
I won't be written out so easily
my voice is steady even if my hands
(on the now-invisible keyboard)
are not--I challenge my inner editor
to a battle. Her pen against mine
winner take all manner of things
including the manuscript in question;
she drops the wire-rimmed glasses and
for an instant shows her true form: Censor.
Her biohazard-red pen drips. She's many
stories taller than I and her voice rings
with echoes of critics everywhere.
she doesn't fight clean, she uses the voices
of my schoolmates, parents, teachers,
rejection slips issue from her mouth
and her eyes are fiercely disapproving.
How dare I presume to release these words
into a world that may treat them ungently?
I suprise her
kiss her on the mouth
and above her eyes
and touch her fear
and say:
I understand.
But it takes more than either
bravery or faith to write;
it takes cunning,
a tolerance of drafts,
and paitence.
and, of course,
careful editing.
she collapses.
monster no longer
but still armed with that
Bic fine point red ink
and I set her working;
for one lasts longer
with a tireless inner editor
as long as the notes are made
in the margins and not on my body.
