Through the Pores

[gurdonark]

"You asked me, in relation to these seemingly autobiographical characters, whether my work is solipsistic. I think my style of writing and narrative is a cure for solipsism."--Donald Harington



I usually maintain a philosophic and emotional distance from LiveJournal malfunctions. On a given day, the posts don't "submit" well. On another day, the function that notifies one of received comments fails to do its notification part. Que sera, sera worked for Doris Day, and it surely works for me.

Lately, though, I notice that received comments fail persistently to be forwarded to me by e-mail. I never worry about the loss of a hair or two, but I suspect I'd notice male pattern baldness a bit more readily. I feel that way about my chronic comment failure function.

This LiveJournal shortcoming offers one huge advantage, though. I go and check journals where I left a comment, to see if I got a reply. That leads me, sometimes, to read parts of folks' journals, either old or new, that I somehow did not read the first time. Recently I heard a lovely phone post a friend posted in January.
I did not have my home speakers hooked up when it first posted. I really enjoyed heaing this person's voice--it was like putting a face to a name.

Lately I notice how much I enjoy the "give and take" of the LiveJournal. I pride myself that I am not a particularly "needy" weblogger.When a post topic falls flat with everyone but me, I chalk it up to "learning experience".I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with having needs. I find myself impressed lately with folks who point out how absurd the notion of a "self-made-man" truly would be. It's an interdependent web from which we dangle, fly-like, trapped in a mesh of interconection. On second thoughts, maybe we should be spiders. I'll have to remix my metaphor.

I notice that I sometimes write posts to entertain, but I also notice that the person I often worry most about entertaining is myself.That's perhaps the solipsism in a journal--it's such a self-created world of posts and inferences.

I think lately about self-publishing, and how LiveJournal in some ways surpasses any 'zine or Kinko's-derived chapbook. Once in a while on a weblog, an anonymous stranger sends an e mail or leaves a comment.I always like the sense that there's a broad universe out there, and there are so many connections to be made with people for that good, old-fashioned friendship experience. It's like owning one's own small press.

The absence of financial motivation, coupled with a cheap permanent membership, means that one can be one's own press (or, to be chic, "meta-press") via a simple to use medium. The experience is not just about publishing, of course, because I have made what I consider to be true friendships on line. I also have strengthened existing old friendships through on-line contacts.

I must admit that I take a real delight in planning post topics. I love it when that "got to write in my weblog" moment hits me. When I am stuck for a topic, sometimes, I will merely find a quote that interests me, and then try to take the weblog post someplace keyed entirely off or against the idea in the quote.

Sometimes I fondle a topic in my mind, not sure if I am to convert the fantasy into reality. It's a rather horrid form of infatuation, I know--the infatuation with one's own creative burst.The idea need not be any great shakes to inspire it, either. Lately, for example, I am fermenting the drafting of a post about a faux-quasi-legal document termed A New Lease on Life, but I am still turning over how to avoid the saccharine that can creep into my "peppy" writing.

Lately I notice, though, that I read journals written by folks facing a particular challenge or issue, as to which I wish I could help or comfort.But the words sometimes just sound so hollow. I think that sometimes it's very hard to be genuinely kind, and not just "making an effort at kindness". Genuine kindness meets the need, and does not follow the mere forms.But I know from a few family experiences that sometimes when people just reach out, trying to be kind, that's enough. Nobody can solve the problems, after all. But I treasure the effort. I will never forget various kind words my parents' community extended my mother when she faced the loss of each of her parents. It's not that the words were magic. It's that people tried. I must take a lesson there about trying harder myself.

I drove back from lunch today (my partner and I took a business acquaintance to lunch in the great new Mexican restaurant on the Main Street square in Garland), and thought about how I am sometimes kind on paper. I want to do the right thing, I want to help, but how much do I really do? Not enough. Not nearly enough. It's not enough to check the box marked "I would be kind". I must learn to more often actually be kind.

But sometimes it's so hard to break out from persona, and really reach out in kindness. I sometimes am fond of saying "it's all in how you define the problem".
I do not believe that all problems are self-created, but I do mean that many problems are problems because the solver brings to the table assumptions that may not prove valid. That's a key defense mechanism, and not always bad, but life is not all about defense.

I wish I had some "big finish" to tie this all down into a post about how I saw the enemy and, in the words of Pogo "he is us", and I'm now cured of selfishness, solipsism, and bad poetry. But the reality is that I love that a weblog is a universe I create. But I know that I must create more than a weblog. I want to create genuine bonds with real people--on line and off. It's so easy to just become encrusted in a bread bowl of good intentions.

But I will not leave this post with the vague self-admonition "I promise to be good, I promise to be good" (and I picture Dorothy "there's no place like home...."). Instead, I feel that I read, and learn, and enjoy and share, but I want to connect better, and I don't always know how. Relationships are difficult when one does not seek a lover, a financial advantage or admission to a social clique.When one seeks merely to present oneself, to learn and to accept, to give and to take, then the real challenge begins.

Comments

[bardcat.livejournal.com]

i am grateful for the way you give and receive in your life experiences/writings. i find myself eager to read what new thought, new experience you will share each new day, and, like another LJ entry indicates, your words have a way of staying with me through the day. some of what you write i print to keep and remember and i share your thoughts with others in my circle. the other day you commented on my mother's bravery as she enters assisted living and i told my mother about an attorney in texas and what you wrote and she seemed genuinely moved, encouraged. in a strange and mystical way, i am not quite sure i understand, my life is enriched by what you share. i thank you.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

You've been quite supportive with your comments. I am really grateful. I've been intrigued, too, that you're pursuing poetry with such a passion now. I always think it's great to try to find one's voice. Sometimes, though, I notice that my weblog has the same voice as letters I wrote when I was 17, and I get amused that my narrative style changed so little in the 27 intervening years!

[bardcat.livejournal.com]

i'm very much a novice when it comes to poetry. i know very little about rhythm and rhyme and meter and syntax. i'm 56, almost 57, and only started doing this 2-3 years ago. i'm often part of the "bad poetry" club, but, every once in a while, i hit it. it has been great therapy, often saving my life for something else. i self publish what i write and ut it in front of anyone who will look at it. i guess it's part of that immortality urge as i get older. you write with clarity, concretely (if that's a word). there is a certain honesty and transparency about you. i would like to be more like that.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'm only 44, but I think I know a bit of what you mean about age adding to clarity. Although I know a bit about rhyme and rhythm and syntax, poetry as a structured pursuit rarely interests me. At the same time, I find that some poetry which rebels against structure becomes a curious sort of orthodoxy of its own. Ultimately, though, the question is whether one can find readers whom one enjoys reading, and writers whom one enjoys writing. This is what I call the "participatory democracy" of the thing.

I think, sometimes, how the narrative-essay form of a weblog can be much easier reading for most folks, but can permit the writer to create the same kinds of images which a poem might create. I wonder, in this vein, if it is very important to label things as "poems". But I still do so.

I appreciate the comment about an honesty and a transparency. Honesty comes naturally to me, because I have a dread of being
other than what I am. I always feel such guilt when I find myself to have been less than fully sincere.

I've been intrigued by how much I am willing to show in this weblog.
But most of my real-life friends would argue that I'm difficult to really know. I suppose anyone is difficult to really know. There are so many layers to any person.

Was there some triggering event that sparked your interest in writing poetry lately? I'm a big believer in self-publishing. To my mind, it's the only real way to go. I'm not saying that I wouldn't enjoy the fun of having a major corporation's distribution system available (an advance would be nice, too, though I am not that enamoured of publishing economics). But for a poetry writer, or a writer of small books (which is what I'd be if I did not write poetry), there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in any event. The circulation of even the big name poetry magazines is so small. There's a cachet, I suppose, to having a poem picked for publication. I submit for publication once in a while because I am vain enough to admit that I enjoy seeing my name in someone else's magazine. I've had only a solid handful published, but over time, I pretty much know how to keep the rejection rate down to merely awful rather than universal.

But I remember being 20something, and seeing a copy of Voices International, where the best poem I've published got published.
It was a nice little chapbook, with a photo on the front cover, and some good poetry inside. I remember thinking, though, that all that really stands between that publication and self-publishing was a bit of grant money. Now that the cost of publishing has gone down so much, that barrier is much thinner.

I keep a side journal, gurdonpoems, in which I place poetry. I'm always intrigued that it gets far fewer comments than my weblog does. I try to learn from that--that essays more than poetry may be something I can do.

Still, my best writing experience was my chess poems book. I loved that I conceived and executed the idea in less than sixty days.
But here's where personal traps capture one--I had enough positive feedback from that book that I'm pretty sure I could do the "write light poems about chess and market them on eBay" again. I'd sell enough dozen copies to break even and build an audience. But for some reason, I've not written the follow-up. No good reason, really, just the feeling that the world had need for fewer chess poems than I've written. But I can see that I could set up www.chesspoems.com, publish a chapbook in a more "real" way, with an ISBN and all that, get it listed on amazon and b & n, and really have a niche as a promoter of poetry about chess. But I don't pursue it.

Sorry to ramble on so, but it's an interesting topic to me. I find that I write poetry best--although I go through many "blanks" to write anything remotely resembling a bullet. But the weblog has
opened me up to prose, and for that I'm grateful.

[bardcat.livejournal.com]

what a thoughtful response. thank you! so many helpful ideas as i consider where i am in the writing process. how do i access gurdonpoems? how do i purchase a copy of the poetry you have written?

[bardcat.livejournal.com]

whoops! i found gurdonpoems and have it now in LJ so i can read your poetry on line.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

My chess poem booklet is a "slight thing", but I'd be happy to send you one if you'll e mail me an address.