[stylist] What you experience verses What you read?

Sun Apr 19 03:13:13 UTC 2009

Angela:

Yes.  In my poetry, I do use colors but not because I see them, no, only to
suggest certain things while still being absolutely honest about my
experience.  For example, in a poem in which I am gardening, "out of the
blue / a rush of wind"--my experience is that of the sudden wind that came
up, but instead of saying suddenly, Ii say out of the blue and at the same
time suggest the nature of the day and the environment I am in without ever
saying explicitly that I see the color blue.

In another poem, about pears, I talk about the scent of the pears and how
they'[re like scented candles but without actual candle flames, which I
don't need because the pears "still shine / my kind of light."  So Ii use
the word shine to describe scent.

In yet another poem I use the word mist not in a visual context, but as a
tactile experience, of dew melting down the blades of grass and later rising
in the late morning heat, creating a mist that I feel, which is also
adsorped onto the smooth surface of my cane, making it wet, but in a nice
way.  

That's what I mean by using common words but broadening their applications.

John

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Angela fowler
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 8:49 PM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] What you experience verses What you read?

Let's see, velvet can purr, you can see red when you're really ticked off,
(likely cliché though) colors are associated with emotion, you could
capitalize on that... Am I getting somewhere John? 

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of John Lee Clark
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 6:41 PM
To: 'Writer's Division Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [stylist] What you experience verses What you read?

One reason I keep on encouraging writing about blindness is because, right
now, there is not much precedence in English language for describing the
blind experience.  True, the lexicon is rich in words and phrases related to
sounds and music, and hearing blind people certainly have a lot to draw from
if they want to express and describe voices and things like that, but
there's very little for tactile stuff and other aspects of blindness.  This
is a wonderful opportunity to do truly creative writing and make significant
contributions to English literature as a whole.  Not only the content is
cool and interesting because it's different, but your breaking new ground
will help sighted people appreciate things they have never noticed
before--you're giving them a new language and a new way to understand
themselves and the world around them.

So, no, it's not easy writing.  But if it was easy writing, your work
probably would be less significant, less original, and more like many, too
many other books.

One possible technique is to use common verbs and nouns but in new contexts.
Take the word purr.  Most people would use that for a cat, maybe a car.  But
you can use it in a tactile context for something totally new.   Or take the
word sing.  Most writers would use that strictly for music, but maybe a few
other things.  But if, for example, you have a sex scene, you can say that
one body sang to the other.  You can even play with color words but not
actually to describe color.  For example, there is this great bit in Himes's
classic novel If I Holler Let Me GO: "His tongue tasted brown."  Nothing to
do with the actual color of his tongue, but everything to do with the
connotations of the color brown previously established in literature but
this time used in a new way.

One good rule is not to overdescribe.  Understatement is great.  Just a
touch and move on with the story.

John 

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