From the Editor
25 April 2011
Hello Readers.
I hope you've enjoyed the blog so far. We know you're reading because we've been getting feedback. Thanks for keeping us in check. A couple of weeks ago we mentioned a book by Virginia Woolf entitled A Room of One's Own, and we mistakenly called it a novel. It's not. In fact it was first a lecture, and it later became a book.
I love that you called us out on that, because it emphasizes the idea that literature is a community. That idea is a large part of 5x5.
But it also brought up an interesting point. The issue with the word "novel" was that a novel is, by definition, fiction. Of course, you can have nonfiction novels, but then you have to have the word "nonfiction" in front to let the readers know that it isn't a traditional novel. It's a nonfiction novel.
Maybe you disagree with those definitions, and that would be fine. I'm not trying to argue semantics. The point is that there is fact and there is fiction, and then there is everything in the middle. I may go as far as to say that fact and fiction are ideas at two ends of a spectrum and that these ideas are never actually realized. Everything contains both fact and fiction, based on perspective, so everything falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Where exactly a story or a single statement falls in this spectrum can cause all sorts of debates. Remember James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces.
5x5 publishes fiction and creative nonfiction. So, theoretically, the fictional stories are very, very close to the fictional side of the spectrum. The creative nonfiction can fall pretty much anywhere in the middle, but the idea is that it falls much closer to the fact side. If you get too close to fact, however, you end up with journalism. We're not looking for something unbiased, if such a thing even exists. We want your bias, your creativity, your tidbits of fictional elements.
Only the writer is going to have the best idea of where his or her story falls on the spectrum, but we're all allowed to speculate and judge and make assumptions.
The debate over what's fiction and what's fact could go on forever. I'm willing to set that aside and take each story for what it is. A story.
And we want to read your stories. This is the last week to submit work for the Illumination themed issue. Please do. Our community needs you.
18 April 2011
From Free-Verse to Form: the Practice of Shape-Shifting
I love pieces written in form for their complexity and discipline of linguistic techniques. Though I spent many of my younger years literally gagging at the romanticism of popular works of poetry (think Shakespeare, Poe, etc) and pledging myself to read modernists and only those that followed in their footsteps—I found that as I developed as a writer and practiced the technique of strict form writing, that I could appreciate it, and many of the modern purveyors of form writing from the stand point of, “whoa, that’s challenging.” ( New Formalism: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5667)
In truth, form can be as structured or free as we make it because it is most simply stated the utilization of rhyme, meter, and stanza. Many do argue that free-verse is form—and I agree. Liken a stoned, tie-dyed individual waving his or her arms around at a jam-band concert to a petite, lean-muscled ballerina pirouetting across a dramatically lit stage—both are dancing. And I mean this without value judgment, both individuals are dancing—and both could learn from the other’s style of dance to add something to theirs.
Today, I present what free-verse can learn from form. Well, I present an opportunity for you to find out. The most direct way to do that is to take a poem that you already have, but feel sort of “meh” about. The next step is to find a form to work with—poets.org has a plethora of explanations. Don’t spend too much time hemming and hawing over the best one—any of them will do—or better yet try multiple forms for the same piece. Some of my favorites: villanelle, pantoum, and sonnet.
When the pressure is on we work in strange and beautiful ways.
If you chose a form with a set meter, you’re already counting iambs on your fingers. Utilizing poetic forms as a method of editing is highly useful and will inevitably force you find the heart of your piece, and work from there. Free-verse will never feel the same once you’ve crossed this line—perhaps in practicing this, your work will begin to lie somewhere on the spectrum between total freedom and rigid structure.
But think: in a world where free-verse reigns supreme, form writing becomes all the more subversive and brilliant. Rise up to the challenge.
-Mishon
11 April 2011
Against “A Room of One’s Own”
I have great respect for the writings of Virginia Woolf and her stake in the feminist movement. But the title of her book sprang to mind when I started to think about the writing life. There are innumerable books that discuss the writer’s life, the long and lonely journey on the page, and ultimately the inner turmoil writers go through. One of my favorites is Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life by Bonnie Freedman.
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Click on the cover to buy it at Powell's. |
Everyone knows that a guitar can sound good, but that it usually sounds its best when accompanied by drums, bass guitar and vocals. Musicians working in concert with one another are greater than the sum of their parts. (Sorry, I couldn’t pass that pun up.) Although one man may create music for each instrument, it requires several music makers joining to create a complete symphony. My analogy comparing music to writing is not a precise fit, but it will lead the way.
I want to address collaboration between writers. Every time a piece of writing is workshopped in a class or sent to an editor, collaboration is taking place. I want to move beyond the discussion of this kind of collaboration.
Two Julys ago, I attended a class lead by author Sam Ligon, who envisioned a collaboration between prose writers and poets. The requirements were that each segment shouldn’t be over 200 words. In addition, each new section must use a sentence from the previous one as its first line. The pieces layered prose and poetry on top of one another, pulling a line or phrase from somewhere within the preceding section. I was paired with the talented prose writer Elizabeth Thorpe, and we completed two separate pieces. As writers, we created a piece of work that neither of us could have envisioned on our own.
In a successful piece, there is a distinct tension between the prose and poetry. Each section not only builds on what has come before, but also adds something new or turns the phrase in a new way. Sometimes a piece like this can tear itself apart when the authors have varied ideas or agendas. And as in all writing, sometimes a piece of writing fails for other reasons. It does not gel as it should. Any writer who has been putting pen to page or font to computer screen knows that not every word sees the light of day. We sometimes give birth to ugly babies.
There are other types of collaboration as well. Since September, the poet John Myers and I have been giving one another writing assignments. They range from the simple to the complex. Make an erasure poem from an online quiz. Write an anti-Betty White poem that features both a vessel of some kind and William Shatner in blank verse. Clearly, we are strange individuals. What these writing prompts have done is taken me out of my familiar tracks—my habitual ways of thinking and writing. Only about a third of the prompts have gone on to be successful poems. These constrictions placed on me by another person have caused me to stretch my writing muscles and rise to the occasion. The things that I learn in writing these exercises come to play in my “serious” work as well.
You can take this further. If you are a prose writer or poet, you can collaborate with another individual on single pieces. My friend John has worked on collaborative poems with others in open source Google documents. Each person can access a poem at any time or even write on it simultaneously—even if they live on the other side of the world. As I have said, not every piece is a successful work of art.
Collaboration takes the artist out of the locked box of his or her head. It broadens the familiar envisioning process of the piece. Put simply, it ups the ante. It is one thing to do work for yourself, but another entirely to work with another person in co-creation. I encourage all writers to try their hand at joining their words with another’s. Take the chance. Risk wrecking what’s working for you to discover an entirely new set of tools.
But most of all have fun!
-Jory
4 April 2011
Hello, 5x5 blog readers! Welcome to my very first post on this blog! I'm excited, but nervous—you guys are all awesome writers and I'm just a doodler! So don't judge my writing too much, okay?
Jen Collins
I wonder sometimes, though, if writers and visual artists are more similar than we seem. Sure, one group uses words and the other uses images—but we all need inspiration, feedback and (of course!) a place that helps us get our work done. Personally, I need a nice big surface to draw and a spot to rest my trusty computer. I can work in coffee shops and at friends' houses, but I feel the most productive when I get my own little bubble to make a mess in.
ALL-ETC
Tuesday Bassen (a classmate of mine from the Minneapolis College of Art & Design) and Meg Lewis also think a lot about creative people and the spaces that inspire them. They've recently launched a fantastic website called Studio Sweet Studiowhich focuses on just that! Studio Sweet Studio is already off to an amazing start with features from artists I know and respect...and new ones that I'm so excited to find out about! I find myself drawn specifically to images of desks or tables where it's obvious that the artist does the bulk of their work, there's a special connection that I can feel with places like that.
Jan
Skacelik
Here's what Tuesday has to say about the origins of Studio Sweet Studio:
I originally created Studio Sweet Studio as a zine after studying abroad in Brighton, England. While abroad, I felt hyper-aware of my foreign surroundings and as a result, could easily see the visual connection between my new friends' spaces and their work. Upon my return to the USA, I invited some of my artist friends to participate in a project where I asked them to send me both a self-portrait in their studio and a piece of their work which I would later compile into a zine; The idea was to explore and expand on my interest in spacial relationships and visual output.
Fast forward to late fall, my friend, Meg Lewis of Ghostly Ferns, picked up a copy of the Studio Sweet Studio zine in Quimby's Bookstore in Chicago and asked me if I was interested in collaborating on a website under a similar concept (yes, duh!) After some months of making, planning, and obsessive emailing, Meg and I launched Studio-sweet-studio.com on March 15th and have been running hard at three posts a day! I know I can speak on Meg's behalf when I say that we are extremely pleased with the outcome and feel lucky to be able to feature artists that we truly believe in!
Kelly Carambula
So, dear 5x5 readers: What do you need to inspire you to write? Do you feel your chosen space reflects the style of your writing?
-Emma
28 March 2011
The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable. Embarrassing. Repulsive.
by Vanessa Libertad Garcia
reviewed by Bradley Wonder
Click on the cover to buy it at Powell's.
Fear. Humiliation. Anxiety. Lament. These are a few of the chapter titles within the book, and they give a good sense of the overall feel. Have you ever felt that everyone else has it all figured out while you're failing to even go through the motions?
Vanessa Libertad Garcia takes full advantage of form by utilizing poetry, prose, and even online chat dialogue. Throughout the book, Garcia chooses her words so carefully and elegantly that even the prose reads like poetry. Reading this aloud will add to the experience and it won't take long. In a mere seventy pages, Garcia packs power into each page, line, and word.
The book follows a group of gay and lesbian Latino club kids in LA, each with his or her own problems and addictions, each with a desire to do more, juxtaposed with politics, the 2008 elections and literary and art references.
Gritty, dark, and tragic but with hints of liberation and redemption, this is a book that everyone can appreciate. It's witty, both in content and form.
Humiliating moments that—whether you've lived them or merely read them—make you want to crawl into a hole where butterflies go to die.
