Friday, September 24, 2004

on purpose

i entered a creative writing competition organised by the NUS Literary Society just recently. in my attempt to choose the best 3 poems to submit (it was difficult, they were all so bad) i learnt a few things about writing.

i asked my GP tutor to give me some comments on my work. it went something like this:

(MCPGT: my cool general paper tutor)

me: so, what do you think?
MCGPT: um, well, i didn't really look at them.
me: okay, but what do you think, just by glancing?
MCGPT: well, let's just say i admire people who write poetry.

hmm.

she did, however tell me that it is important to maybe include some literary elements that have been put into the verse/prose/story on purpose. like, maybe that alliteration was deliberately slotted into that sentence to give it more meaning, and to make it more interesting and exciting.

that was what a literature student and english major said about my poems.

my friends, however, took things in a more simplistic way. they liked my poems because the words flowed, or because they made them think and look through the verse again. or, in the case of one friend, because the poem sounded sexy.

anyway, it made me wonder what i really want out of my writing. writing is a very selfish thing, because it is mainly done out of one's own pleasure and own wants. i mean, i usually write because i want to convince myself that i can. if ordinary people can relate ("your poem sounds sexy"...aargh) and can give me different interpretations, that's fantastic. it means you can actually feel something, maybe even share what i felt when i put the words on paper.

on the other hand, i also want my work to be something that can be taken seriously. you know, something people can dissect and perhaps find delight in my intentional use of paradox or irony. like those passages i have to dissect for GP.

reading Amy Tan's "The Opposite of Fate" though, made me rethink that. Tan's works are being studied all over America (and probably in other countries) as pieces of Asian-American literature, able to deliver a lesson on culture and tradition, as well as the mother-daughter relationship she has been known to convey so well. a graduate who wrote her master's thesis on Tan noted Tan's "intentional" use of the number 4 (and its multiples) in "The Joy Luck Club". another student wrote about Tan's clever use of figurative language.

know what Tan said? it horrified her to see her work being dissected that way. the reason why the number 4 (and its multiples) was prominent in "The Joy Luck Club" was purely coincidence. she wrote to please herself, and the way her words fit were due to "goodfeel" or just based on the flow of the story. some of her figurative phrases were derived from chinese proverbs. nothing much was intentional, although i'm very sure she put in alot of pains in deciding the right words to convey her ideas and feeling.

when i read that, my mind went: YES! that's how it usually is. i change the words of my poems everytime i read them out loud to hear how they fit. if the tone isn't right, or i felt they didn't fully represent my meaning, i make changes. it was difficult to imagine a writer sitting in front of his or her computer, consciously including literary devices that would become the nightmare of every lit student.

after thinking about it, i guess i'll just work harder when i write poems or jot down my thoughts. my tutor was right in saying sometimes my work seems too random and too much a product of inspiration than a real piece of writing. but i think also about Amy Tan and how her brilliant books were written more on feeling, experiences, her imagination and the "feelgood" of her choice of words.

i want to be like that: to produce commendable pieces of literature...unintentionally. like there was another spirit ensuring that everything falls into its right place.

lishun at 6:29 PM

|