”– you know, I’ve either had a family, a job, something has always been in the way but now I’ve sold my house, I’ve found this place, a large studio, you should see the space and the light. for the first time in my life I’m going to have a place and the time to create.”
no baby, if you’re going to create you’re going to create whether you work 16 hours a day in a coal mine or you’re going to create in a small room with 3 children while you’re on welfare, you’re going to create with part of your mind and your body blown away, you’re going to create blind crippled demented, you’re going to create with a cat crawling up your back while the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment, flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space have nothing to do with it and don’t create anything except maybe a longer life to find new excuses for.
if you're going to try, go all the way. otherwise, don't even start.
if you're going to try, go all the way. this could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind.
go all the way. it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days. it could mean freezing on a park bench. it could mean jail, it could mean derision, mockery, isolation. isolation is the gift, all the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. and you'll do it despite rejection and the worst odds and it will be better than anything else you can imagine.
if you're going to try, go all the way. there is no other feeling like that. you will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire.
our life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.
When Dead Poets came out I was a high school English teacher and I can still recall smiling when I watched Robin Williams in the role of John Keating uncover the idiocy of measuring the value of poetry. One year when I was teaching a British Literature survey course I had students read the opening bio sketches for Chaucer, Spenser, Morrow, Donne, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope and so on only to learn that each was the greatest, best writer in England, the word, ever. Such pretentious crap. At the front of that anthology held over form the days of news critics (close reading) was a long winded essay similar to the fictive Pritchard essay the boys tear out of their anthologies. This too was about the correct way to understand literature. I appreciated the idea that there's an intimacy with literature, especially with poetry, that is impossible to define wholly or holy.
So thinking about poetry and Robin Williams, today's poetry break is a grand one from Charles Bukowski: "so you want to be a writer?" I like to think the irreverent tone is one Williams would have liked.
Enjoy.
so you want to be a writer?
Charles Bukowski
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don’t do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it for money or
fame,
don’t do it.
if you’re doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don’t do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don’t do it.
if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,
don’t do it.
if you’re trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.
if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you’re not ready.
don’t be like so many writers,
don’t be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don’t be dull and boring and
pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don’t add to that.
don’t do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don’t do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don’t do it.
when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
there is no other way.
and there never was.
Charles Bukowski there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I’m not going to let anybody see you. there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he’s in there. there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too tough for him, I say, stay down, do you want to mess me up? you want to screw up the works? you want to blow my book sales in Europe? there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody’s asleep. I say, I know that you’re there, so don’t be sad. then I put him back, but he’s still singing a little in there, I haven’t quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it’s nice enough to make a man weep, but I don’t weep, do you? I love this animation.
(For Saturday @ Western Connecticut State University/ED822)
I. Exploring Transmediation through Art Converasations
What is transmediation? According to Semali, transmediation is:
The process of taking understandings from one sign system and moving them into another in order to make meaning or 'representing' meaning across sign systems. From Semali, L.M. (ed). 2002. Transmediation in the classroom: A semiotics-based media literacy framework. NY: Peter Lang.
Art Conversations (by M.A. Reilly, published in English Journal)
II. Engaging in Art Conversations
Engagement 1: You have been partnered and have been given a sheet of finger paint paper and paint. Track how meaning emerges and changes as you read/view/hear this Charles Bukowski poem, "Bluebird." Discuss the work, your feelings and thoughts with your partner using the finger paints. You are not allowed to actually talk, but instead need to converse using the paints.
I. ENTERING THE POEM
1. Listen to the poem.
from The Last Night of the Earth Poems
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s still singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?
II. DWELLING IN THE POEM
2. View Tomas Ralph's short animated film based on the poem
4. View this is an animation of "Bluebird" created by Monika Umba.
III. LEAVING THE POEM
5. Listen to this a musical Composition by Sympathy 7 based on the Bukowski poem.
In December 2010 a friend recommended a poem by Charles Bukowski called
Bluebird. During that time I was working on a musical piece but was
unsure of its purpose. Upon reading Bluebird i knew instantly what i
should do. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as i enjoyed
composing it.
'Every experience is a moving force. Its value can be judged only on the
ground of what it moves toward and into' (John Dewey. 1938/1997. Experience and education,
p.38). Transmediation potentially helps to reveal the trajectory of an
experience through the presence of multiple symbolic (re)presentations"
(Reilly, 2010. "Opening possibilities through transmediation (p. 3).
Place your art conversation on the table alongside your peers.
As you view the art, consider what understandings you made of the poem, Bluebird. Did your understanding change as you engaged with the various artworks based on or influenced by the poem.
Did meaning emerge or change as you engaged in the art conversation?
Gallery Walk: NOw align your work with your peers and take a gallery walk. Are there any patterns across the artworks that you notice? Are there points of departure?
Think about these, make a few notes (chose whatever form you want) and let's talk about this in about 15 minutes.
