Cryptic Coffee Spoons and Writing Styles

This semester of college has been chock-full of two out of three of the proverbial "R's" of education:

Reading and 'Riting.

(Praise be to God, the 'Rithmatic Gen Ed is finally in the past!)

As an English major, well, you might understand why I'm a little giggly with glee over the way I'm asked to spend my time doing homework. Read a poem? Read a novel? Look up some words in the dictionary? Write a reflection paper? Yes, ma'am (or sir), sure thing.

This semester, with my Creative Nonfiction class, however, I have been surprisingly stretched outside my literary comfort zone a bit. I have been asked questions which I have never really considered before about myself: my own writing style, voice, and story.

Tell me to analyze someone else's work. Done. For example, in my American Literature III class, we read a T.S. Eliot poem. His fragmented/unconventional structure, esoteric allusions, lack of narrative format, and strange juxtapositions reflect his emergence as a Modernist Poet. Here's a little blurb to add some flavor to that description for you:

"For I have known them all already, known them all--

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying all

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?"

(-TS Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")

I mean... that isn't exactly easy stuff to digest for the typical reader (especially someone outside of Eliot's circles, in the movement of Modernism).

Yet, I still like to roll around the line 'I have measured out my life with coffee spoons' in my head. Even though I don't know what the heck Eliot means by the majority of this strange poem, I marvel at the idea of measuring a life out with coffee spoons.

I really value people who can take hold of the challenge of originality and radicalism in their work. Their bravery and, for those who are lucky, success give their writing an almost provocative feel for those of us traditionalists. But, I ask, do their cryptic and unwontedly-styled works effectively project their overall 'message'? I do not know the answer.

When I write, I tend to do so more straightforwardly. Even this blog is written so that any member of the literate public could understand my central thoughts about writing styles (although, I'm guessing 2 or 3 people from my Creative Nonfiction people will skim it. Greetings faithful readers!).

I question if the Modernists were onto something with their esoteric styles and themes. It was risky, and yes, they've survived and are revered in many literary circles. But I feel more powerful using common language, referencing universal experiences, and presenting my message in the most clear route possible. I guess I feel like then my audience has an easier time really connecting my rambling words to their lives.

I say- life is chaotic enough. Let's bring some clarity to it with our writing.

(I must confess I still love the foggy, mysterious feeling T.S. Eliot's poetry gives me. So, really, I guess there is room for every type of writing style. Just make it your own and get your message out there!)

"This Too Shall Pass"

I have been many places and I have met many people. I am often amazed, however, at how these people really differ from one another a lot less than you would assume.

There are some powerful unifiers in the human experience.

One is pain.

Pain is scattered like footprints of sin across our globe. And its path runs through each of our lives. Whether you live in rural Nebraska or desolate Alaska or urban London or in the chaos of Pakistan- there is pain. This path connects us. A unifier of humanity. Our lives can be so steeped in pain that we feel nothing else. Often, writing can be a way to rise above the surface of it all and to make sense of it.

Some people (I being one of them) say another entity exists and connects humanity to one another.

And that entity is God.

Eula Biss mused about this in her essay "The Pain Scale":

"Christianity is not mine. I do not know it and I cannot claim it. But I've seen the sacred heart ringed with thorns, the gaping wound in Christ's side, the weeping virgin, the blood, the nails, the cross to bear. . . . Pain is holy, I understand. Suffering is divine.

"In my worst pain, I can remember thinking, 'This is not beautiful.' I can remember being disgusted by the very idea.

"But in my worst pain, I also found myself secretly cherishing the phrase, 'This too shall pass.' The longer the pain lasted, the more beautiful and impossible and absolutely holy this phrase became."

Unlike Eula Biss, I do claim Christianity because Christ has claimed me. Sin's footprints in our lives are in such pain as she describes- the physical, the emotional, and the chronic. But there is also a hope for humanity, a hope that I pray is just as universal as the pain which it overcomes. That hope is found in Christ Jesus, who promises that pains that characterize our lives will pass one day- for he has overcome the world and its paths of pain.

I strive to express this to my fellow sufferers across this earth. Writing can uncover so much hope for each of us- buried under oceans of painful experiences, doubts, and sufferings. Let us make the statement

'This too shall pass'

and know that Christ whispers it with us, for us- wherever we are on this globe.

The Station of Communication Frustration

After trekking across four time zones within a one week span, by both sky-sailing and automobiling, I am forced to take yet another hiatus from my vagabond life for a semester in Nebraska. It's time to play with the Midwest wind and drink in the expanse of blue sky. This time of year, we also have a chance to reconnect with all those people of old (that is, friends/professors/acquaintances/Lutherans we haven't seen since last semester).

And so the generic conversations go:

-"Hey! How was your summer?" [Hug]

-"Oh, hi! It was really good! I worked at _____. And went on vacation to _____!"

-"Wow! That sounds fun! I worked at _____. Summer went by so fast! . . . Anyway, what classes do you have?"

And so I traveled 4,135 miles to arrive at the Station of Communication Frustration.

This metaphorical train station is characterized with superficial palavering, apathetic droll, and other weapons of language destruction, aided by Facebook and text messaging. After a summer that both grew and stretched me in a myriad of ways, it hasn't been a piece of cake to settle back into the same old life and relationships of last year. Communicating this to my peers, who mostly return to their designated space in last year's drudge, has been, well, frustrating.

And frankly, sometimes I wonder if communicating the truth is really worth all the trouble. Or even what people want.

Isn't language supposed to be a medium through which we can make sense of the world? Make sense of ourselves? Express what that 'self' is?

Thankfully, God always provides a way out of idiotic temptations (1 Corinthians 10:13). And this particular way we can call the Writer's Express.

Brett Lott said that, in writing, "continue to question. Only through rigorous and ruthless questioning of the self can we hope to arrive at any kind of truth . . ."

This is real communication. I will not just gloss over the past couple of months like they didn't happen and slip back to last year's cycle of circumlocution. I will ruthlessly question everything. I will write this blog. I will write poetry. I will write letters. I will write prayers (Philippians 4:4-9).

And hopefully, after riding this Express, I will be able to make a little more sense of this world, in light of the only TRUTH that exists- that is God's truth.