Sundog Rising!
Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog
When Is A Poem Not A Photograph? Vice Verse
So last time I wrote about how both a photographer and a poet can be inspired by a mutual motivating scene, event, or moment to create their art. I went over my simplistic views on what made for good photographs, and how those ideas did or did not apply to poetry.
But then I started thinking about it some more ...
The fact is I’ve been taking a lot more pictures than writing poetry over the last year. Poetry comes and goes for me. Sometimes it pours out, other times, it’s better to give it a rest. But as my wife and I were taking pictures on our holiday back in September, I found myself increasingly putting the camera away for a moment and scribbling some notes down for poems inspired by the same vistas I just took photographs of. Looking back over the photos I’ve acquired over the last year or so, I found others I thought I could turn into some worthwhile writing as well.
But I needed a hook ...
Because even though a poem might be inspired by the same scene I just took a photograph of, I don’t see the point of writing something that only describes something I just took a picture of. The photograph says all there needs to be said, in one sense. If I’m going to write about the scene as well, then I better find some other sense to approach it from.
When we got back from our holidays, I spent a considerable amount of time processing the photographs I took. Then I got involved in a new photography project, making a study of trees. I put the notes I made for the poems I wanted to write on my dresser where I’d have to look at them everyday. So I wouldn’t forget about them. But I didn’t do anything with them. I vaguely thought I might spend a couple of afternoons drafting full poems from the notes (an intensely pleasant way to spend a day, I must say). But I never actually sat down and picked up a pen.
I kept on thinking, especially after writing the piece on photography and poetry, I need a new approach to really make those poems pop. Otherwise, I might just as well keep going back and looking at the pictures.
Then as I was madly typing Reality Fiction Too! into the computer one morning, as I have to do every morning to get the full piece processed and edited on time to put on the blog, a phrase from a totally different context leaped out at me.
“We might have been up to little somethings ...”
Whoa! Keystone moment!
When I go on holiday, I take photographs of things I think are beautiful. As I’ve mentioned, it’s redundant to write a poem afterwards saying, look at this (again), isn’t it beautiful? But what if you combine that description of something beautiful with something ... sinister? But make the intentional obscurity of poetic language work for you. So ... maybe I’m writing about some unnamed young man and woman traveling around the countryside murdering, raping, and kidnapping. Or maybe I’m just describing a couple taking a tour through scenic Manitoba? Set it up so the reader has to decide.
The fact is, as soon as I tried drafting a couple of these pieces, the contrast of the beauty in the scene against the chilling “what if” of what the couple might really be up to provided quite pleasingly that “extra” sense I had decided poems inspired by the same moments as the photographs needed to have. So the poem stands on its own right, as a unique piece of artistry other than the photograph taken at the same moment the writing was engendered.
Plus, it’s fun ...
I may have been predisposed towards leaning to a darker view of life in poetry already due to the fact I’m rereading Lou Reed’s Pass Thru Fire: The Collected Lyrics. See how all the blogs I’ve written lately come together? Lou Reed, photography and poetry, keystone moment ...
I didn’t plan things that way, and this isn’t so much a joke as a commentary on how the creative process works. Everything contributes. If you’re working at it like you should, everything is fair game. And having it lead you places you never anticipate when the pieces first appear is the main part of the magic.
Whether you take a picture of it, make a note for a poem, or merely have your eye caught by a fleeting moment never seen otherwise in passing ...
Photo by Renee Beaubien
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REALITY FICTION UPDATE!
And what is Reality Fiction, you may well ask?
Simple. The concept of the Reality Television Series translated to the printed page. 40 characters from my backlog of generally unpublished material are gathered together to compete in a different theme each Episode, with one or two characters being eliminated each sequence until there are only two left to fight it out in the final. The winner gets a short novel of their own as the grand prize.
But somehow, things always seem to go horribly wrong ...
What’s happening now?
The spies have it! Reaction to Episode Sixteen: Silly Euro Spy Spoof (Dubbed) has been quite positive. The second instalment of the Episode ran this Monday, and the results will come out on Friday. Starting off the second half of the Contest with a bang.
Continuing Friday at: realficone.blogspot.ca
On the processing end of things, the entire Contest has been written -- by hand. And I started typing Episode Twenty-Nine into the computer this morning. The piece has been edited and processed for blogging through to the end of Episode Twenty-Six. An end (on my end) is actually in sight. The Contest blog will continue to run at least until next May before the grand finale appears.
REALITY FICTION TOO! EPISODES TO DATE
EPISODE SIXTEEN: SILLY EUROPEAN SPY SPOOF (DUBBED)
“Diet Ray of the Stars!”
EPISODE FIFTEEN: EROTIC SUPERNATURAL ROMANCE
“The Shadow of Her Passion”
EPISODE FOURTEEN: FLYING:
“Sky Calling”
EPISODE THIRTEEN: SLAPSTICK:
“The Phantom of the Werewolf”
EPISODE TWELVE: DAIRY FARMING:
“Early One Morning”
EPISODE ELEVEN: BURROUGHS:
“Chapter Nine”
EPISODE TEN: WEREWOLVES:
“The Silver Solution”
EPISODE NINE: WRESTLING:
“Suckerslam XIV”
EPISODE EIGHT: JANE AUSTEN ROMANCE:
“The Proud and the Senseless”
EPISODE SEVEN: THE JAZZ AGE:
“The Bucky-Dusky-Ruby Red Hop!”
EPISODE SIX: SUBMISSION:
“Re-Org”
EPISODE FIVE: MASQUERADE:
“The Eyes Behind the Mask”
EPISODE FOUR: SELF HELP:
“Sausage Stew for the Slightly Overweight Presents:
Some Several Suggestions Guaranteeing Success for the Mildly Neurotic”
EPISODE THREE: NUDIST:
“If You Have To Ask ...”
EPISODE TWO: FRENCH BEDROOM FARCE:
“Un Nuit a Fifi’s!”
EPISODE ONE: STEAMPUNK:
“The Chase of the Purple Squid!”
A J.H.B. Original!
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