Over the weekend, the Poetry Princesses launched back into the fray with work on the sestina project we started six months ago (oy!) and were talking about a certain excellent poem, which is rich in imagery and feeds the senses. We discussed the uses of language in poetry — specifically, some language which could be described as evocative and “salty,” which might raise brows and produce blushes. It was a good conversation, as we spoke of our strengths and limitations in terms of language. I didn’t add much, but it was good to be a part of the circle.
I’m always in awe of the Princesses, because they’re so very real — in ways that I am not, and fear that I can never be. It seems that I am not yet grown up enough to get past the way I was raised, the voices in my head are still ones belonging to my parents and other adults — and I don’t yet see myself as tall enough to escape from their shadows. My writing struggles — like a worm on a hook — to escape. I feel sometimes that I’m standing in the stirrups, cranking back the reins on a runaway horse, which is pawing the air and doing its level best to throw me off and pulverize me. I hold back, I hold on, I censor and edit myself, and I fear that not only can I not do that, but that I can never be a great writer because of it.
A conundrum, in a way. But a necessity in another way.
Our talk about language got me thinking again about the conversation I had with my S.A.M. about a year ago, in which he exclaimed in frustration, “#$%&%! Let the character’s swear!” It was actually a pretty hilarious moment, as far as that goes, but I could not take his otherwise good advice. It wasn’t how I was raised (oh, that again), and it also seems in many ways as big a linguistic shortcut as dropping brand names in a manuscript.
(Now, I’m blogging about this because I’m thinking it through — please don’t jump down my throat and criticize what I’m saying. I really don’t care if or by what you swear or not. I’m just thinking “out loud,” here.)
I remember reading a very popular book a couple of years ago that got a lot of Cybils kudos, but we discussed it in terms of, “Wow, great story — wow, that’s a lot of language.” We went round and round about whether or not it was realistic to the setting (it was), or the ages of the characters (it was), but even having drawn those conclusions, a few in the group had some serious qualms.
Some print reviewers drew some of the same conclusions, and actually alluded to the idea that language and setting together were just iconic earmarks, a kind of hipster in-speak that meant less than nothing. The book received very mixed praise — which probably didn’t mean that teens didn’t read it — and we went on to the next book…
— but that incident stuck with me, and I’ve mulled it over for quite awhile.
Do some words seem to carry with them a kind of cachet, a kind of …intangible attitude? Does a character using profanity automatically allow us to assume other things about them — class? Religion or lack, race or ethnicity? I am not sure — and as long as I’m not sure, I want to use other words to allow readers to come to their conclusions about the characters I write in different ways. I don’t want assumptions or to use characterization shortcuts — unless that’s deliberately what I’m after. So many people have written that unless you’re disturbing the universe with your work, you’re not truly writing… that you’re not being real.
This is how it’s been explained to me: Using profanity in one’s writing is like… not ending a sentence with a preposition (English Major Nerdom Alert). You really avoid going there, if you can, but there are some times — especially in dialogue — when this makes the speaker sound overly stiff and clunky — that you simply have to recalibrate the sentence, or you’ll end up using it. What you’re talking about must be more important than how you talk about it. Surely if how you talk about it gets in the way, there must be a problem…
Are there times when you absolutely positively have to use vulgarity or profanity? Probably not. BUT…
As I write, the universe remains undisturbed. I cannot yet figure out how to disturb it, and keep true to where I’m at…
Yeah, yeah, still with the infection-sweating-fever thing, but THIS is the view I have from my window. This bird is a woodpecker, and I’d have to have a better view of him to identify him, since he wasn’t very cooperative. But isn’t his “hair” great?
