A recent conversation with an acquaintance brought to light dishonest fears and unearned hopes I had been harbouring in my heart. Dishonest, because I have not looked at them for what they are. Unearned, because I had not first done what is necessary to make what I hoped for a possibility. It sent me into…
Smoking
Here is a twist on an old concept: Crafting a lifestyle can be compared to one’s choice of a smoke. Commercial cigarettes come by the pack, are available at every street corner, and tend to be addictive. Mass-produced, each is identical to the other. Chemical compounds conspire to convince you the next cigarette would be…
The Nakedness of the Writer
Writing, when done honestly, strips the writer of everything they put on when “going out into society.” Flaws in their thinking, gaps in logical processes, and blurry understandings become apparent – and if one publishes their writing, publicly so. The clearer one writes, the clearer such shortcomings are; the more concisely a point is communicated,…
In Search of a Beautiful Life (Part 5)
By the end of this post we would have reached the end of our brief exploration of poetic order and applications of its framework towards living a whole and beautiful life. Only a few more notes need be made in regards to aesthetics, failure, and an example of a “test” for beauty in poetry. (As…
Additional Notes On Centers (Part 4)
Gabriel includes the below point as part of the list of what makes up strong centers explored in the previous posts; however, I see these as important enough to be separated and explored on their own. They speak to the whole poem more directly than to each center – at least so it seems to…
Poetic Centers in Life (Part 3)
Life is never exactly linear when we try to comprehend it all at once; nor, if we are honest with ourselves, does it work well with strict definitions and clearly-labelled boxes for everything we think, say, do, and dream. That is one reason why I love the open-endedness of the concept of centers outlined in…
The Centers of a Poem (Part 2)
To continue on our examination of life through an analysis of poetic order… Poetic order comes about by the presence of “centers” that exist within a text, whose presence and structure breathes wholeness and life into any given part of the poem. An understanding of these centers cross-pollinated with personal values, beliefs, and activities may…
A Living Poem and the Need for Order (Part 1.5)
It is precisely because I do not have such poetic order within my life that I have allowed three months to slip by before continuing this blog series. I would not want to be more of a hypocrite than I am already by writing what I have failed to live out so far. Yet I…
A Living Poem and the Need for Order (Part 1)
As presented in my bio and in another blog post, I posit the idea of one’s life being less of a jumbled blend of ideas and beliefs, and more of a organized, thoughtful essay–or even better, as a poem. Yet what distinguishes a poem from other texts–from a well-written work of prose, for example? What…
Levels of Reality
There’s an old joke that makes fun of someone who took up the dictionary, expecting it to be a novel only to come away from it unable to make head or tail of the story. The joke isn’t on those who laugh at the poor reader, though. It’s on those who don’t see the thousands…