What it Means to Create

 So two weeks ago, Ocean Vuong's "Essay on Craft", one of the poems from the poetry panel really stuck with me. You can read the poem in its entirety here, but it's essentially about how artists often take inspiration from painful moments in their lives. This is especially clear in this section:

————

So I dipped
my fingers back
into the fire, pried open
the lower face
until the wound widened
into a throat,
until every leaf shook silver
with that god
-awful scream
& I was done.
& it was human.

————

The visceral image of a wound widened into a throat (a voice) in order to make something so clearly portrays this message. However, this also reminded me of David Armsby's short film, Scary and Strange, as well as the accompanying "making of" video on his creative process. To summarize, the short film serves as a reminder not to overly romanticize or hold onto the pain in your life for the sake of your art. Drawing on pain is an easy way to inject strong emotions into a work of art, heck, it could even be a part of the healing process, but purposefully holding onto it is simply not healthy. One line that has always stuck with me is at the end of the video:

"I am very guilty of...hanging on to terrible feelings and not fixing my problems because in a weird, twisted, overly romanticized way I feel I'm at my best when I'm at my most miserable...and I'm not."

This has always been important to me. I most certainly write my best when I’m doing my worst (which, admittedly is not that bad), but I’m always trying to resolve said feelings (also partially because I don’t have that much art to make). However, it is undeniable that creating is a personal process, as some part of you is being shown in that art. 

I recently came across an old piece of poetry that I wrote in ninth grade. Cool thing is, it’s about my creative process (and how wrote this poem at 3 AM). Overall, its alright, although I feel like some of the meter was sacrificed for the aabb rhyme scheme of this 30 line poem, but hey, I was in ninth grade, and its not as bad as I remember.

————

Waiting for Rain

Late nights, spent waiting for rain.

Why do I practice such a refrain?

For those times are when I write;

dusk to dawn, with little light.

The fire, Passion, much like a spark,

Appears not in light, but in the dark.

So when a blaze starts in the woods,

I wait for rain, which should come as it should.

Waiting for water to pour from the sky,

But when I look, the heavens are dry.

For the first time, rain doesn’t arrive,

Would the burning woods still survive?

Rain, inspiration from the clouds,

Like crashing thunder, ever so loud.

So when the rain is pouring, frightening,

I write with a fast hand, like lightning.

Sparked by passion, leaves are burning,

Ashes on the ground, smoke still churning.

The raging fire cries out for release,

So the pain inside would finally cease.

Finally, the rain comes at last

Starting slow, then pouring fast

The sky’s tears clean the forest floor

And flora thrives like never before

Flora, all thoughts in my mind,

Rather disorganized, as you might find.

So when red rails lie upon my eyes,

able to be seen beyond their white skies,

It’s times like those that I start to write,

From dusk to dawn, with little light

————

Anyway, I wanted to take a shot at writing about writing again, so here it is.

————

Chunks of gold, still impure,

imperfections a result 

of where it was created.

So it is passed itself through 

that refining fire.

Melting down, slag resting above.

Scrape it away and toss it onto the page

Only molten gold remains.