Writing down the bones
In 12th grade I was placed to retake an 11th grade English class and to someone who would worry about how they appeared to others this was highly uncomfortable. That was back then, today I am so happy to have taken that class it’s the one I remember the most because that is when I started to realize my love for writing. I was already a painter, a sketch artist, a sculpture and this was another dimension of art. I realized that once I stopped looking at it as a structured writing template with words and started to look at it with an artist’s perspective it just flowed right out of me. I have these theories on how I should write and what makes my writings into MY WRITINGS and all of that has been comfortably reinforced by Natalie Goldberg. Chapter by chapter by chapter I can relate to it in my own relationship with writing. In the next couple paragraphs, I will discuss which chapters I related to the most and how.
The moment I read title “Don’t tell but Show” I felt this relatable unspoken language as if she already knew my feelings and my thoughts on writing. My mind went straight my very first wring motto “try to paint a story with emotion.” The meaning behind this motto I have is I don’t want to just plainly tell you what is going on but I want to paint it for you with the emotion I am trying to portray from the images I create in my mind. The vocabulary I use, the flow of the poem in the writing, all of it is fueled by emotion that is somehow conjured in the moment and thrown down on paper. She talks about plainly not telling the audience about the experience but bring them into it. “Don’t talk “about” feelings,” or “Don’t tell readers what to feel” but “Describe what you see” (Goldberg pg. 75). That is what I have been trying to do since day one of writing and it blew my mind how relatable she was to me. The poem I chose for an example for what I am talking about is titled “ Somewhere I have never traveled.” This is the first poem that came to life for me:
“Somewhere I have never traveled beyond any experience
Your lips, their lure
In the most frail gesture are things which enclose me
Brilliant cheeks flare as I acknowledge your existence
And you do as I
You’re ready to live from sunset to sunset
I have closed my boundaries
You open always petal by petal as spring opens her first rose
You tantalize my eye as if no other has
Radiate my brain as if no other would
Seductive incandescent smile
With any word cools the very touch
Frozen in fear temptation strikes the depth of my heart
I walk away in this moment
because someone else enticed your heart.”
My goal here in this poem wasn’t to plainly tell you a story or the emotion that was brewing up inside me but to show you the emotion as deeply as I possibly could. “Don’t tell the writers what to feel,” but again “describe what you see.”
For my next chapter I had to search a little bit harder than my last. The structuring of the chapter caught my attention pretty fast. It looked like a shopping list at first and had the big “V” for verb super capitalized and since I wasn’t sure what a verb was I read on. She basically showed the process on how to create action within a sentence giving livingly imagery for example “the sunken light of late day stretches on their propane tank” (pg.97). one could have easily taken that action and written more simply and said the sunsets light shines on their propane tank but she takes it a step further and gives this light and sun life. I liked this very much because I couldn’t understand this concept on my own to do it myself, I just did it with a feel. It felt like she reversed engineered it for me to now I don’t have to rely on my emotions alone but now I can manipulate the process to enhance my writing.
“writings…
A calm sea with depths too large for any kind to breathe
An ocean thriving of stars that allow little room for comprehension
No ties, no limits but plenty of overlapping entanglements
A train with one stop
That has derailed from its course
Impact is imminent
Head on collision streaming straight towards the notepad
Emerging from a cluster of stars
To the extended limb
Before its final destination it spits through the gel pen flowing smoothly
Slapped down
There’s no PG rating for this practice
Straight for the jugular is rated R…
Rambunctious”
The third chapter I chose, “Man Eats Car”, because it explains metaphors. Metaphors bring a new dimension of writing connecting two completely different things to explain an image. Goldberg uses an example of an ant and an Elephant. This ant and elephant have no similarities and are clearly 100 % different but in metaphors there’s a bridge created to connect these two nouns. In a metaphor you could use one completely different thing to describe something else for example even though a curtain isn’t the night sky you might say the closing curtain is falling on the town. It gives imagery for the reader plus it sounds so much cooler. Another example would be my last poem that you just read. I describe my mind as an ocean or a group of stars and my thoughts flowing from my mind to a train. Even though my brain is 100% different than a sea or a group of stars that comparison gives deeper imagery than just plainly saying what my mind is doing or how it may feel. It brings a kind of imagery for the reader. I always felt a lack of strength in my writing when I used simile’s. I wanted my writing to bring more life to the reader so one day I quickly challenged myself to throw “like” and “as” away. This is what I first got:
“My allured heart yearns for peace
Left to pieces from obsession
Great beast licking wounds
I made a cage for my lion heart
Until I learn to control my beastly part”
Right there my heart is compared to a lion to help explode how It really is, ferocious, hungry and on the hunt. My heart is also hurt and dealing with great pain and so to try to protect it from others and protect others from itself. I caged it up so it could heal away. Metaphors are everywhere and in poetry we use them more than writing. For metaphors, as Goldberg stated “All boundaries disappear” because they really do.
To summarize, I really connected to Goldberg’s book, from the first chapter I glanced at to the last chapter I read. I am not just saying that, that’s what actually happened. I glanced at the title of the chapter and BAM! I felt an instant connection as if I already knew what she was going to say. It was truly amazing. This book gave me a lot for my writing life, not only giving me a greater understanding on the elements of writing but also helping my confidence.
