Right.
Happy Super Tuesday! No--Happy Chesapeake Tuesday! Did you vote today?
I did. I woke up before the crack of dawn (though it pretty much looks the same), voted and went to an early morning class just so I can spend most of the day in meetings and drink an enormous amount of coffee to make it through a 7-10 class. And vote. (That was the real point wasn't it). It's crazy for college students to get out and vote. Despite that it's our civic duty, they (the government of all conspiracy theories) don't make it easy for all of us. I mean, college students have to have some of the most complex residencies in the country, unless they are going to a university in state. Out of the three kids within my own family, I'm the only who's permanent resident and college is in the same state; so, I'm just gonna assume that a large number of students travel out of state for their higher education. I am thankful for the leap in technology (from lever and paper voting, if any of you ever did that, to the beautiful touch screens of today), but really voting technology needs to find a worm hole and travel light years into the future so that any American citizen (or whatever it takes to vote in this country) can do it from wherever they are in the U.S. I know this complicates state level voting, but I'm sure the intelligent people in control of voting (is anyone in control, btw?) can figure out a way around the kinks. It's not that I would promote laziness (did I just say that?), but voting should be made as easy as possible. Besides I'm sure it wouldn't just help college students but others who may reside in one state but do a large part of their living in another (or several others), like truckers, and athletes, and traveling singing groups, and socialites, and diplomats, and etc. This would never be a problem on my island of revolution, of course. Because no one votes and I'm always in charge.
All in all, that's not what I wanted to talk about. . .
I'm in a special topics class mysteriously entitled "Bookish Beasts". In actuality the full title is "Engl 497: Special Topics in Creative Writing: Collage, Collaboration, and Other Bookish Beasts". The class covers all forms of and matters concerning what is commonly called altered books. Taken at the page level this includes collage poetry, erasure poetry, collaborative poetry, etc. Considering I haven't taken a poetry class since Intro to Creative Writing (was that sophomore year?) and this is a combined undergrad and graduate course, most of the discourse concerning the experimental (can it really be called experimental since it's been going on since Pound and Eliot?) art-form/poetry is pretty much above my head. But I do understand the most basic question: How is it considered art or created or original craft, when you are taking from material previously published (and created) by another artist? I could erase some words in a book and call it a poem. Would that make me an artist or, even more prestigiously, a writer?
I, in fact, had the very same question the first night of class. I, in all my infinite wisdom, thought we would adress these questions on the first night. We didn't. Or maybe we did and I didn't understand (or don't remember). But for this week's assignment, we were given a piece that responded to these concerns. And, at least to my satisfaction, quelled fears of unoriginality or theft or becoming prentiously mysterious about meanings and calling everything art or meaningful poetry. Though I guess you can call it whatever you want, but that doesn't make it good. So, to add my response to the the articles response I collaged a thing. It's actually really interesting because the poem part, sandwiched in the middle between to two quotes, I wrote while I was taking that Intro to Creative Writing class (on my way back to my room after feeling particularly depressed about my creativity and overall bad poetry). When I read the article, my mind immediately came back to this piece. Anyway here's the new thing:
"We all speak words already spoken and write words already written."
Already
What I want to say
is already written.
So, I steal
their words
to make my own,
create a home
for my thoughts
they stole
already.
"I will speak with his mouth as before I lived he spoke with mine."
It may evolve into a greater (or lesser, though that's not really evolving is it?) being in the future. But that is essentially collage, both theoretically and in practice.
That's all for today. I think I need more coffee.
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