'That time was like never and like always'

What an interesting semester it's been... Wouldn't trade a moment of it for anything.

Roma

'We are in a painted room, rising from a new world. Here, there are no mirrors, only eyes. Only a trunkful of vinyl & the clicking of hearts in the insides of ears. In the course of the night the world has already changed remarkably & yet you & I have remained almost exactly the same which is sad but also very beautiful. You open your mouth & taste the edges of the day that is yet to come, so warm & so bare. This is the space we have come to inhabit or the space love inhabits or the space the idea of love inhabits. All around us, words settle like flecks of dark chocolate. I say, it's this part I enjoy most, the morning arguments about nothing at all. Is it only the conversation you like? Well no, but I like it best. Like the fizz that spills over a tall glass of root beer. You laugh. So stick out your tongue. Morning peeks through, & then floods. One cannot help but feel walled in, familiar as the shadows that lie on the floor may be, or however lovely the comfort offered by hollowed bed cocoons may be, because after all a room is a room is a room & a room must have walls. You are usually a person filled with light, very much of zeal but today you have gone to seed. Lie down and talk to me, you plead but already your eyes are like dark caves & once again you are alone in sleep. So I leave. Outside, the city throbs and I try very hard to be in the same vein, weaving through oceans of people & its smells; buildings sweating with toil & the crisp metallic tang of pavement stones. I ache for something else altogether. Nature, maybe. Anywhere away from here. In this crowd, I can't help thinking: If I cried out now, would anyone stop? Would anyone hear me? Perhaps I should have stayed with you. You, who are so young, not quite ripe, not a boy but certainly not a man yet. Now we will be children together, that is what you said when we met, when I was still not yet sewn into the fabric of this landscape. The tender flesh of the inside of a tomato, a song made out of milk & honey, racing profiles & patterns across a darkened room, intoxicated by liquor & the promises of a night forgotten before it can be created. Skin & a lock of hair... could you carry me off to an unfamiliar room? I wonder if I would ever again have the opportunity to fall in love with a stranger. Universes & fragments... Suddenly I want you here with me very, very badly. Mi amado, de alguna manera nuestras formas encajan...

Even when I walk the streets alone, I wear your love like a soft scarf.

The darkening sky will soon sweep the light away. Tonight we will go out & take in, inhale this territory still so foreign to me. Perhaps you will take me dancing after, or for a music show in a clandestine loft only we & a few know of, where the air is stale but the sound is fresh. When the bass kicks in, perhaps the crowd might surge with the exhilaration that lasts only for a span of a song. Perhaps, when we fall back onto the sheets together & ride the soft velvet waves back into dream, the city will feel more like home.'

Writing the City

'Prose is all well & good, but it seems to me that poetry is full of music...'

Julia Bell

Last week, our creative writing fiction class attended a short seminar entitled 'Writing the City' by Julia Bell & Jean McNeil from the British Council & that was a nice change from the lessons that we've been having. Creative writing classes have always been a beacon for me in the past two years of college, with the exposure to interesting literature & the rediscovering of an innate hunger to write, but somehow this semester's fiction course was a little... drab. Perhaps it was the way classes were conducted; three hours of sitting in a circle & workshopping other people's work, which sometimes tended to go in circles without answering any quintessential questions (What does it mean when one says that a novel has a voice? When does one draw the line between fiction & autobiography?). Talking about writing, to me, is always necessary but often dull. Perhaps it also had to do with the kind of fiction my coursemates & I were producing, a lot of it being self-absorbed & overly-personal biography, only with disguised characters & changed names. Most of all though, it was largely because fiction doesn't come naturally to me at all, like how poetry or songs (sometimes) do, & these thirteen weeks were spent feeling largely like a fish out of water. Last week's class however, felt a bit like a breakthrough.

It was more of a reading of their work & discussion than a direct teaching seminar. The pieces they read, both excerpts of work-in-progress-novels & poems, were impressive & on occasion, brilliant. Jean, a travel writer whose work encompasses both Antarctica & Africa, talked about how good writers never let their life experiences & people & current landscapes directly translate into their writing, but how they used these tools to provide a template, a vibrant background for the invented story they had to tell, & I could definitely see how that was the case in her stories. There's a certain richness & creativity & also a curious authenticity, when a writer infuses the surrounding culture & his/her own life into a story without allowing it to be a true reflection of their own lives.

Julia also addressed the issue of fiction vs. autobiography, where she talked about how writing fiction isn't equivalent to ranting on the author's part. Throwing up your emotions on a page is the least of any kinds of writing, which often happens to writers in their early stages. Adolescent angst & bitter romances & painful experiences are treasure troves because of the strong emotion it invokes in the writer & his/her readers, but truly magnificent writing pays attention to how all of it translates onto a page & transforms personal experiences into something powerful & sublime. That is why writing is above all an artform, where things like rhyme & form & style are utilized to craft stories to the best possible form.


It was a good hour. What a terribly awful rant that must have been to some of you, but it was an eye-opener for me... I enjoyed it tremendously! Anyway, I haven't been blogging nearly enough & I promise I will soon when the obligatory final exams are over & summer holidays kick in. Till then... au revoir!



P.S. You can read about Jean's work here, & read some of Julia's poetry & short stories here.

In paper & ink

Sometimes, stories are the only things that matter.