Learning to approach writing as an imperfect process

Date published: 7/17/2008

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I mentioned my introduction to the poetry of one Charles Bukowski, and how awesome I found his work--and his approach--to be.

Since that first encounter, I've been digging more and more into the guy, and I must say his creative process and attitude toward his work have helped me out a bunch with my own writer's block problems.

I've always been a staunch perfectionist, and if I don't think any of my writing or music or whatever is A++ quality, it must be destroyed and deleted. I can't stand listening to the music I made when I was 17, or even reading my early columns for it! from back in high school.

The awful, self-defeating side of perfectionism comes from concluding that it is easier not to make anything at all and keep the dreams of perfection in your head than plunge into warty, imperfect reality. Bukowski's method for writing poetry has been great for getting over this. What is his method, you ask?

After--in Bukowski's case--drinking a ton of beer, you sit down and write in the simplest, most direct language possible, saying whatever's on your mind with laser-beam straight-to-the-pointedness, on and on and on. This may not seem like anything revolutionary--and, in a sense, it's not. But boy, has it opened up a new world for me.

The cool thing about poetry is that line breaks allow you to look over what's being written and see it with more space around it and more cues to feel the language.

For instance, were I to fit the line "I need to take my dog for a walk after dinner" into this paragraph, it would just seem like another sentence.

But add some breaks, and look at this:

I need to take

my dog

for a walk

after dinner.

Each word is so much more scrumptious and morsel-ified. When you get to taste every word slowly, putting down the quickest path to your feelings, sweeping out all the mess and silencing internal criticism, it's such a good feeling.

It's a pity it's so hard to come by. Problem being, as Bukowski says in "Between Race":

they thought that writing had

something to do with

the politics of the

thing. they were simply not

crazy enough

in the head

to sit down to a

typer

and let the words bang

out.

Joe Holmes is a student at the University of Mary Washington. Reach him at jholmes3@umw.edu.

Date published: 7/17/2008