I've found art is powerful for me because it is something that helps me snap out of thought spirals or distractions. Art has held my attention deeply and made me stay in the present moment. Then it has made me reflect and has taken my thoughts to places of wonder. It has sparked curiosity and changed the tone of my day in a direction that made me understand myself and / or understand my world better.
I haven't been able to go beyond this explanation for why art in various forms has been so important to me, though it has made me put in the effort to spend time every day more meaningfully. On Fri, Aug 4, 2023 at 6:50 PM Radhika, Y. via Silklist < silklist@lists.digeratus.in> wrote: > My response is about poetry, the art form that I most enjoy and sometimes > attempt to practice. > I attended a poetry workshop online by Doug Kearney last year. Luckily > it's on Coursera so I stayed enrolled long after I had completed it. > There was so much I learned about poetry and workshops from it. > > The obvious stuff: > -he showed how some rules work through the poems he curated for us (not > his own). > -he gave us little challenges along the way to use some of the rules. > > -we followed the rules. > -we thought we liked all the poems because of the novelty of the > techniques shown to us. > -our poems were very different from each other's and from the example poem. > -peer editing was the rule (this was hard but valuable in showing how many > different people can write a few good lines in an otherwise unremarkable > poem.) > > The not-so-obvious stuff: > - I still don't scan any poem looking for the techniques used. I read > poetry for pleasure and insights; to find restfulness, shelter, breath, and > nourishment. > Sometimes, I realize that a technique has been used. I prefer to like it > first and then analyze. > > -After the novelty wears off, there are going to be only some poems that > will linger. If I understood myself more I'd be able to predict what I > like. But I don't. > > Also, as Cory points out, these rules are a response to the low-hanging > fruit. But, I'm not sure what else poetry instructors or teachers can do. > Somehow, I still doubt that it can be taught, although it can be absorbed > by someone receptive... > > All this to say, I'm on the brink of another workshop with another poet. > What Doug Kearney's workshop revealed was how differently we write poetry > under constraints. In middle age, I find constraints useful, hahaha. > > Cheers. > Radhika > > > > > > On Sun, Jul 23, 2023 at 10:32 PM Udhay Shankar N via Silklist < > silklist@lists.digeratus.in> wrote: > >> >> This is from a post by Cory titled "The art of Daniel Danger". Go read it >> at the link, not least because of the images of said art. But this bit, I >> thought was hugely thought-provoking, and I wanted to hear what the good >> folks here (including Cory, if he wants to add anything) thought of it. >> >> Udhay >> >> >> https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/23/but-i-know-what-i-like/#daniel-danger >> >> <q> >> There's this behavioral economics study that completely changed the way i >> thought about art, teaching, and critique: it's a 1993 study called >> "Introspecting about Reasons can Reduce Post-Choice Satisfaction" by >> Timothy D Wilson, Douglas J Lisle, Jonathan Schooler, Sara Hodges, Kristen >> Klaaren and Suzanne LaFleur: >> >> >> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240281868_Introspecting_about_Reasons_can_Reduce_Post-Choice_Satisfaction >> >> The experimenters asked subjects to preference-rank some art posters; >> half the posters were cute cartoony posters, and the other half were fine >> art posters. One group of subjects assigned a simple numeric rank to the >> posters, and the other had to rank them and explain their ranking. Once >> they were done, they got to keep their posters. >> >> There was a stark difference in the two groups' preferences: the group >> that had to explain their choices picked the cartoony images, while the >> group that basically got to point at their favorite and say, "Ooh, I like >> that!" chose the fine art posters. >> >> Then, months later, the experimenters followed up and asked the subjects >> what they'd done with the poster they got to take home. The ones who'd had >> to explain their choices and had brought home cartoony images had thrown >> those posters away. The ones who didn't have to explain what they liked >> about their choice, who'd chosen fine art, had hung them up at home and >> kept them there. >> >> The implication is that it's hard to explain what makes art good, and the >> better art is, the harder it is to put your finger on what makes it so >> good. More: the obvious, easy-to-articulate virtues of art are the less >> important virtues. Art's virtues are easy to spot and hard to explain. >> >> The reason this stuck with me is that I learned to be a writer through >> writing workshops where we would go around in a circle and explain what we >> liked and didn't like about someone's story, and suggest ways to make it >> better. I started as a teenager in workshops organized by Judith Merril in >> Toronto, then through my high-school workshop (which Judy had actually >> founded a decade-plus earlier through a writer in the schools grant), and >> then at the Clarion workshop in 1992. I went on to teach many of these >> workshops: Clarion, Clarion West and Viable Paradise. >> >> So I've spent a lot of time trying to explain what was and wasn't good >> about other peoples' art (and my own!), and how to make it better. There's >> a kind of checklist to help with this: when a story is falling short in >> some way, writers roll out these "rules" for what makes for good and bad >> prose. There are a bunch of these rulesets (think of Strunk & White's >> Elements of Style), including some genre-specific ones like the Turkey City >> Lexicon: >> >> >> https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/18/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/ >> >> A few years ago, I was teaching on the Writing Excuses cruise and a >> student said something like, "Hey, I know all these rules for writing good >> stories, but I keep reading these stories I really like and they break the >> rules. When can I break the rules?" >> >> There's a stock answer a writing teacher is supposed to give here: "Well, >> first you have to master the rules, then you can break them. You can't >> improvise a jazz solo without first learning your scales." >> >> But in that moment, I thought back to the study with the posters and I >> had a revelation. These weren't "rules" at all – they were just things that >> are hard and therefore easy to screw up. No one really knows why a story >> isn't working, but they absolutely know when it doesn't, and so, like the >> experimental subject called upon to explain their preferences, they reach >> for simple answers: "there's too much exposition," or "you don't foreshadow >> the ending enough." >> >> There are lots of amazing stories that are full of exposition (readers of >> mine will not be shocked to learn I hold this view). There are lots of >> twist endings that are incredible – and not despite coming out of left >> field, but because of it. >> >> The thing is, if you can't say what's wrong, but you know something is >> wrong, it's perfectly reasonable to say, "Well, why don't you try to >> replace or polish the things that are hardest to do right. Whatever it is >> that isn't working here, chances are it's the thing that's hardest to make >> work": >> >> https://locusmag.com/2020/05/cory-doctorow-rules-for-writers/ >> >> But if I could change one thing about how we talk about writing and its >> "rules," it would be to draw this distinction, characterizing certain >> literary feats as easier to screw up than others, having the humility to >> admit that we just don't know what's wrong with a story, and then helping >> the writer create probabilistically ranked lists of the things they could >> tinker with to try and improve their execution. >> </q> >> >> -- >> >> ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com)) >> >> -- >> Silklist mailing list >> Silklist@lists.digeratus.in >> https://mailman.panix.com/listinfo.cgi/silklist >> > > > -- > *Translator/Owner* > *AzulIndica Translations* > *North Vancouver BC, Canada* > > > > > > -- > Silklist mailing list > Silklist@lists.digeratus.in > https://mailman.panix.com/listinfo.cgi/silklist >
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