Literary
citizenship has proven to be a much more intellectually strenuous concept for
me than I anticipated taking a graduate level course in the subject. Coming in
to the class, I knew that participation in literary community was important to
me, and something that I will be doing in some form or another for my entire
life, but confronting what that really means has really challenged me to
evaluate how that is going to happen. In his book, The Courage to Create,
Rollo May talks for an entire chapter about the nature of creativity and
especially how psychoanalysts have often associated creativity with regressive
and neurotic patterns. He looks especially at how often people attribute
creativity to a compensatory model, insisting that artist create because they
are in conflict with the world they inhabit in some for that must be made up
for. He talks about how this position comes from looking at artist such as
Beethoven (who became deaf), Van Gogh (who became psychotic), Poe (who was an
alcoholic) and Virginia Woolf (who suffered from serious depression). Rollo May challenges this assumption by
suggestion that instead of a lack, “Creativity and originality are [instead]
associated with persons who do not fit into their culture.” (32) This is
changes the focus on understanding creativity away from perceiving it as a
lack, because it centers the discussion on difference. Having acclimated
ourselves to existing in a world living always on the brink of collapse and
catastrophe, it is important to celebrate and listen closely to those capable
of looking at our culture (or really in the case of America, cultures) as
outsiders, because they may be the only ones that can help us see that the way
things are is not how they have to be.
So
how does one create a culture around the experiences of not fitting into the
culture around them? This is not a new question, nor one that hasn’t been
addressed hundreds of times before by every artistic movement that challenged
the existing artistic norms, but it is one that has to be asked again and
again, with every passing of the guard, because challenging existing norms
inevitably leads to the creation of new norms, with new limits, and new ways to
exclude others. When the cycle of creative social disruption gets tied to the
industry of capitalism, i.e. the major publishing world, this has often led to
the intrenchment of values that can easily be monetized, and the exclusion of
ideas that cannot. Wanting my fellow artists and creative writers to succeed in
their every possible dream, while simultaneously holding an immense critical
lens to the most likely source of economic support that will make those dreams
come true has been, and will likely continue to be, an irresolvable contention
for me, in this class, and in the larger world in which I live and create.
MakeArt, Make Money, by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens, really put this dilemma to me
in a first person context. I love the Muppets, and value their wide spread
existence and contribution that Jim Henson has made to the world. Sesame Street,
the Labyrinth, the Dark Crystal, Fozzy Bear, are all some of my most deeply
rooted creative influences, and any positive associations I am able to make
around the idea of being weird (one of my greatest personal struggles), are
maybe not exclusively, but heavily indebted to Mr. Henson. Reading about the
process of his development into the creative force that he became, was
difficult because I saw that he was capable of making choices that I am not.
Jim Henson valued creative expression over sound business practices, but he did
not find the act of making money to be inherently at odds with the purpose of
making art. He was able to find a balance between business and art that he
could live with because it enabled him to keep going. I salute him for this,
but at the same time, I see the ways in which he had to use people (his family,
his employees) to make that dream come true, and the privileges that he was
obviously extended as a white male “artistic genius” and I know that path is
not for me. What am I trying to create?
I
think a lot of the ideas that we have look at in class, and the author’s that
have written about them (platform, writing process, publishing) are crucial for
developing writers to consider and understand that the choices we make early in
our careers inform the direction of who we can be as author’s, even as those
paths will continue to develop and change and grow. Lori May’s, The WriteCrowd: Literary Citizenship and the Writing Life, really highlighted the
value that can come from thinking about these choices early. As an MFA writing
student, I think it is very easy to prioritize the act of writing over all
other endeavors and end up with a pile of work that is meaningful for myself,
but not situated in the world around me that I want to be writing for. She goes to great lengths to help her readers
see that writing is only one way that writers contribute to the world around
them and considering the impact that they want to have complete literary
citizens requires finding ways to contribute to that world beyond their pen or
computer screen. Again I found a book full of useful information and ideas to
consider, but was again stuck myself upon the hinge of conflict between the
establishment of artistic value and capitalist economic value.
Apprentice culture
is back in force in the creative world and a lot of the ideas of Literary
Citizenship can reinforce the model of making aspiring creators do all the leg
work so that the “real artists” can sit around and focus on their craft, in the
hopes that one day, they will have demonstrated enough obedience to the
existing power structure to have earned their place as the recognized elite.
This feels very problematic to me and is why, as I consider the possibility
that I want to teach others how to make creative writing be an essential part
of their own lives, I want to be certain to stress the necessity of
understanding your own wants as you enter into the literary community of your
choosing, so that you participate as an eager equal as opposed to a obligated
aspirant that is being groomed to perpetuate a cycle that made them miserable.
Now before I come across as some kind of commie firebrand that wants all
artists getting their meals out of dumpsters and dedicating their every act of
creation the destruction of publishing houses, academic writing programs and
America, let me say that I do not think that the Lori May, or any of the other
author’s we encountered in class have transcended to some position of cultural
elitism that gets to dictate the terms and conditions of what can and cannot
constitute the writing life of the rest of us. Writers who are making enough
money to do nothing but write the material that most inspires them are the
exception that proves the rule that no one becomes a writer to get rich. I
think for most writers, it is essential to figure out the what is the right
balance between themselves as creators and the potential for their creations
within the publishing industry. If I did not believe this I do not think I
could possibly teach creative writing in a capitalist country, and yet even if
I do believe that it is essential to help other writers think about how they
want to choose to balance this dilemma: Creativity vs. Capitalism, What if I
personally want to over throw it entirely?
And this is the root
of my dilemma. How closely do I have to work with an industry I believe to be
fundamentally exploitative of its labor base to legitimately have claim to call
myself a writer and participate in a broader literary community that I find
problematic in many ways? If the spark I feel connecting with other people over
their words and mine making something different out of the world that currently
exists is something that I feel strongly enough about to marry myself to a
substantial economic debt, is it reasonable to believe that I can find a way to
survive while paying off that debt? Or am I setting myself up to once again
have to flee the community that I am working to build up on someone else’s dime
once it comes time for the debtors to collect? Although neither option inherently
promises the riches of success or tragedy of complete failure, I guess the only
way to find out is to embrace the adventure of discovering my literary path
without ignoring or undervaluing the contributions of the literary community
that has gotten me this far, and perhaps by doing my best to support them in
return, we can collectively create a world that can support us all.
