Poetry and the art of communicating feelings

Poetry is meant to communicate and transfer feelings, opinions and desires.
So why can't I write poetry?

I've tried, doubt me not, kind reader. Indeed, I have tried to write poetry since I fell in love with literature.

The best poem I ever could write was one summer, in Italy. I was 15 or so and had just begun to explore Italy, its white beaches, suntanned and cheerful inhabitants, and the waves.

So I wrote a long poem about the waves. The main character was called Willy, and he overrode the other waves to such an extent that he accidentally killed them.

Call me pessimistic or negative.... perhaps I overindulged in Schopenhauer as a kid. In the end, it doesn't matter. I wrote that I wrote, and it was poetry. Since then, prose has become my only source of outlet.

Why? Can poetry only come as an overflowering sense of emotions? Was I never born a poet?

This brings to mind one of my favourite novels, Milan Kundera`s "Life is Elsewhere",illustrating the life of the young poet. Disenchanted by his loving mother and intoxicated by the female sex, this poet eschews all forms of love, thinking he has espoused a greater being- called poetry. He begins to think of himself as an artist, an erudite, someone who knows more than his contemporaries.

At least I cannot claim this false flattery for myself. The poem about the waves died a lonely death. In any case, my memories have not died. Perhaps that is all that counts.

Sin, faith and love

Sin has always been a dangerous word. It brings to mind depravity, wickedness and mischief.

Faith, also, has become dangerous- if I say (at least in Quebec) that I am religious and that I have faith, people raise their eyebrows.

Love- the most mysterious, beautiful and paradoxically misunderstood sentiment- is used by people on a daily basis.

Sin, faith and love. We use these words commonly, and yet seem to either embrace or reject them. In the Middle Ages, sin was a thing to eschew at all occasions. Nowadays, living in an "age of sin", (yes St Catherine is lined with prostitutes, but which city is not?), we have become perhaps more open-minded and less idealistic. Our age is one of realism and openness. We are learning to embrace people who do not share our values or our thoughts. At the same time, we have confounded realism with physical nakedness. To be radical, open and liberal, one has to shock. Take Lady Gaga's meat costume. Or Rihanna's sexy performances. For sure, this kind of performance has not just sprung up in the twenty-first century.

Nevertheless, something has to be said for the strangely new and "shocking" artistic ventures of our age.

In a way, sin, faith and love revolve around the human's desire to be cared for. It can be labelled as sin in a most perverted sense, as faith if diverted to God, and as love if given to another human being.

Sin, faith and love. Such paradoxal and yet, somehow, perhaps complimentary concepts?

A search for identity

It's been a known stereotype- and yet all sterotypes have some degree of truth in them- that twenty-somethings are in search of their identity. Who am I? What is my life about? Whom should I be with for the rest of my life?What is my purpose? These questions perplex and concern us.

Sometimes I wonder if we have such a thing as an identity. For some reason, I am waking up to my adulthood. I suddenly have my own values, my own ideas, opinions and am not shy to share them with others. And yet, how did this personality come about? I was brought up in a loving household, taught certain values and ideas. However, I also seem to possess certain personal values. How did this come about? Why do I love one author over another? Why do I prefer Asian food to Mexican? Why am I paradoxically outgoing and reserved? Can I actually ever really know who "I" am?

We can define ourselves via our hobbies, interests, dislikes and likes, etc. Yet this seems so limited. Simply because I like hiking and swimming does not make me an athlete. The fact that I love Brahms does not define me as a music lover. I chose to study English literature, yet I would not call myself a poet, and have only recently begun to think of myself as a potential author.

Perhaps, once we reach our thirties, we will "find ourselves". For some reason, I doubt it. In any case, I don't really mind searching for an identity. It's a complex and tiring project, agreed, but it definitively is rewarding when one finally understands just a piece of oneself. Let's face it- in some odd manner, it seems that one knows oneself the least.

That inner voice

As a writer, I've continually been torn between the need to listen to my "inner voice" (and hence develop my own voice) and the desire to imitate the great authors. After all, how can anyone resist Milan Kundera's cool approach, or Hemingway's sparse and direct tone, or even Flaubert's flowery and bewitching style?
I've been given conflicting advice. Some people believe that to imitate another writer is debasing and, even more, harmful to one's writing potential. Others encourage me to read as much as possible and to attempt to reflect as much of their style as I can.
Who is in the right? Perhaps no one. Every time I fall in love with a writer's style, I bite my lower lip and vow to achieve such beauty one day.
I've been reading authors who have depicted a fairly accurate picture of the writer's state of mind. Most of the time, being a writer is fun. One is always observing, delighted when a real life person gives food for thought fffor another character. On the other hand, a writer can easily be compared to a schizophrenic. That little voice inside our head never shuts up.
Do not fear, readers, I'm not going crazy. The fact remains that writers are on the prowl for material, and that their minds never really seem to rest. It can be exhausting.
I'm thinking of one of my favourite poets, Thomas Transtroemer, the Swedish poet who recently won the Nobel prize. During his tumultuous teenage years, he thought he was going crazy. He saw faces coming out of the wallpaper in his bedroom. When he turned to poetry, he was able to transfer his anxiety into words, and miraculously cured himself.
So perhaps words can free one of fears, and paradoxally may encase writers in their minds.
All I know is I have to continue writing. Hopefully one day, my true inner voice will emerge from the depths of my thoughts.

How I love thee, Nuit Blanche

A few weeks ago, I went to Nuit Blanche in Toronto.

I wasn't disappointed.

The best art show: fake trees that shoot fire when you touch them at a specific area (like the trunk, the branches, etc).
Why do I love Nuit Blanche so much? I honestly can't explain it. The city is alive at three, four, five in the morning. People wander about, yawning, on the cold streets, as people draw or paint with insomniac-like energy. Maybe I love feeling alive, walking around in the early hours of the morning, watching people give way to their artistic drives.

I know Toronto isn't like this every day, but I fell in love with Toronto that night. It made me think of Woody Allen's film "Midnight in Paris". We love to fall in love, to be enamoured with, a memory, an ideal, an image.

That night, I fell in love with Toronto, with art, with the beauty of youth. Yes, it's an ideal... and yet perhaps it's vital. If we couldn't believe in certain "illusions", how would we survive? Or, should I say, how would romantics like me survive? No idea.

Stereotypes

Stereotypes have always been dangerous. Subconsciously or otherwise, we all apply them at some occasion in our lives.

For example, I was groggily walking to the kitchen early one Tuesday morning when I heard the vacuum cleaner roaring downstairs. Ah, I thought, the cleaning lady's here. I should meet her for once.

Why did I assume it would be a woman? It was a man! Bald, tattooed and showcasing a beautiful baritone voice (he likes to sing random opera lyrics at top volume as he cleans the bathroom).

I admit, I felt a bit dissapointed with myself for assuming it would be a woman. For months, I had said "the cleaning lady" to my housemates whenever we discussed the cleaning. So much for thinking I never applied stereotypes.

But are stereotypes inherently evil? A definition of stereotypes would be useful. According to one definition, stereotypes are "generalizations, or assumptions, that people make about the characteristics of all members of a group, based on an image (often wrong) about what people in that group are like" (http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/problem/stereoty.htm). So in my mind, a person who cleans for a living is automatically a woman.

I've heard many stereotypes. Asians are hardworking, Americans are friendly and stupid, Canadians are annoyingly polite, Germans eat too much, Swedish people are suidical. Some stereotypes are funny, some not.

In any case, I'd like to think that some stereotypes are, if not good, then at least useful to social interaction. If we never had any preconceived notion of a social, ethnic or religious group, would we honestly interact with them better? Would we really be more open to their mentality, culture and history? It's an experiment I'd like to attempt.

Life changing decisions

Yes, we all know about them. Unfortunately.
Those "life changing" decisions, which are supposed to guide you to the best career you ever might have.
Work has defined our generation. Although we are, comparatively, not as bad as the workaholic Baby boomers, we certainly have been sucked up in the never ending vaccum called work. We build our routine around work, placing family and friends in second place. One of the best ice breakers in a conversation is not "what's your passion?" but "what do you do for a living?"
Okay, maybe "what is our passion" is a bit over the top for normal conversations. But the fact remains that work has become a defining feature, a way to present ourselves to society.
I don't just want to moan. Work has been known to be good for human sanity, an antidote to boredom. "It's just a job" can be to many "it's the way for me to feel important".
So what can we conclude about work and our jobs? Important, yet over-valued? Essentiel, but ruling over our social life?