You must realize that no one teaches me these things. That I know of, I've never actually met anyone dabbling seriously in writing; finding a reader is tough enough, a writer nigh impossible in the circles I move around. Whatever improvements in my pieces that are apparent through the years are the product of some form of common sense, but it's one that I've had to work hard for. Even now, I'll admit that there are times when I imagine that I've outgrown most of the problems that plagued my early writing. I'll write a particularly satisfying piece and pat myself on the back for the accomplishment. The darn problem is, it isn't always that easy. Heck, a good 50% of my drafts are either deleted or become posts I purposely avoid when perusing my archives. Much as I'd like to think otherwise, it isn't the case that with time my first drafts are somehow magically better. Perhaps all that has changed is my understanding of what makes something good; where once I would have published straight away, citing the trueness of emotion as reason enough, now at least I spare you, dear reader ;-)

"Trueness of emotion", now I think I can make that claim about what I write. I certainly don't find myself sitting at the desk and manufacturing things to write about. But it takes time to realize that there has to be something more than just an emotion, however valid. In Tobias Wolff's Old School, there is a beautiful little section where Frost himself (!) defends his school of aesthetics against claims of it being insufficient to capture the complex uncertainties of modern life, circa the early '60s. In particular, he rallies against the notion that form, most prominently rhyme, is somehow naive in its belief that everything has a neat resolution: words join together, the poem has finality, and as a result the world inside bears no resemblance to the real one. "Form might be all we have", he says, and it made me think. After all, it really is tempting to argue the counterpoint to Frost, namely that structure implies a certain...sense underlying things. Heck, isn't this part of my defense of Berryman a few posts ago? Regardless of how true that statement is, throwing our hands up at the brutality of the world and giving in to anarchy (blank verse ;-)), well, as he says, perhaps that is mere laziness!

Why this topic is particularly interesting to me is the case of music. I've often thought that classical is simply incapable of addressing the emotions that popular music does so well. When pressed for details, I usually say something about the uncertainty of life that's captured in, say, a Tom Waits song. It's to be expected - were our nature of expression the same as two centuries ago, it would be cause for concern - but are these changes or, if you will, improvements? I used to learn towards the latter, insofar as I thought that the classical form was simply antiquated after a point. Yet, perhaps it is me who is antiquated! It might be that the emotions I champion are simply unable to stand by themselves. Without form, perhaps the emotions and feelings crumble into dust when faced with the ravages of time. I'm willing to admit that it could all be a matter of time before I realize such things. Not that I've completely switched sides, mind you, but I'm now wary of having a firm stance on this issue.

I don't know if there have been many books that have changed my life. But in several instances, like this one, literature has made me pause and think deeper about things I took for granted. Long may it last.