Written Words
invent something
do it like a ghost
with deadly seriousness
recipes for pie crust
fill us with hope
we are the wind
no one really knows us
Poetry is as close to silence
as writing gets. What is the silence that poetry approaches?
In 1929, the British philosopher
C. I. Lewis (not to be confused with C. S. Lewis the critic and author of
theological works as well as books for children) coined the term quale (plural:
qualia) for the ineffable property of a perception. The redness of red.
The unique and indescribable scent of mock orange.
Creative writing also possesses
quale. It’s often referred to as voice. Each work of creative writing
has its own voice, which must be read to be experienced, for there are no
words to convey it adequately other than the words of the piece itself.
That mood, that feeling tone, that aura of psychic energy is the quale of
written art.
Poetry, usually devoid of characters,
plot and often even grammar, is almost pure verbal quale. Fiction writers
perfume their stories with it.
Of what deprived beauty are
the qualia of fiction invoked? Sigmund Freud informs us in Civilization
and Its Discontents that “Man has become a kind of prosthetic god.”
The prosthesis to which the father of all shrinks refers, of course, is
our technological prowess. Chief - and central - among the “auxiliary
organs” that Freud describes as “truly magnificent” but
which “have not grown on [us] and ... still give [us] much trouble
at times” is writing. With this artificial limb, we establish laws
with the authority of Yahweh (“It is written.”), we create reality
(through the descriptive process of the scientific method), and we embody
mystery (the qualia of creative writing). |