Settling in, 22 September

IMPUDENCE AND INSOLENCE.

I posted an opinion poem this week, an OPINION, as defined by the dictionary, as a view or judgement on a matter / something that cannot be decided objectively or proved conclusively one way or the other!. My poem was entitled Give me Delicious poetry; why? Because I am a voice over artist and love the way words can feel when I say them; and because the book I was reading at the time did not contain such poetry. POETRY, according to the dictionary again, is the art of writing poetry (like painting, you have oils, water colours, portraits, landscapes, surrealism and the like, lots of methods and styles all having their place), a quality of beauty, grace, and great feeling.

Now I posted the poem, after it was suggested that it be used as an unseen poem in an exam set up by someone other than myself, and I get a comment from some upstart who deems himself the person to tell me that my opinion is wrong, quote, "actually". ACTUALLY means existing in fact or reality. Now, for a start, nowhere in the definition of OPINION or POETRY is there mention of "FACT". So I humour the poor, misinformed, clearly not too highly educated boy with a ‘rhyming’ reply, to show that I do also use rhyme, but it’s often more a traditionalist approach than one I advise the learners I teach to use in their performances, because they get low marks for those performances. This is generally because they are teenagers and use the rhyme as a crutch to remember the words, thus they emphasize only the rhyming word and have no understanding of run-on lines or punctuated pausing; they use the rhythm to almost ‘rap’ and the metre they destroy completely! It’s like asking a beginner to play Mozart; stupid!

But, alas, my intelligent, quirky, dripping with dramatic irony response went over his head and was absorbed immediately, speedily and impudently by the upstart so that he replied to my polite, humourous comment with a tirade and rant about how incorrect my opinion is. WHERE, IN ANY DEFINITION, CAN AN OPINION BE WRONG? He also proceeded to tell me that he did creative writing in his English literature studies and that he has performed at some festivals; so, apparently, this now qualifies him to be the judge, the lawyer, the jury and the be all and end all of decision on the matter of my opinion and of performing poetry! And it didn’t stop there, oh no, on top of that he went on to write two poems about ‘slam poetry’ being x$y$z by using incredibly foul language. The ridiculous part? My poem is not ‘slam’ poetry at all, it’s ‘sensual’ poetry, no exclamation marks, ellipses, meant to be read slowly, to literally be read aloud as the poem is written as per the punctuation. But no, the upstart had such a good education in his creative writing course that they didn't teach him the definition of OPINION, or POETRY, or ACTUALLY, or how to read or use punctuation!

Interestingly, in his book A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving uses Owen’s character to Voice to his friend, [page 331, Corgi Books] that: "MAYBE YOU SHOULD BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR. AT LEAST, YOU GET TO READ STUFF THAT’S WRITTEN BY PEOPLE WHO CAN WRITE! YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO BE AN ENGLISH MAJOR, YOU DON’T NEED ANY SPECIAL TALENT, YOU JUST HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT SOMEONE WANTS YOU TO SEE – TO WHAT MAKES SOMEONE THE ANGRIEST, OR THE MOST EXCITED IN SOME OTHER WAY. IT’S SO EASY; I THINK THAT’S WHY THERE ARE SO MANY ENGLISH MAJORS." This is a direct quote, not my opinion, I studied English too! But it is a VERY INTERESTING OPINION! Please note, if you are not familiar with the book, Owen always ‘speaks’ in capitals, because he has a squeaky voice.

Back to my rant… I did not bother to respond to him with my CV, what would be the point? On ONE PIECE OF POETRY he decided that I’m ignorant, arrogant and uninformed, yes, he typed that. How close-minded can a human being be? I would never dare to assume, presume and / jump to conclusions on another person’s opinion piece! I’d ask questions and discuss, but not insult, injure, harm or unjustly and / or unhelpfully criticize anyone. So why do others think it's ok?

The point of this rant is this: I am a teacher, I work all day with teenagers with low self-esteem, little confidence in themselves and huge blocks to their creative juices created by peers, family and people in their lives. For example, they started in preprimary telling everyone they could be the greatest painter in the world, but by grade 10 they are too embarrassed to even try and draw anything. What if it was one of them, exploring their creativity, exploring their ideas and learning and growing by putting their work online, and some moron with ‘a qualification’ shot them down right at the most precious stage of their learning and growing? What if that child was supposed to be an awesome writer / poet / philosopher / critic, and some insolent individual shot, nay, 'slammed' them down? That set back, that presumptuous impudence, would completely put a block on the journey of that person’s soul, that person’s journey and process of self discovery and creativity! Nothing in life is permanent, there are trends, changes, movements in everything, and there is no one right answer! No book has fallen from the sky telling anyone that they are ‘right’. We’ve even gone from burning people at the stake to giving them ‘rights’ and ‘protection’, that’s how much we change! Nor does any human being have any ‘right’ whatsoever to ridicule, reduce, destroy or purely negatively impose their beliefs on another person; for me that is ‘wrong’, absolutely, blatantly wrong, in my opinion. No-one has to agree or disagree with my opinion, but I’m very happy to, and thoroughly enjoy discussing, with mature adults, what the different options are for my opinion, as that too changes, and has changed many times, over time as I gather more information and more knowledge.

What my knowledge tells me is that if someone can get angry over a few words of poetry, then there are other issues in their lives. What experience has told me, is that if there is bitterness inside a human being, then it comes out in nasty, nasty ways and destroys relationships, destroys lives. What my studying has shown me, with regards to ‘assumptions’, to quote a textbook: "Automatic thoughts and underlying assumptions that are distorted and inaccurate have a serious negative effect on our every day emotions and behaviour…negative cognitions then become self-fulfilling prophecies" p. 582, Louw, 1997. (Therapy is suggested in the textbook for this situation). Then there is also the theory, that I have seen materialize in practice, that the ‘problems’ you have with yourself are the first ‘problems’ you notice in others.

What gives one human the thoughts, gumption and audacity to believe that they have the authority / right to judge another human being who they know nothing about? What part of society has made it acceptable for a human to think himself superior to another? Is there no such thing as conscience anymore? What about tolerance? Freedom of expression? This leads me on to my final point that I discussed in another entry, the danger of mixing cultures and people on the internet. That bloggers and uninformed, insecure, poorly educated, close-minded individuals have the ways and means to say whatever they like to whomever they like is incredibly dangerous. Often the immature individuals have no idea the damage they are doing or that they are revealing that they have unpleasant, distasteful and disrespectful ways of presenting themselves. They are ‘throwing’ before thinking, and that’s when things break. If you are an individual who believes in karma, or in sowing what you reap, then I’m sure you can sense the problems that can potentially erupt, causing great destruction. This worries me immensely… immensely… :(

I ask this: that if you are expressing your beliefs at any point, do so in love and respect, it may just make this world a slightly better place to be in.