The point is to better a self --

b"h

Oct 2013

The point is to better a self --

Or at least not to make it worse --

What other reason to write? just

To swim in a dream of ocean?

The point is to be of some help --

Or at least to try not to hurt -- 

How else is the other to trust

You with his fragile emotion? 

Firestone Feinberg

Reviews

[bobc]

D...I don't think there is a noble purpose motivating us to write as you seem to suggest with this one...as in '...better a self...'and '...be of some help...' and '...try not to hurt...'.

Sometimes, there is no point at all to our poems...it's only language play...and actually doesn't need a purpose at all. Nor is it ever fragile or in need of trust, in my opinion.

But I guess we'll just disagree about this. Good to hear from you...bobc

[Firestone Feinberg]

Firestone Feinberg
It's something I used to teach the high school kids about composition in general. the help given by a composition need not be obvious or simplistic. more the point to raise the audience rather than sink them into a deeper grave than when they walked into the theater. it's an ideal i rarely apply to my own compositions, but it is something i believe in. i think it applies much more to poems heard when read aloud as opposed to those we just silently read... --D

Posted 0 Seconds Ago

[bobc]

Sometimes, I am reminded of how I felt in English class in High School...just didn't understand what I was being told most of the time.

I think you're saying that good writing somehow enlivens or raises the reader/listener up somehow. If that is in the sense of 'I-never-looked-at-this-in-that-way-before', we're, again, in agreement. If that's not what you meant, I'm lost. (I'm smiling right now because lost is not unfamiliar territory for me.)

[Firestone Feinberg]

what i mean is that a composer has some sort of even tacit obligation to make the 'victim' somewhat a better person than he was before you entertained him. in other and simpler words: a sad man enters the theater and after seeing the play he feels even a little better -- not worse.

[Firestone Feinberg]

plus... if you make him worse it's likely he'll not come back to the theater... and you lose too...

[Firestone Feinberg]

plus... sometimes even an utterly tragiv offering can lift an audience... they might feel better off than the characters in a play... as a composer, it is a difficult call to make.