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[CCBC-Net] CCBC-Net Digest, Vol 33, Issue 4
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From: Randall.W.Wright at comcast.net <Randall.W.Wright>
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:15:04 +0000
Perhaps the professor was right. And maybe Miller was playing a joke. Or maybe the story IS apocryphal. But as an author, when I write a scene in a novel, filler or not, it is born somewhere in my imagination and experience. I find "hidden" meanings all the time in my own work, so why shouldn't the reader. Creativity doesn't just come from the concsious/conscious/cousious (where's my spell check when I need it--told you, I'm a creative thinker not a speller--ah, here it is: conscious). It also comes from that place we authors often claim for our own, even though if our readers didn't have that same place, they wouldn't connect with the work (IMHO). The author's skill comes in committing that creativity to paper.
The reader brings her/his experience to the written word, else how could an author make a reader smell/taste/touch the things written about, yet it happens all the time. The same applies to emotional import in the work. This is not news to any of you, I'm sure. I'm just a late bloomer in figuring these things out, after a whole life of just letting the concepts work without understanding why.
I must admit, however, that unless I get some sort of meaning from a first reading, I'm loath to give a poem a second try to get to the depths of meaning that might be there. This from the author of "The Geezer in Our Freezer" Bloomsbury Fall 2009. A love poem.
Randall Wright
-------------- Original message -------------- From: James Elliott <libraryjim at embarqmail.com>
> There was an old story (possibly apocryphal) about a class that was critiquing
> an Arthur Miller (I think!) Play. For the assignment, the professor asked the
> class to analyze a certain scene, and explain the hidden
> meanings/messages/social commentary Miller put into the passage.
>
> One of the students decided to try an unorthodox approach to the assignment, and
> wrote to Arthur Miller asking him about the passage. Miller responded (I
> paraphrase):
>
> "I merely used that scene for filler, to transition from one view to another.
> There was no underlying message or hidden meaning contained therein."
>
> So the student included that in the paper, footnoted, and attached a copy of the
> letter as an appendix. But when the student got the paper back, graded, he'd
> made an "F" because that couldn't possibly be right since, after all, the
> professor saw all those messages in the very relevant key passage of the play!
>
> So, I hear ya!
>
> Jim Elliott
> North Florida, USA
>
> "Libraries allow children to ask questions about the world and find the answers.
> And the wonderful thing is that once a child learns to use a library, the doors
> to learning are always open ... every child in America should have access to a
> well-stocked school or community library"
> --Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Kristy Dempsey
> To: WriterBabe
> Cc: CCBC Net
> Sent: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 14:10:19 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] CCBC-Net Digest, Vol 33, Issue 4
>
>
> But I also think that in the classroom, it's easy to put meaning into
> authors' mouths that might not have been intended, or at the very least
> to assume it was purposeful when it might have just been coincidental
> during the writing process. I think this potentially complicates the
> creation of their own poetry, too, for children, if they get the
> impression that all poetry must be full of layers of meaning and devices
> they don't yet understand, or it's not "good" poetry.
>
> Kristy Dempsey
> Belo Horizonte, Brazil
>
> _______________________________________________
> CCBC-Net mailing list
> CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
> Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
> http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
Received on Fri 04 Apr 2008 02:15:04 PM CDT
Date: Fri, 04 Apr 2008 19:15:04 +0000
Perhaps the professor was right. And maybe Miller was playing a joke. Or maybe the story IS apocryphal. But as an author, when I write a scene in a novel, filler or not, it is born somewhere in my imagination and experience. I find "hidden" meanings all the time in my own work, so why shouldn't the reader. Creativity doesn't just come from the concsious/conscious/cousious (where's my spell check when I need it--told you, I'm a creative thinker not a speller--ah, here it is: conscious). It also comes from that place we authors often claim for our own, even though if our readers didn't have that same place, they wouldn't connect with the work (IMHO). The author's skill comes in committing that creativity to paper.
The reader brings her/his experience to the written word, else how could an author make a reader smell/taste/touch the things written about, yet it happens all the time. The same applies to emotional import in the work. This is not news to any of you, I'm sure. I'm just a late bloomer in figuring these things out, after a whole life of just letting the concepts work without understanding why.
I must admit, however, that unless I get some sort of meaning from a first reading, I'm loath to give a poem a second try to get to the depths of meaning that might be there. This from the author of "The Geezer in Our Freezer" Bloomsbury Fall 2009. A love poem.
Randall Wright
-------------- Original message -------------- From: James Elliott <libraryjim at embarqmail.com>
> There was an old story (possibly apocryphal) about a class that was critiquing
> an Arthur Miller (I think!) Play. For the assignment, the professor asked the
> class to analyze a certain scene, and explain the hidden
> meanings/messages/social commentary Miller put into the passage.
>
> One of the students decided to try an unorthodox approach to the assignment, and
> wrote to Arthur Miller asking him about the passage. Miller responded (I
> paraphrase):
>
> "I merely used that scene for filler, to transition from one view to another.
> There was no underlying message or hidden meaning contained therein."
>
> So the student included that in the paper, footnoted, and attached a copy of the
> letter as an appendix. But when the student got the paper back, graded, he'd
> made an "F" because that couldn't possibly be right since, after all, the
> professor saw all those messages in the very relevant key passage of the play!
>
> So, I hear ya!
>
> Jim Elliott
> North Florida, USA
>
> "Libraries allow children to ask questions about the world and find the answers.
> And the wonderful thing is that once a child learns to use a library, the doors
> to learning are always open ... every child in America should have access to a
> well-stocked school or community library"
> --Laura Bush, First Lady of the United States
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Kristy Dempsey
> To: WriterBabe
> Cc: CCBC Net
> Sent: Fri, 4 Apr 2008 14:10:19 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: Re: [CCBC-Net] CCBC-Net Digest, Vol 33, Issue 4
>
>
> But I also think that in the classroom, it's easy to put meaning into
> authors' mouths that might not have been intended, or at the very least
> to assume it was purposeful when it might have just been coincidental
> during the writing process. I think this potentially complicates the
> creation of their own poetry, too, for children, if they get the
> impression that all poetry must be full of layers of meaning and devices
> they don't yet understand, or it's not "good" poetry.
>
> Kristy Dempsey
> Belo Horizonte, Brazil
>
> _______________________________________________
> CCBC-Net mailing list
> CCBC-Net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
> Visit this link to read archives or to unsubscribe...
> http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/mailman/listinfo/ccbc-net
Received on Fri 04 Apr 2008 02:15:04 PM CDT
