{"id":772,"date":"2016-03-20T18:17:11","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T22:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sherryquanlee.com\/?p=772"},"modified":"2016-03-20T18:17:11","modified_gmt":"2016-03-20T22:17:11","slug":"responsibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sherryquanlee.com\/?p=772","title":{"rendered":"RESPONSIBILITY"},"content":{"rendered":"

NOTE: \u00a0this is another in a series of \u00a0chapter drafts<\/em> to be included in\u00a0the book ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO WRITING: \u00a0A MIXED-RACE WRITER’S JOURNEY \u00a0(tentative title). \u00a0This particular chapter took me in a direction I wasn’t planning on traveling, thus the road is windy and full of rocks-the key word as always, draft (and why when I cut and paste does the\u00a0formatting\u00a0change?)<\/em>.<\/p>\n

RESPONSIBILITY<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the beginning of any particular semester, I might ask my students what is the responsibility of a writer?\u2014<\/em>not if a writer has responsibility.\u00a0 I might ask them to read \u201cThe Creative Process\u201d by James Baldwin (Creative America, 1962), the poem \u201cResponsibility\u201d (New and Collected Poems) Grace Paley, and\/or \u00a0\u201cMeatloaf: A View of Poetry\u201d by Nikki Giovanni (Racism 101, William Morrow and Company, Inc.).\u00a0 Discussions are generally mild, and don\u2019t go beyond two pat answers:\u00a0 to entertain and to tell the truth.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not interested in writing to entertain, perhaps because my sense of humor is limited, my ability to write humorously is deficient (though I\u2019ve been told my writing is often sassy or witty)\u2014and what I write about, my life, is too serious to joke around with (granted some comedians can put a comedic twist on anything with grace, others not so much).<\/p>\n

However, as Joy Harjo states in The Woman Who Fell from the Sky <\/em>(First published as a Norton paperback, 1996):<\/p>\n

If I am a poet who is charged with speaking the truth (and I believe the word poet is synonymous with truth-teller), what do I have to say about all of this?<\/em><\/p>\n

I believe truth can be expressed in several ways:\u00a0 metaphor, exaggeration, and plain and simple in-your-face clarity.\u00a0 Each or all of these forms can be used no matter what genre we are writing in.\u00a0 Because I began my writer\u2019s journey as a poet, I learned the craft of figurative language and eventually became aware of how I can\/how I do use it in my writing.<\/p>\n

A poetry teacher frequently told me my poems are filled with imagery; I had no idea what he was talking about.\u00a0 Now I realize metaphors and similes create pictures that are understood by way of comparison.\u00a0 And the magic is that a reader can, and most likely will, transcribe the picture with the help of his\/her own experience, so the writer has made a connection beyond his\/her reality.<\/p>\n

The more I write, the more I notice I exaggerate the truth.\u00a0 I am not lying.\u00a0 It\u2019s like hyperbole.\u00a0 I am extending concrete fact into superfluous images.\u00a0 Exaggeration may be expressed as metaphor; for example I\u2019m not like all the Scandinavian friends I grew up with:<\/p>\n

Here I am a Minnesota mutant.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Snowflake. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Or, as a statement I know isn\u2019t true to fact, but true to the point I want to get across:<\/p>\n

Mother cooked a white rabbit<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in a black pot.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mother never cooked rabbit, but mother who is black, chose to pass as white.\u00a0 I don\u2019t consider the exaggerated image a lie.<\/p>\n

Or, I use words that play with imagery that exaggerate the meaning:<\/p>\n

My sisters and I rip out the tight stitches, laugh\u00a0<\/em>about the alcohol, the men.<\/em><\/p>\n

Instead of saying my sisters and I gave up our mother\u2019s control , I use the more visual aspect of stitches which \u00a0refer back to earlier in the poem that tells the reader my mother sewed identical clothes for her four daughters.<\/p>\n

Although imagery enlivens a story or poem, I believe if a writer doesn\u2019t want a reader to misinterpret what they\u2019ve written as truth, the writer should be explicit in the language they use.\u00a0 This type of honesty is so blatant those that can relate will appreciate or be awed by your downright honesty; those that can\u2019t relate will be offended or defensive or apologetic\u2014but, you\u2019re not writing for them, or are you (that\u2019s another discussion)?<\/p>\n

Husbands were always white, always financially able\u2014always<\/em>\u00a0available.\u00a0 They liked me sexy.\u00a0 <\/em>They liked me smart.\u00a0 They liked me <\/em>domestic.\u00a0 They liked me drunk.\u00a0 They were always gratuitous.\u00a0 I ate\u00a0<\/em>meat and potatoes.\u00a0 I lived in brick houses.\u00a0 I owned stuff<\/em><\/p>\n

…Husband after hedonistic white husband\u00a0<\/em>enjoyed associating with me, the marginalized.\u00a0 Because, of course\u00a0<\/em>I was trendy.\u00a0 Yet each hunkered down, holding their top dog\u00a0<\/em>position.<\/em><\/p>\n

But, what is it we, as writers, are supposed to tell the truth about?\u00a0 As a writer trying to discover and make sense of who I am, I had no time for nature poems. \u00a0Aren\u2019t there more important stories that need to be told? \u00a0Don\u2019t we as writers have the responsibility to tell them?<\/p>\n

The artist cannot and must not take anything for granted, but must drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides.<\/em>\u2014James Baldwin<\/p>\n

It is the responsibility of the poet to say many times:\u00a0 there is no<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 freedom without justice and this means economic<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 justice and love justice<\/em> \u2013Grace Paley<\/p>\n

Nikki Giovanni wrote:<\/p>\n

I have seldom read an interesting poem about the discovery of raindrops, or clouds floating by, or sunsets either…<\/em><\/p>\n

I hope, … that I am showing my students they must contemplate the world in which they live.\u00a0 I believe their responsibility as writers is to have as much sympathy for the rich as for the poor; as much pity for the beautiful as for the ugly; as much interest in the mundane as the exotic….Look; allow yourself to look beyond what is, into what can be, and more, into what should be.<\/em><\/p>\n

Never say never<\/em>, my sister always tells me. \u00a0When I discovered Mary Oliver\u2019s poems, Linda Hasselstrom\u2019s essays, and Scott Russell Sanders essays, and other writings which do contemplate the world, I knew the responsibility of the writer is also to read and not let our preconceived notions keep us from imagining and knowing a world larger than our own.\u00a0 However, as I wrote this paragraph I realized I only mentioned white writers who write about nature.\u00a0 Why haven\u2019t I read nature writing by writers of color?\u00a0 Subconsciously I probably thought we have more important things to write about\u2014but I immediately Googled what writers of color write about nature? <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0And despite my bad grammar, here\u2019s the first two entries I found:<\/p>\n