Friday, April 20, 2007
Fringe of a Margin
Writing itself is a marginal pursuit, and most of the people in it are strange at least some of the time: off-kilter or sensitive or blunt or depressed or what-have-you. Still, most of the people who read (and write) this blog are basically well grounded.
We've all seen the people who are marginal even by writer standards, whether in poetry groups or at readings or in classes--as open-mike participants, as students, as audience. There's the person with narcissistic personality disorder who can't stop hijacking the conversation. The person with no apparent social skills who never talks to anyone. The person with no inner censor, blurting out inappropriate comments. The man who seems to be having a Vietnam flashback every time he reads a poem. The stalker of teachers/classmates. The mean drunk. The drug user. And of course the person whose writing truly frightens you. And now one of those fringe individuals has murdered 32 other people in Virginia.
It seems like a sad truth that an abundance of people with mental disorders gravitate toward creative writing as some sort of release or cure, and it's definitely true that the illness becomes more obvious in their writing participation than it might be with the person just walking around in other areas of life. Most of these people are essentially harmless, and many of them are actually delightful people, and for them it's great if writing provides therapy, regardless of the quality of the writing. Unfortunately, creative writing is rarely going to be an answer for those who need help the most and who actually pose a threat, and few of them are willing or able to accept help when it's offered, either.
I sympathize with the non-dangerous marginal people, as I certainly could have been grouped there earlier in my life. I still can have an intense presence, and many of my poems incorporate guns, drugs, and death, but because the poems are generally either humane or humorous, and I'm much more socialized, and it's fairly easy to learn from talking to me that I'm essentially stable and decent, people tend to accept me and my writing pretty well. I do worry that creative writing is going to receive an unfair stigma as a haven for mental patients and murderers-in-waiting. Too bad many writers (or the community or the media or someone) tend to glamorize or romanticize extreme writer behaviors of drinking, pettiness, etc.
I realize there's not really a central argument or even a lot of coherence in this writing--it's more just me putting some of my thoughts out there after the Virginia Tech tragedy in the only area where I feel like I can really add anything to the discussion right now. There's a saying in poker that if you sit down at the table and can't spot the sucker, you are the sucker. The same may sometimes be true of a sizable poetry group: if you can't spot the person who goes beyond oddball, it may be you. Or you're just lucky to have a really good group.
We've all seen the people who are marginal even by writer standards, whether in poetry groups or at readings or in classes--as open-mike participants, as students, as audience. There's the person with narcissistic personality disorder who can't stop hijacking the conversation. The person with no apparent social skills who never talks to anyone. The person with no inner censor, blurting out inappropriate comments. The man who seems to be having a Vietnam flashback every time he reads a poem. The stalker of teachers/classmates. The mean drunk. The drug user. And of course the person whose writing truly frightens you. And now one of those fringe individuals has murdered 32 other people in Virginia.
It seems like a sad truth that an abundance of people with mental disorders gravitate toward creative writing as some sort of release or cure, and it's definitely true that the illness becomes more obvious in their writing participation than it might be with the person just walking around in other areas of life. Most of these people are essentially harmless, and many of them are actually delightful people, and for them it's great if writing provides therapy, regardless of the quality of the writing. Unfortunately, creative writing is rarely going to be an answer for those who need help the most and who actually pose a threat, and few of them are willing or able to accept help when it's offered, either.
I sympathize with the non-dangerous marginal people, as I certainly could have been grouped there earlier in my life. I still can have an intense presence, and many of my poems incorporate guns, drugs, and death, but because the poems are generally either humane or humorous, and I'm much more socialized, and it's fairly easy to learn from talking to me that I'm essentially stable and decent, people tend to accept me and my writing pretty well. I do worry that creative writing is going to receive an unfair stigma as a haven for mental patients and murderers-in-waiting. Too bad many writers (or the community or the media or someone) tend to glamorize or romanticize extreme writer behaviors of drinking, pettiness, etc.
I realize there's not really a central argument or even a lot of coherence in this writing--it's more just me putting some of my thoughts out there after the Virginia Tech tragedy in the only area where I feel like I can really add anything to the discussion right now. There's a saying in poker that if you sit down at the table and can't spot the sucker, you are the sucker. The same may sometimes be true of a sizable poetry group: if you can't spot the person who goes beyond oddball, it may be you. Or you're just lucky to have a really good group.
