The University of the Self #18 (Part 2)

Sharing is Caring

In the spring of this year, I was invited to contribute a webinar for Nine Arches Press, as part of their well-established programme of writing craft events. It was such an unexpected compliment to be asked, and I was very glad to say yes — it was a rare chance to show what I was capable of, and even rarer in poetry, a paid opportunity. What a wonderful, welcome opportunity to flex my thinking muscles it would be. More importantly, it would be a chance to share my ideas with others — something I am passionate about doing.

Getting to where I am today has taken so much time and work. Beginning to understand myself has taken so much time and work. I am a strong believer in experimentation in both reading and writing, in order to find methods and timescales that work for you. Unique and magical you.

One of the things I am certain about is that, when it comes to writing practice, I have no fear of interrogating myself, my learning and my methods (something I tried and failed to convey in my last PhD interview, when doubts were cast upon my critical and essay writing skills). I can do it with great gusto — indeed, it is something I do for fun, for no other reason than to scratch the acadeimc itch — it’s just that my methods of doing so have developed in a way that enables me to do so with the greatest accessibility for myself. Life, in the end, is all about the questions we ask of it and of ourselves. I have discussed aspects of this in my essay Utext, which can be read here. Here is a quote from that essay:

“Once, I could barely churn out a paragraph without knowing, before it was even on paper, that it wasn’t what I wanted to write. Writing was like trying to bake a sponge cake — you think you have correctly copied the recipe down, but every time you open the oven door, you find a half-baked mess. Throughout primary and secondary school, I tried to replicate the styles and forms I saw in articles and books.

All I was doing, with this mimicry, was writing 
            
            f u r t h e r   and    f  u   r   t    h     e      r     away
                                                                                                               from myself.

I struggled with impenetrable, solid paragraphs. My eyes would fail to find a way in. I would try to replicate these paragraphs.      They made little sense.     I couldn’t make them represent the words inside my head.              I couldn’t breathe inside them.
I smothered, drowned, gave up, assumed I must be as stupid as some people insisted on telling me I was.            

The increasing difficulty of the content I wished to learn
                      coupled with its presentation on the page seemed to have robbed  
                      me of any means of understanding or expression.”

Every time I discover something that has changed the writing landscape for the better for me, I ache to share what I have learned with other people who might be struggling the same. It serves no purpose to squirrel your knowledge away, to hoard it, to jealously guard it. It helps nobody, least of all yourself. After all, our learning has come to us becasue of the generosity of the writers who have come before, and I feel such a sense of joy when I can quote from them (as I do often in my essays and articles) and rightfully acknowledge their influence upon my writer’s life. We do not travel alone — let other people learn the footprints in your work, the inheritance that has helped you get to where you are.

If a writer you learned from is still with us, how wonderful to let them know (by acknowledging them in citations etc.) that their own work means something to you. If they are no longer with us, it somehow helps to keep them alive. The idea of simply vanishing from the world as if one had never been there makes me so very sad. It’s a longshot, but I can’t help hoping that I will live on through my words.

I always remember a little snippet of a song we used to sing in various groups when I was a little child (Magic Penny, by Malvinia Reynolds):

“Love is something if you give it away,
Give it away, give it away.
Love is something if you give it away,
You end up having more.

It's just like a magic penny,
Hold it tight and you won't have any.
Lend it, spend it, and you'll have so many
They'll roll all over the floor.”

I think it is the same with knowledge — the sharing of it makes the world a better place. I am sorry if I sound simplistic. I am always doing my best.

One of my self-interrogations I made concerened my use of white space in my poetry and essay/hybrid writing. I use space on the page a lot. My writing has become, after so many years of research and practise, instinctual. Experience beings to tell. Repeated harvestings of knowledge have allowed me to begin my writing (in many cases) ready-primed — I often almost do not think about why I am doing something, as the routes there have become so well-trodden they become unconscious. Like travelling along a path I have used many times a week for years — yes, I am on that path, but the twists and turns have become part of my muscle memory. I have to stop and make myself remember why I am on this path, and what drew me there in the first place. Whether I am using the right map to guide me along.

Interrogating my writing methods here and there stops them becoming my immediate go-to tricks, my bad habits, my one-size-fits-all way of writing. It stops me becoming lazy, stops me getting stuck in a rut. It reminds me of why I make specific poetic choices. It helps me question the ‘rightness’ of using one style or form at that very moment in time. It helps me persuade my poem into new poetry clothes. The new clothes might not suit and I can always take them off and redress. The new clothes might be a suprisingly good fit. Interrogating my writing methods keeps my mind awake and learning, fresh and sharp. I can heartily recommend it. I digress.

I decided that the topic of my webinar would be Exploring the Lacuna: The Fascination of Shape and Space on the Page. Some time ago I had begun to examine my poetic use of the lacuna, and had ended up with an essay of 8000 words. The essay wasn’t intended to be submitted anywhere, or to be published (I held out no hope of that). The essay was for my benefit. I had imagined a version of me sitting on one side of a desk (like a PhD candidate being interrogated), with another version of me on the other side of a desk (like a panel of experts picking holes in your work). A bit like a viva, possibly. I have never been a PhD candidate, so I have no actual experience of this — at The University of the Self, you must make do with the tools you have at your disposal. I answered my questions as best I could, and while I might not have been awarded a red rosette, or a garland (or whatever one is awarded for passing one of these things), I was told I would be permitted to continue on with my research. I was tough!

Image description: This is a screenshot of a moment from my online webinar. In the top right is a small box with me in it - I am talking about the content of the screenshare document, which is a white page with black text upon it. The writing on that page is copied below:

“Fragment 1 Is there such a thing as emptiness?

What is space?                            Captain Kirk might say that it’s the final frontier.
We might define it as an unoccupied or available expanse,             an area in which
an entity can move,                        or the distance between one entity and another.

Is space emptiness?                Is there such a thing as emptiness?
Science will say that, on Earth, there isn’t—to achieve emptiness, you would have to remove
all the matter, energy, molecules, and atoms. If you managed to take out all these,
you would still have gravitational, magnetic, or electric fields—

your emptiness still wouldn’t be         empty.                  You could take your space
into actual space (in a rocket or something), and it might eradicate these things,
but then,                          wouldn’t
                                               your space be filled with          *ahem*           
                                                                                                            …space?

Space is an amazing concept to fill your mind with. Emptiness is full of so much!”

I really did enjoy sharing my ideas, which I did mainly as a series of fragments, with examples of other writers works and thoughts spread across the session. I discussed the effects of asemic, concrete / mimetic and erasure works upon my work, as well as the way and visual / textual balances can inform the shape of a poem upon the page. Here is another fragment:

Image description: this is a screenshot of another fragment from the webinar. The page is white and the text is black. For further accessibility, the text is written below:

Fragment 5                    void has a voice of its own

Do I simply include space in my work because I like the way it looks?
Would there be anything wrong with that if I did? Why do I feel the need to twist myself into explanations and justifications upon why I use space? Does space require an answer? Are we spoiling the beauty of space with endless inquiries into its right to exist? I loved this quote from Gay Watson in their book, A Philosophy of Emptiness:

“Emptiness may be experienced as empty of absolutes, empty of permanence
and empty of independence, yet not empty of existence and meaning.
Emptiness as insubstantiality may provide…a middle way between is and is
not, and the stark choice between existence and nothingness. Empty space
may be space for possibility and contemplation, just as silence may hold an
opening for quiet and the potential for sound.” (Watson, G, 2014)

I love the thought that space is full of potential—that inspiration is poised upon its peripheries.

We are space. We are made of atoms and atoms are mostly made from nothing.

               “When you start to consider that atoms are about 99% empty space
                and they make up 100% of the universe, you can start to see: you’re made up
                of nothingness.” (English, T, 2020)

If you feel nervous of including space / shape in your work, remember that:

a void does not have to equate to Nihilism. A void is not always a terrible thing.      
A void can be open,        tempting,       welcoming,       perplexing,       thought provoking.       Void is potential energy.      Void has a voice of its own.

How does this post relate to part 1? Well, during the preparation for this webinar, I was plunged into the sudden upheaval of the PhD interview preparation. Then, as I tried to continue with the webinar work, I was further plunged into the darkness of the rejection. I admit that, during this time, I struggled to work. The amount of spoons I needed to plod through just one sentence was immense. Many hours, I sat and stared at the screen and found I was unable to type even one word. I wrote, then I hated what I wrote and deleted the lot. What was the point of anything? Who, I asked myself, is going to be interested in anything you have to share? I felt I had nothing to offer and my confidence, which I had only just managed to partially restore was shredded again. This time it felt like a new wound upon a wound still raw. I can’t properly heal — it all runs too deep. I accept that now, and will go on as I am, while there is still joy to be found in writing.

I was worried nobody would be interested in the webinar. I worried that it would be terrible. I went into it carrying too much negative weight in my mind. It was my first webinar, and I admit it was strange, the feeling that I was talking to an empty room — I kept looking for the friendly faces on the side of the screenshare that you usually get on Zoom. I had no idea how my presentation was being received. I had to work hard to stop the demons from intruding.

But there was such joy too in sharing my work and ideas, in releasing them like birds from the cage of my head. After it was over, I felt relief. I felt a little down, in case the content had been awful. I believed in the work, believed in how it had shaped me as a writer, but what if… I worried that I had let Nine Arches down. I was still very much under the cloud of the PhD rejection, much to my sadness and frustration — the humiliation of it, the finality of it, the failure of it. It had pretty much convinced me that there was no place for me in the poetry world.

The rejection was affecting everything — it tinged the happiness of the news about my next poetry collection. It left shadows everywhere. I had lost my desire to submit work and I have always worked so hard in that. It had stopped me from being able to clearly evaluate the webinar. I felt like all I did was cry, wail or whine. I became reclusive. I hated going out into the front garden, in case someone saw me — I was worried I would break down. I felt like I wore my shame like a banner above my head. I didn’t want anyone or anything in my life. I really was not well.

But then, feedback from the webinar started to filter in. A lot of it private, and not to be shared openly here. I discovered that it had made a big difference. People said some incredible things — that I had truly helped them, that they were excited about putting my ideas into practice, that I had offered new ways of opening themselves out onto the page. My work had meant something to them. I was so touched reading these messages that I cried (yes, again, but in the nice way this time).

It made me feel like there was a reason for me and my writing after all. I don’t want this to sound as if I am blowing my own trumpet. I am celebrating the fact that these kind pieces of feedback have given me a reason to go on. They have restored me, when I thought I would never find the platform to make a difference to anyone. This is so much more precious to me than anything. I had shared and people had cared. I felt hope again. There is a place for me somewhere — I feel that now. I do not know where that place is or how long it will take me to reach it. Perhaps the journey itself is that place, and I might be the eternal traveller upon it. There is light — kind people who each struggle and succeed in their own unique ways, and still take the time to show their love are the light. The page is the light. Poetry is the light. Words are the light. May that light carry on undimmed. May we never forget such moments. May we carry them always in our hearts.


I hope you enjoyed reading my latest article. Thank you so much for spending some time here with me.
I have currently left my Substack free, but if anyone should feel like sending me a tip (although there is no pressure to do so) in exchange for my tips, you can ‘buy me a coffee’ here . Many thanks.
I must add the usual disclaimer here: I am not sponsored or paid by any of the websites I link to (I do this in an attempt to help others find information, and I may or may not agree/disagree with any/some of the content) — sharing does not immediately equal endorsment. I also hope I haven’t written anyting that might offend anyone. I try very hard to be as considerate and kind as possible.