The University of the Self #36
Muse as Research
In 2022, I was given a grant by Arts Council England to explore my thoughts and theories as a neurodivergent writer. I loved this time, and produced hundreds of pages of hybrid work. I learned a lot about myself as a writer, and learned that I still have so much to learn! But then, learning never ends, does it?
When I began thinking about how and why I wrote, and the many ‘muses’ that have inspired my writing over the years so far, I came up with this diagram — a ‘muse wheel’, with ‘muse facets’ upon it, if you will. I invented it purely for my own enjoyment, and I have pretty much kept these works to myself. Since beginning this Substack in a sort of painful desperation after the pain and trauma of numerous PhD rejections, I have grown in confidence in what feels to me to be a safe space.
This space has encouraged me to share more and more with the world who I am and the many, many thoughts that I have. It is helping me to slowly move on from the shame and humiliation many of the comments from the rejections caused me to experience. It is providing me a means of expression and it makes me feel less of a failure. I don’t know if I will ever believe in myself again, but these works remind me that I still exist.
I will discuss how this ‘muse facet’ might be used — this was the beggining of researching myself after my diagnosis. This is just a small excerpt, but it might give you some ideas.
What if ? Muse As Research
i
All poems hold research to some degree.
They have to, in order to exist. The extent / depth of this research and how
it is reinterpreted through a poem is an area of interest for me.
Can a late-diagnosed person with autism use a poem / essay hybrid to focus
on the importance of using research to establish, explore, reinforce
and discover new scary / exciting / interesting / notions of ‘self’?
After writing this theory, can it be useful to anyone else?
What if
everyday, you have to look up who you are?
every emotion
Could you talk what you know
to a sonnet? To the rhythm of Syllabics?
What if
you experience, every thought
you have has you rushing to Google
for elucidation?
I do not know the an swer
but I will try to find out.
ii
Research is more than something I do in order to write poetry, or present
my findings in a poetic way. Research is my mechanism for coping.
I am a living, breathing heuristic method. Start inside, work my way
outside, yes? “…internal self-search, exploration, and discovery.”
(Arthur / Djuraskovic)
But I am afraid
afraid of fallacies This fear I have that my head
will fail
Who is Logic? How you have hung over me! and now
now I learn that there are so many of you
This is how you almost broke
my heart
I am trying to trust my own mind I am I am
trying I dreamed of strawman
and an effigy’s fire came to me in my sleep I burn with shame
did I say? how many times did I say
the wrong thing and think
it was the right thing? Because I am who I am is why all
that has happened to me has happened Am I false cause or lost cause?
Slippery slope says carry on as you are
and there may as well not be birds or bees or biscuits
Oh how I want to be a poet a poet I am trying to construct
Articulate relevant reasonings as to why I’d maybe be a good one
but who would want these words (ad hominem)
from someone such as me?
Keep going. You may well find yourself unravelling amongst all this
new / frightening / overwhelming / incomprehensible information.
Take heart, Keep archiving. Record
what you find / what you know; the trails you sent and follow
can take you into such tangled forests, you run the risk of forgetting
where you have been. This beautiful, terrible hinterland may become
littered with research and some (if not all) will inform your work
in ways you do not know. The navigation of such paths will lead
you to the work you wish to do.
“...poetry’s [work] is to take up that residue and remnant, to find a way
to live amid and alongside the uncertain (Hirshfield, 2016, p. 26).”
iii
I write and somehow writing has made me less anxious, less doubtful.
To me, this makes a kind of sense.
I’ve been afraid all my life—before I even knew what this meant, before
I even knew why I was. And this is what I will say to you if you ask—
I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine.
I have been hurt by many people in many ways throughout my life and I will do anything to try to make people like me, or at least not hurt me.
I’ve been afraid all my life. So if I want to write (oh how I do),
how does it all this writing begin?
Put plan into action.
Trial and error. Error, trial.
You are not statistics. Ownsome is fine.
Go easy with ownself. You are not
broken. It’s okay to be overwhelmed.
It is false that you have no empathy.
You are not defined by myth.
Assess / Adjust.
Where did the word ‘autism’ come from?
Do some research and discover all about Eugen Bleuler and the word’s etymology.
Autós in Greek means self. (Mandal, 2019)
It doesn’t mean that you are selfish if you think about yourself. Especially when that self is someone you would like to get to know. Researching myself will be a long task but I am so glad I have begun.
Selfism is more than silence,
though quiet is a true
important thing.
Myselfism can feel and think. Read
and write. Love and smile.
Speak and sing.
The Theory of Myselfism
Research has led you to invent the Theory of Myselfism
We all appear in some way in our own poems
Myselfism peeps through the door of the poem
Myselfism stamps all over the poem’s pure face
Myselfism nibbles at the corners
Whispers within
Shatters windows
Myselfism is a Great Realisation of who you are
What it is you want to say
What it is you want the world to hear
Myselfism is the work it takes to assess the ‘I’
To make sense of the ‘Me’
Myselfism is NOT selfishness
iv
Voices Telling
All poets want to find their voice / use their voice / develop their voice.
Poetry is voices telling.
Telling ourselves, telling others, telling what we see / hear / learn.
Telling history, beauty, horror, people, places, trees.
We want to bring to life inanimate things. We want to be birds.
We want to be spoons. Somewhere in the middle / end / beginning
of these words, we have placed a part of ourselves.
Can you separate one from the other?
Separate subject matter from self?
Separate the self from the poem?
“Every good poet has a developed, specialized expertise in how [they] packag[e]
and delive[r] the world to the page (Hoagland, 2019, p. 34)…”
Present the facts in a way of beauty, or intensity. Give them power.
Bring them to life. Add the strength of your emotion but do not let
your own feelings twist the truth, nor change its path.
Choose each word with great care. Be careful with truth.
As we speak what we have learned, does it alter with each tell?
What is absolute truth?
“I knew then that only through a spontaneous expression of my experience
I could be true to myself,,,” (Arthur / Djuraskovic)
Make copious notes.
Measure the importance of dusk. First and always,
for ever and ever are words, rolling like epiphanies from your pen.
v
Research as Pantoum
Try representing your research as a pantoum. Twist around your own statements.
You may begin something like this:
Somewhere between no belief / half belief /
absolute faith is truth. Somewhere between
the routines that bring delicious relief
and what you read are clues. List what you have seen.
Absolute faith is truth. Somewhere between
Confusion / clarity / agony / shame
and what you read are clues. List what you have seen,
try not to find yourself always to blame.
Mix confusion / clarity / pain and shame—
how your mistakes have led to loneliness!
Try not to find yourself always to blame—
others are also culpable. Assess
how your mistakes have led to loneliness.
Are you responsible for your own grief?
Others are also culpable. Assess,
somewhere between no belief. Half belief.
Sources
Arthur / Djuraskovic. Heuristic Inquiry: A Personal Journey of Acculturation and Identity Reconstruction Ivana Djuraskovic and Nancy Arthur University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Hirshfield, Jane. Hiddeness, Uncertainty, Surprise: Three Generative Energies of Poetry. Bloodaxe Books, 2016.
Hoagland, Tony. The Art of Voice. Norton, New York, 2019.
Mandal, Ananya, Dr. Autism History. 26th February, 2019. https://www.news-medical.net/health/Autism-History.aspx#:~:text=The%20term%20autism%20first%20was,admiration%20and%20withdrawal%20within%20self.
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Thank you for sharing this Jane, I love your Muse wheel, I think I’ll make something like that too.
I wish you could see yourself the way I see you - a ground-breaking, truly awesome, inspirational, generous poet and writer, a great teacher, an absolute hero, a valued friend.
Sorry I’m behind with reading, was saving this till I could relax and take it in xxx