Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
I love finding out what stimulates writers to write. And what urges them on to write a particular piece.
This past week, I read an article about a poet, Jane Hirshfield, who believes poems can transform the world. Really? (You can read the article here.)
I was attracted to her point that poems show us the subtleties of a situation and keep us from oversimplifying. “One of the current great problems in the world is fundamentalism of every kind—political, spiritual—and poetry is an antidote to fundamentalism. Poetry is about the clarities that you find when you don’t simplify. Poetry is about complexity, nuance, subtlety,” she said.
Good art does that to us; it makes us take note of how complicated and 
layered a circumstance can be, or how another person’s motivations might seem obvious and yet…
Good art also creates a connection between the consumer of that art and the creator and reminds us of our points of commonality. Hirshfield makes that point when she talks about how important poetry is when a situation like the Baltimore riots occurs. Both the genesis of the killing of Freddie Gray and the aftermath can be better grasped through poetry, as we connect with how the poet sees and feels about the situation.
And good art can transform the consumer’s way of thinking. “…A poem by one of the two foremost women poets of Japan’s classical age, Izumi Shikibu, …changed my relationship to my own life, permanently and lastingly,” Hirshfield said. “This is in a five-line form called ‘tanka’:
“Although the wind
blows terribly here,
moonlight
also leaks between the roof planks
of this ruined house.”
“What I understood from the poem was this,” Hirshfield explains, “If you try to wall yourself off from pain, difficulty, distress—if you try to build a house so solid that the cold wind won’t be able to enter—you will also be keeping from your life beauty and joy. The poem became for me a kind of vow toward permeability. It really let me understand that if you want to live a life of fullness, then part of that is a willingness to experience all of it—to experience love and to experience loss. And to understand that you don’t get either without the other.”
Sometimes writers write to give meaning to their lives. Take for example, Kent Haruf, author of Plainsong, which has sold more than a million copies and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He gave this account of why he worked on a novel until he was mere days away from dying. He was diagnosed with interstitial lung disease in February 2014 and felt “sick and very downhearted spiritually and mentally…And then in April, I began to feel a little better, and I thought,’Well, I don’t want to just sit around waiting.'”
He worked on some short stories but wasn’t making much headway. Then an idea for a novel occurred to him.
“In some ways it felt as if that was what was keeping me alive,” he said. “It was something significant for me to get up for every day.”
Haruf died in November 2014 at age 71, and his last novel, Our Souls at Night, will release on May 28. You can read the details of his writing habits (sitting blind-folded and hunched over a typewriter!), and the inspiration for Our Souls here. For Haruf, writing that novel gave his last months meaning. And he gave readers the gift of one more book from him.
Pulitzer Prize finalist and poet Elizabeth Alexander expressed her motivation for writing as “processing the world through art and word.” Writing clarifies our thinking and enables us to ponder what to make of the items life hands to us. It’s like turning a stone over and over in our hands while we consider its contortions, weight, texture, and colors. Then we let others peek over our shoulder at that rock so they can see it from our point of view.
“Art is a tunnel that gets you from one place to another.” That’s the reason Mateen, a 12th-grade student at the Baltimore School for the Arts, gave during a television interview for pursuing his great love, playing the bassoon.
Mateen beautifully and simply expressed what music, painting, photography, writing, or any art form can accomplish in the person creating a piece and in the individuals who ponder that work. It moves us–from one emotion to another, from one way of thinking to another, from one perception of life to another.
And that’s ultimately a pretty wonderful reason to write.
What moves you to write? What piece of art have you read or viewed that “tunneled” you from one place to another?
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Yes! The artist (painter, writer, musician) sees with different eye, sees above, or even below the surface and is compelled to share that different perspective. Izumi Shikibu’s poem says in five lines what some of us might take pages to express. Now that’s art!
I love the concept of a “different eye.” Thanks for sharing that.
Wow! Great Post! Much of it covers why I write, yet there’s more to it for me. Part of the reason is to be able, even with the written word, to share myself, with a reader. And if we make a connection, if I’m successful, just like when I play music for others, it is more than worthwhile. Also, who among us does not seek understanding?
Another reason is to allow others to see different perspectives. Yes, the perspective of my characters, but, of course, my characters have my perspective. Again: more of wanting to connect and be understood.
Well, this is topical for me. I have just traveled through one of the most harrowing PTSD episodes I have ever dealt with. An old heartbreak that simply transcends all concepts of faith and forgiveness…it can only be addressed through endurance, and the hope that somewhere, somehow, the bad things are undone, that their ghastly temporal being is rewound.
There is no escape in alcohol; I tried, but the bottom of the bottle is, in the end, too revealing a mirror. I suppose the same applies to drugs.
Suicide is a road many have taken; but it’s an act of disloyalty to the innocents whose bones bleach under a torrid sun while their last moments haunt the soul of a man who was not, in the end, enough.
I am doomed by the paths I chose to be their Van Der Decken, the salt-burned Dutchman, living to bear witness, dying to my own soul, and only hoping that, like a spool of thread, time can be recalled, and the hurts not just healed, but erased in the light of a morning that need never see a cloud, a day that never sees a sunset.
And that is why I write, to animate and in my way inform this last, best, worst hope. For. others, and for myself. For courage, for love, and for salvation.
To clarify…it’s not all about combat trauma, or victims…walking in the world for these lost bright hearts means writing the good, the hopeful, the simple decency with which the Almighty’s tried to imbue us. To quote Samwise Gamgee, there’s good in the world, and it’worth fighting for. A pen can be a pretty powerful weapon, or so goes the cliche.
A very true cliche, Andrew, and an excellent quote from Samwise. Thank you for this encouragement today.
Yours is a hard won motivation to write, Andrew. I thought about you often as I wrote this blog. A friend once commented after a speaker had unspooled some deeply touching truths, that she wished she could speak with the power he did. I responded, “Then you’d have to go to the same school he went to.” That sobered her, as he had suffered deeply–and was suffering–from medical issues, which in turn makes us suffer emotionally and spiritually. That’s your case as well, Andrew. Those who suffer deeply have much to give the rest of us.
It is a hard school, Janet…but I have an increasing realization in my heart that it’s where I am meant to be. It’s all about what I can give.
Oops. Uh, Janet, you reply went to Janet Collins’ comment. The joys of Smartphones.
Andrew, that comment is beautifully written. You should publish it as poetry.
It is a hard school, Janet…but I have an increasing realization in my heart that it’s where I am meant to be. It’s all about what I can give.
Wow…thanks! (The reply above was supposed to go to Janet Grant…still getting used to using the Smartphone…after almost two months.)
“The bottom of the bottle is, too, revealing a mirror.” Gracious me. Gave me goose bumps, Andrew.
Thank you, Shelli. Thank you.
I have always LOVED Emerson’s The Apology.
For one, it reminds me of my husband, who is a tree scientist and dearly loves the woods. He would take our kids on nature hikes and spend hours on things like pine cones and leaf structure and why maples turn red. To him, a forest is a vibrant, exciting thing.
***
Think me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.
Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.
Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.
There was never mystery,
But ’tis figured in the flowers,
Was never secret history,
But birds tell it in the bowers.
One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.
***
I think the first book that grabbed me by the possibilities and refused to let go was The Dove, by Robin Lee Graham. It’s about a 16 year old boy who set off around the world in a sailboat. I read it in high school.
I’d done some sailing and loved it, but not enough to do THAT.
But I could “travel” with him, and see all kinds of places, be afraid for him during the storms, worry when he lost his mast, get the heebie jeebies when he sailed beside an unlit container ship at night.
(Which is the root of my extreme phobia of container ships, BTW.)
Yes, I did occur to me that since I was reading the book, that Robin made it. But, how he made it? That is the story.
There’s a cool song from the film adaptation of the book, too.
I always feel moved to write because writing is the best way I can express what God puts on my mind and lays on my heart. Some writers say that there are days they don’t feel motivated, but even after a year of consistent writing I haven’t had a day where I haven’t been excited by this. When I sit down at my computer and open a word document it almost feels like I’m turning myself inside out and exposing my soul on the pages. Maybe it’s a 24 year old’s youthful idealism, but the joy of writing hasn’t faded yet…and hopefully it never will!
Music has always been the art form that’s inspired me to write most (nothing screams “I’m a writer” more than a coffee mug by your computer and the album of the week playing in the background). Lately I’ve been most inspired by Audra Lynn’s album Vow and All Sons & Daughters Live, but give me another seven days and I’ll probably have another one to add to my extremely long playlist.
“I can express what God puts on my mind and lays on my heart.” It isn’t just youthful idealism, Jessica. I’m excited that you discovered it so early in life–I was clueless at age 24. The joy of starting with a tiny thread of thought God puts in my head and tracing it ever deeper has not faded. It only grows. Exponentially. Praise God!
I’m so grateful that He has led me to writing, and I’m looking forward to developing my skills so I can be more useful to the kingdom! I’m glad that it brings you the same joy, and I’m excited to see how my passion for writing will get better with time!
Jessica, I, too, enjoy verse through song. All Sons and Daughters “Shout it, go on and scream it from the mountains” touches me every time I hear it. And talented songwriters like Chris DuPont can so succinctly create a scene and emotion with few words. Every time I hear his “Washington Street” I see the prodigal son coming to his senses and feel what he is feeling.
“Go on and tell it to the masses, that He is God!”
Music has the ability to flood your senses and bring words to life. Listening to powerful lyrics can be just as emotionally captivating as reading a good book or watching a movie! It’s definitely amazing how a few carefully crafted words can have such a strong impact on your soul. It’s definitely what has inspired me most to write.
Jessica, thanks for broadening the discussion by bringing song lyrics into the conversation. Music is so much about creating an emotional response within us.
Audra Lynn – now there is a woman who was meant to share her art, it is so inspiring. And thank our Father for that excitement you have for writing, because that is a gift!
Her voice and her talent is amazing; she’s one of the most inspiring worship leaders I have ever heard. I think in the end that’s what we all aspire to: to truly move people with our art, and to make a difference in this world. I’m definitely thankful that He has made writing my passion! God is good!
Love her music! Such a unique voice and genuine heart.
Wind and moonlight. That’s beautiful. That reminds me of my great-grandmother’s abandoned home in Arkansas that was allowed to descend to dust by termites. When you walked into the front door, the floor sloped drastically … walking through the room was a challenge and you wondered if you might fall through the floor. Sitting on the couch was a challenge. 🙂 I dreaded going there in my 20s. But the picture of the wolf howling at the moon that always called to me as a child still hung on the wall … and the huge picnic style table with benches where I ate my tummy full of my great-grandmother’s teacakes still sat in the kitchen. Beauty in ashes. Just like us.
And what moves me to write? Something, an idea, will grab hold of me … and my mind will not let it go. And I become a person simply taking dictation to thoughts that continue to surface, sweetly interrupting every aspect of my life, until it’s all spilled out on the page. 🙂 Sure feels that way.
I love the picture you’ve painted of your great grandmother’s home. It still exists–in your mind.
Janet, I always love your posts because you get me thinking in ways I hadn’t before reading your words.
What moves me to write? Sometimes it’s something I read that resonates with me on an emotional or deeper level. Sometimes, it’s a story I read or hear. Other times it’s something I see—a photograph or a movie. And sometimes it’s a song that taps a deeper level of who I am.
What prompts me to write is a cold, quiet feeling that something is about to happen.
I like that, Hannah. 🙂
Ah, that moment when an idea sparks…
A terrific post, Janet, and so thought-provoking. I agree most definitely that writing opens up the spirit and the heart. It’s an act of worship and conviction. But I also write to see wrongs righted. To see justice prevail. To experience a happily-ever-after.
Writing can change everything, including endings. I love that about a story. Of course, if one writes nonfiction, it’s a bit more challenging to play around with an ending.
I write to provide a different way of looking at things and to bring a different perspective to readers in this age of “selfies” (self-esteem, self-indulgence, and self-centeredness). I like to remind people that empathy, compassion, and self-sacrifice are still honorable traits. I also like to remind people that it’s never too late to “begin again,” the theme of my blog.
Jan, I appreciate your definition of selfies.
Thanks for another thought-provoking post, Janet!
I wouldn’t say there’s any particularly poetic reason why I write–I just write the things I’d like to read that haven’t been written yet.
As far as a piece of art that transports me from one place to another, I’ve loved ‘Ulysses’ by Tennyson for years and years now. It’s a lot wordier than your beautiful example by Izumi Shikibu, but so much of it speaks to me on different levels.
The line “‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world” in particular says so much about life, ambition, and Christianity as well. And anyone Christ-follower living in a fallen world would relate to the conclusion of “Ulysses.”
“We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Thanks for sharing those quotes from Ulysses. They are soul-stirring, Laura.
The same book will take different people to different places. Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield helped my son, as a young military officer, become a better leader of some of the men and women who defend our nation. At my son’s suggestion, I read the book and saw my desperate need for a brave heart here on the home front. As a result of reading Gates of Fire, I believe I support my son, and all our troops, with less drama and more strength.
I write stories from my deepest regrets, shame, fears, and love. I’ve often felt as if a backhoe with big metal teeth has gouged out places in my heart. However, God heals me and in place of the pain He fills my heart with compassion for others who experience the same kinds of losses, circumstances, and relationships. I write with the hope of sharing a story or two that will make a positive impact on the life of the reader and to make her feel that someone understands her and cares about her.
Linda, you’re so right that a work of art will speak different messages to different people. Thanks for pointing that out.
I write as a way to give back from what I’ve been given, to create beauty from ashes. I also write because I have something to say that I believe God wants me to share out of love for my sisters and brothers and as an encouragement to them–the light shining forth, not hidden under a bushel. Lastly, the fun part, I write because writing gives me pleasure and joy. And I love the sound of well-written words. I could keep on adding to the list. I’m enjoying reading your comments.
Norma, it is fun reading everyone’s comments, isn’t it. Thank you for yours.
Thank you for this post, Janet. It caused me to wonder. Why do I write? It’s been something it seemed I had to do. But that’s not a very good answer for you, so I decided to ask God.
“Why do I write, God?” I said.
(I put down by pen what he says.)
He replied.
“There are those who are put on this earth to do the great things, and those to clean house. You were put here to bring hope, and you do it through the words you write. Carry on.”
So now you know and so do I.
Thank you.
What a lovely reason to write, Wanda. So nice that God doesn’t think cleaning house is your calling!
I agree, Janet, lol.
The arts are so amazing to me. Song and beauty and story. I think that this is completely correct. How can we express the complex, terrible and beautiful nature of our world if not with something like poetry, paint, and music. I think that the “image of God” that we are all supposed to bear as Genesis says…is the ability to create. An orchestra, a child with a paintbrush, a mother at her keyboard, a dancer on her toes, all of these are from God.
Kristen, you so succinctly wrote about creating art when you depicted it as expressing “the complex, terrible and beautiful nature of our world.” Thank you for that.
I write because I can not adequately express the depths and intricacies of my thoughts and emotions orally. My conversational skills are just fine, but writing is where I have confidence to share my heart, my imagination, and my thoughts with fluidity. Granted, editing helps. 🙂
I feel the same way. Writing gives you the ability to lay everything you are thinking out on paper, and sometimes just speaking a few words isn’t enough. I can explain and express my feelings so much more clearly when I write…though editing definitely does help! 🙂
I love the explanation of poetry, because poetry is simple yet complex, and life is also simple yet complex. So beautiful.
I actually wrote a blogpost about why I write, and this is some of the most gut-level parts of that post:
I want to write because I want to create. I want control. I want to be okay with losing control.
I want to write because I want to have deep relationship without risk. I want to know and be known, even if I have to fake it through characters.
I want to write because I want to be heard. I want to write because I want you to see me. I want to write because I don’t want to be me.
Our motivations are complex, aren’t they, Amy?