The Cambridge introduction to creative writing
Found Poem The European Larch’
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| Found Poem The European Larch’ The Alps replaced by Norway Spruce in colder, wetter areas with ranges in the Tatra and Sudetan plains and mountains of Poland. Long cultivated and abundant: in older plantations, shelterbeds and parks, away from cities and the driest, drabbest areas. Shape: spire- like, on a trunk straight up only in the finest, sheltered trees often broad and characterful in age in arid or exposed sites. The fine shoots hang under the branches. Blond in winter. More finely, spiki– ly twiggy – set against, say, the Ginkgo or, say, a Swamp Cypress. 140 Creative writing We will look at found poetry in Chapter Eight . You are encouraged to take what you can from other writers, but the argument here is that you should also take what you can from other non-literary writers, whether they are scientists, architects or even businesspeople. Precision and voice The right names and terms give your writing greater power and show you have done your work. Precise language wakes or rewakes the world and replicates it more immediately than a film ever could. Moreover, clarity finds its equal in simplicity – the hardest skill fora writer to master. The other property in writing that comes out of precision, clarity and simplicity is a natural sound or voice to the writing (Raymond Carver and Robert Frost are exemplary in this respect. The ear of the writer becomes unmuffled, and the language carries that quality too in doing so it feels natural, it feels of the world rather than an artifice made from the world. As an example for possible imitation, read this extract from A Cold Spring by Elizabeth Bishop: The infant oak-leaves swung through the sober oak. Song-sparrows were wound up for the summer . . Now, from the thick grass, the fireflies begin to rise: up, then down, then up again: lit on the ascending flight, drifting simultaneously to the same height exactly like the bubbles in champagne. (Bishop, 1979 : Swung through the sober oak. Song-sparrows were wound up for summer. Fireflies lit on the ascending flight The trained field biologist in me wants to shout, Exactly and then discover what the same height for fireflies is. Alert, evocative, precise writing of this standard is not too far from the best observational nature writing, or writing that arises from scientific inquiry. Obviously, an ethologist would not reach for the simile of exactly like the bubbles in champagne while writing a scientific paper, but they might were they writing a popular nonfictional book on the life of fireflies. You may wish to learn this precision, too by observing the world, and making translations from the natural world into your own creative writing. |