Thursday Thoughts

Many non-artistic types think that artists have control over what they do. An artist wants to paint, so he picks up a brush and applies paint. He wants to write, so he picks up a pen (or fires up the word processor) and begins to deliberate. An actor picks up his script and starts to memorize lines and blocking. A musician strums a few bars. As far as it goes, that is true. But the art has a say in the matter too. And the art can sometimes take the artist to unexpected places.

I have had an idea for a poem floating around in my head for awhile now. In my mind’s eye, this was a bucolic poem filled with pastoral scenes of a wood nymph dancing around her tree and captivating those who see her. Not my usual arena, but the image stuck with me and kept solidifying. For whatever reason, the seed of that poem finally germinated long enough that I began to write it last evening.

The first two stanzas turned out the way I expected; pleasant and pastoral. Even the desire to go with a meter and rhyme scheme was working (I’m more well known for my free-verse). Great, just as I expected and exactly what I kept seeing in my mind.

Stanza three took an unexpected turn, though. This bucolic scene started to show some shadows. From that point on, the poem devolved from my original intent into a strange land of darkness and frightful imagery. The protagonist of the piece winds up trapped and alone with a feral creature rather than the beautiful nymph he set out to visit.

I cannot explain or justify what happened there. My path appeared clear and unblemished when I began, and I tried to hold true to that need. The poem, the art, and my subconscious mind enacted in a strange and powerful way to force the effort in another direction. As I was writing it, I could see what I was typing as a neutral observer and was amazed at where I was going.

It is the same with other arts, I’m sure. A polished actor, lines memorized and blocks known, will sometimes find he is uttering new lines and going in new directions as the scene and the character grab hold and will not let go. Or an artist will sit down to paint a nice family portrait and wind up hours later staring at an impressionistic image of a matador spearing a bull. Musicians thrive on the "jam session" because of the unexpected directions the music sometimes goes.

It is a strange and wonderful feeling to have the art take over and to be a passenger on the ride to the discovery. But it can be a little frightening as well. I honestly do not know if I birthed this poem or if it sprang from my head on its own. I do know that it is finally out of my mind and the real work of hammering it into its final form is all that is left to do.