You pose hard questions. I think that my aesthetic leans toward the poetic and the lyrical, toward trying to make more "beautiful" life's realities, whether mundane or dramatic. Someone said recently in a podcast, it might have been K-MIng Chang in Write-Minded, that there is danger in the poetic aesthetic, in that you might end up making too beautiful something inherently horrific and traumatic. More specifically, I think my writerly aesthetic can be described as "soothing" in that I want, ultimately, to have a flowing, imagistically and thematically integrated piece of writing.
Your thoughts are so interesting, Marianna. I lean toward the poetic and lyrical as well. But that's because that's what I like to search for (on the page and in life), those moments of beauty that somehow find a place in life's realities (or horrors). So I think a poetic style can exist in the traumatic, the horrific, and just the real because, also, I don't see the poetic as just beutifying, but going deep to find an accurate description (which is poetic in its own way). I'm thinking now of Denis Johnson, who wrote some troubling stories that were also lyrical. I like the idea of writing with a "soothing" aesthetic. Sounds similar to what I'm trying to reach in my reading: gentleness.
Thank you not only for the insights, but also for the extras you include -- questions and prompts and quotes.
Thanks so much, Amanda! I'm glad those extras are meaningful. They're fun for me to think about.
You pose hard questions. I think that my aesthetic leans toward the poetic and the lyrical, toward trying to make more "beautiful" life's realities, whether mundane or dramatic. Someone said recently in a podcast, it might have been K-MIng Chang in Write-Minded, that there is danger in the poetic aesthetic, in that you might end up making too beautiful something inherently horrific and traumatic. More specifically, I think my writerly aesthetic can be described as "soothing" in that I want, ultimately, to have a flowing, imagistically and thematically integrated piece of writing.
Your thoughts are so interesting, Marianna. I lean toward the poetic and lyrical as well. But that's because that's what I like to search for (on the page and in life), those moments of beauty that somehow find a place in life's realities (or horrors). So I think a poetic style can exist in the traumatic, the horrific, and just the real because, also, I don't see the poetic as just beutifying, but going deep to find an accurate description (which is poetic in its own way). I'm thinking now of Denis Johnson, who wrote some troubling stories that were also lyrical. I like the idea of writing with a "soothing" aesthetic. Sounds similar to what I'm trying to reach in my reading: gentleness.
Love this, Grant. The whole conversation about aesthetic was very inspiring and enlightening. So glad you had more to say about it!