Unba//anced

this is the 50th anniversary of the publication of allen ginsberg's howl. if you've never read it, you can read the first section here.

for anyone who doesn't know, i'm a huge beat generation fan, although i'm more a fan of kerouac's drunken ramblings (and ferlinghetti's poetry) than ginsberg's peyote-soaked lyricism. one of my projects for my multimedia classes was a beat generation primer, focusing on kerouac, ginsberg and burroughs. i'll have to dig it up and put it online (that and my portfolio for the completion of the multimedia certificate).

the way i write is definitely influenced by their works:

(T)he members of the Beat Generation were new bohemian ecstatic epicureans, who often engaged in a spontaneous creativity. The style of their work may seem chaotic, but the chaos was purposeful; it highlighted the primacy of such Beat Generation essentials as spontaneity, open emotion, visceral engagement in often gritty worldly experiences. The beat writers produced a body of written work controversial both for its advocacy of non-conformity and for its non-conforming style.

I embrace the spontaneity of writing (sometimes the prose-poetry stuff i write is almost like automatic writing and i try not to edit it for fear of ruining it), but there's a strong editor in my head that can get in the way of being truly open - i can edit in my head over and over again before ever place a word on the page. the myth behind kerouac's "on the road" is that he wrote it all in a three week session on a long piece of teletype paper, but in actuality he worked on outlines for it for years in journals. so i'm not alone in obsessing over words and phrases in my head before touching paper.

the writing project is an exercise in releasing my subconscious writing and posting it without editing. and if others add to the experience, i'm hoping it will be them on a more conscious level, therefore making all of us a collective creative virtual mind. ooooooh, scary.

current mood: slightly annoyed
current noise: the chatter going on in my room once again today