On awareness and attitude...

 

...in writers and writing


A few years ago, it was my privilege to be introduced to David Helfgott after one of his piano recitals. On that occasion he had different things to say to the various people invited backstage, but his only words to me were: Be aware, be aware, be aware.

This phrase has since assumed almost oracular significance, and has become a kind of personal mantra, one whose possibilities and implications can never be exhausted.
 
Recently, in the course of a long-running cyber-conversation with a poet acquaintance, we discussed at some length what it is we look for in the writing of others and aim for in our own. Although the discussion focused specifically on poetry, which we both write, my ideas about writing embrace other genres as well. This essay is based on my contribution to part of that exchange, and an extended reflection on ideas I was prompted to interrogate and re-examine.

The qualities I look for in writing include honesty and integrity, meaning that the writer has not set out to deceive or mislead the reader by masquerading under false pretences. I should not have to point out that integrity does not impose restrictions on imaginative experience, nor does it preclude risk-taking and audacity, which are vital aspects of creativity. Creative integrity enables a writer to make discerning choices and decisions, to take informed and voluntary risks that do not jeopardise the work's credibility and viability.

If a text lacks energy and vitality, it will languish under its own inertia, and when language is the medium of expression, creative energy must infuse and galvanise that medium, so that language generates communicative impetus to convey the totality of the creator's concept: the sensibility as well as the sense.

If I ventured to use the word 'originality', how would I define it in relation to writing? If there is something about a text (as there usually is) that marks it as distinct from other texts/the texts of others, meaning that the given poem/ story/ essay could not have been written in precisely the same way by any other person (although this can't be proved), the degree of uniqueness or differentiation the text exhibits might be termed originality.

Originality, then, derives from individual differences in perception and the writer's attitude to his/her subject; the mode of expression as reflected in genre and language choices, inflection and intonation: aspects of style broadly defined by the terms voice and point of view. Even more broadly, but also in very specific ways, I would employ the words 'awareness' and 'attitude' in addressing these issues.

Why 'awareness' and 'attitude'? Because increasingly I am convinced of the necessity for awareness to be brought to bear on every aspect of the creative process. As I understand it in the present context, awareness spans the entire range of perception and reception, from the subliminal and the pre-conscious, through hypnogogic states to the highly conscious and articulate. In composing a text, all the various levels and stages of its coming into being must be carefully and skilfully coordinated by the creator, which involves a high degree of awareness of what one is working with, and why, and how.

Creative awareness is the dynamic that mediates between form and content, often so synchronically that we cannot isolate its processes. Moreover I would argue that what is commonly termed 'inspiration' is a form of heightened awareness. Other kinds of awareness come into play at the redrafting, revising and editing stages, and when reading and reviewing the work of others. Somebody once said Awareness is all, and certainly it is difficult to imagine what can be accomplished without it, when creating new works. Which is not to suggest that everything is, or should be, readily explicable.

Texts, verbal artefacts, works of art in any genre, appeal to the reader/viewer/listener on many levels, including the intellectual, the psychological, spiritual, emotional, imaginative and visceral, eliciting responses both physical and metaphysical. The affective qualities of a given work, the ability of a reader or listener to relate to a poem, for instance, are due partly to the skill of the poet in communicating his/her vision, and partly to pre-existing affinities, conditioning and predispositions in the reader or listener.

It is worth noting, however, that cultural conditioning, other languages, even the remoteness of the time and place in which a work was produced, do not necessarily constitute barriers to its reception. I attribute this partly to the degree, kind and quality of the creator's awareness, partly to the corresponding sensibilities in the receiver/reader. It has been demonstrated that art which communicates itself effectively can overcome gaps in the receptors' experience, so that they are able to grasp it intuitively and imaginatively.

So-called chemistry, or alchemy - those elusive yet compelling qualities a work may possess - exert their power over a reader's imagination by teasing at the thresholds of awareness, expanding and challenging the capacity for receptiveness and response, seeming to enter the bloodstream and the personal stream of consciousness. These are the works that one makes one's own, in the sense that they become personal and private, almost incommunicable discoveries.

An aspect of awareness that impacts profoundly on a work is the creator's attitude to his/her material. Whether explicit or implicit, this is something the reader will perhaps be even more aware of than the writer. If the writer lacks awareness and care in modulating this aspect of a text, the result may be confusion or misinterpretation on the part of the reader. There is also interference at different stages from various kinds of cultural and personal baggage the writer and/or reader may be carrying unawares. In the case of the writer, these can cause the work in progress to veer off on an unforeseen trajectory, which may come as a revelation to the vigilant creator, and may in fact be a pathway to new and greater awareness. The creator, however, does need to be capable of recognising this.

Whether he or she is fully aware of it or not, the writer's attitude to his/her material pervades a text, manifesting in voice, but not confined to voice. It is as if the attitude of the creator to his or her material generates a field of force that is metaphysical as well as physical, something akin to an aura or an atmosphere; an energy field that is sensed by the alert reader, who will be attracted, repelled, intrigued - in some way affected by and responsive to it.

Sometimes received attitudes to an author, or other agendas internalised by the reader, can interfere with the reception of a text. Anonymous poetry generated by a community over a long period of time can embody the qualities cited here just as effectively as that by a single, known poet, as I discovered.

In the course of a research project involving Russian poetry, I once had occasion to read a body of folk poetry transcribed from the Russian oral tradition. Traditional poetry is characteristically differentiated into sub-genres according to season, purpose, ritual, gender, and so on. I was fascinated by what struck me as the imaginative power and creative integrity of texts that had been polished by many anonymous minds and mouths (since they were always recited and committed to memory by people without literacy skills). The refinement and variety of verse forms were enhanced by inventiveness of imagery. The freshness of the poetic effects derived on the one hand from an imaginary world peopled with fabulous beings and on the other from the natural world, intimately known and observed by a people with pantheistic beliefs. An inherent cultural awareness and creative integrity were hallmarks of those songs, poems and tales, as they are in other traditions, no doubt including those of Indigenous Australians.

While Russian oral literature reflects a world that has become unfamiliar to most (or from which we have become estranged), the examples I read did not seem dated in style or even form, in that they possessed an undiminished vitality, a capacity to evoke wonder and awaken the senses, inviting the literary traveller into their world. It was also, in a very real sense, "performance" poetry, possessing a range of performative attributes much contemporary poetry has lost.

 I did not need to know who had composed those Russian traditional texts, and in any case the names of the collective singers and storytellers were not recorded. The quality of awareness on many levels and the attitudes of the makers to their material and the world it came from were embodied in the poems.